Either as a startup founder or a venture capital investor, you should not care about what others believe to be exciting or overhyped. Do your own primary research and make up your own mind.
— Alfred Lin“Polarisation presents as a spectrum where people go from disagreeing with each other, to disliking each other and eventually to dehumanising each other. We know that the most important thing it takes to prevent dehumanisation is systemic, regular face to face interaction with the people that might otherwise be dehumanised.”— Ngaire Woods
Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University
The quote archive
Business
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
Fundamentally, it's really hard to work on intellectual and complex projects collaboratively. Complexity is underestimated, even by the people who are in the thick of it.
— Stewart ButterfieldCo-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr
I would love to say that we knew all the answers in advance, but the truth is that we discovered our product and opportunity, rather than planning for it.
— Stewart ButterfieldCo-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr
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.
— Stewart ButterfieldCo-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr
Something as small as a affordable ticket can make a huge difference to how someone in the community perceives a club… and ultimately, this perception, this brand is what generates more value and revenue for the club.
— Vincent KompanyManchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend
In football, even though your revenue comes from a source that's linked to your core business, it's not your core business. The core business of any club is simple, to have success on the pitch.
— Vincent KompanyManchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend
As a player, you are your asset. You have to manage and keep your performance- as an athlete- at the highest standard. This is key…. after all, you can't market something that's not working or performing well.
— Vincent KompanyManchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend
In business, you get incredible highs and lows… and it can take a decade of work before you start to see the story, and so having peer networks around you helps you realise other people have been through this.
— Scott FarquharCo-Founder of Atlassian & Technology Entrepreneur
I started my entrepreneurship journey straight out of college, and at the time my goal was simple. I didn't want a real job, and I didn't want to wear a suit…. Anything more than that was a bonus.
— Scott FarquharCo-Founder of Atlassian & Technology Entrepreneur
The 'Silicon Valley' mindset is one where you race ahead and build technology, and if people adopt it and use it, you scale. Success in this mindset is measured in terms of numbers of users, revenue and valuation. How do these measures illustrate social good though?
— Mitchell BakerCEO and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation
Another hugely common mistake is optimising your business for investors, and not customers and employees.
— Rand FishkinFounder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader
If you are able to share the things you're scared people will find out? That's real transparency, and that's how you earn the trust that transparency can bring, but if it doesn't feel uncomfortable, it's just marketing.
— Rand FishkinFounder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader
One of the biggest myths in startup-land is this idea that the pinnacle of startups is building a venture-scale company, backed by venture capital, growing exceptionally fast and being OK with high failure rates as a result; in other words, returning a significant amount of capital to an investor rather than any other outcome.
— Rand FishkinFounder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader
In a geopolitical recession, suddenly the biggest macro risks are by their nature political. And you focus less on growth and more on stability and resilience, and that's a problem because the free market model tells you 'don't focus on resilience and stability, focus first and foremost on growth and everything else will take care of itself'.
— Ian BremmerFounder of Eurasia Group & Political Risk Analyst
Much of the pushback against science is related to a distrust of the establishment and of multinational corporations and their profit motive. It's easy to spread fear; as humans we're very tuned and sensitive to it.
— Venki RamakrishnanNobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies
Criminals are not looking for challenges, but opportunities. Every breach I've been involved with comes down to the fact that someone in the company did something they weren't supposed to or failed to do something they should have done.
— Frank AbagnaleNotorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can