Business Quotes

'Brand,' is what journalists and industry-people say… we say culture movement. As artists we say culture! Movement! And analysts say brand. I don't know what a brand is, but I know what a freakin' movement is….

What I like the most and essentially is never done is to start off a negotiation by talking about how you'll negotiate, what's the process going to be? And to say things like 'my goal in this negotiation is to reach an agreement with you in which we create a giant pie and split it evenly.'

I think there is huge volatility in short-term investing. If we keep a long-term perspective in mind, we will go through the good cycles and the bad cycles and reach the other side. Short-term vision does not allow one to build better businesses and create value.

If you have a national or multinational brand, your customers are as diverse as the human population. If you're smart, you realise that you need people in your business who can relate to all those different kinds of people. This is actually one of the smartest supports for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

At the time of the last great recession, something changed. It was a significant failure of the markets, and really did cause people to question market economics. It was the beginning of a time when everybody felt the need to put a modifier in front of the word 'capitalism,' it was clear the incumbent version wasn't working as well as it could.

We don't fail because we make mistakes; mistakes can be fixed. We fail because we quit. And we quit because belief collapsed, not because the strategy was wrong.

Each time we get a bit of momentum in the economy, each time our exporters make up for the fact that domestic demand is flat.... we get knocked back by the Euro Zone.

Scaling any business is about creating a model, debugging the model, making sure you understand the ingredients that need to be scaled up, and making sure you have a process to scale. All of this needs to be wrapped-up in a financial model that allows the scale to be funded.

Leaders cannot delegate social mission to 'somewhere else' in the business. There's pressure coming from the digital world, from shareholders, investors, workforce and government. Leaders can no longer afford for social mission to be done on the side; it has to be built into the core model.

This is a really exciting time for human space exploration, we have a lot to be hopeful about – and we have a whole bunch of private companies who have very credible strategies and vehicles. Like in so many other industries, the government has played a key role in kickstarting things – but to realise the full potential of this industry we'll need private industry to get involved seriously.

I often pose a critical question to businesses: if the economy began transitioning towards sustainability, would this be a boon or a bane for your business? If it's perceived as a threat, your paramount priority should be to modify your business model until this transition becomes an opportunity.

That's what entrepreneurship is all about–experimenting and finding a way of achieving some goal in the context of business. It's something I've always found fascinating.