From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The most challenging phase for any entrepreneur is when the business hits the $1-2 million mark. At this point, your business is too large to be small, yet too small to be big. You find yourself in need of a CFO or someone with a deep understanding of your business, but you can't afford either.
For businesses to survive, let alone brands, you need a secure and stable base. You need secure economic and social conditions to reduce risk.
This isn't a passing fad. Something fundamental is going on here.
Our model is very much investing in media cash-flows. We don't take positions in quoted media stocks, as that introduces too much exposure to volatile equity markets- and media tends to get hammered more than other sectors when the markets have any degree of turbulence in them.
I've done a few very-right things in my life that I'm proud of, and one of them was getting to know Joey and bringing him into the business. Joey was a gift, and we knew we shouldn't miss out on him.
Our mate choices are the ultimate form of consumer choice. I can pretty much fit most of our purposeful behaviours under the umbrella of consumption.
The end of an X-Prize is the beginning of a new market, or a new market opportunity. We are nothing more than a distinct channel to that market.
I think the people who are larger or those who have more resources like to think they're the ones who have greater power… and they have benefited from that illusion.
Excellence means you do the absolute best you can in every situation that you face. It's an aesthetic concept, a performance concept, and helps you create the most perfect balance for success.
Sleep became not just devalued but actively scorned. After all, every hour spent sleeping was another hour spent not working—therefore another wasted hour.
We need a change from managers to leaders. We need people who can understand the political and moral structure of their companies, and who can motivate and bring people to go in the direction of those values. That's true leadership.
The diversity of strategies people use is truly remarkable, I saw people using completely different strategies to the degree that if I had set out to invent 15 different strategies for a fictional work…. I couldn't have made the strategies more different to the ones I saw in real life! This illustrates a point I have made in all my works insofar as there really is no 'holy grail' or single style that is most effective.