279 Quotes Tagged: business

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices; — on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.

"Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you.

There is no better teacher than history in determining the future... There are answers worth billions of dollars in 30$ history book.

Good brands reflect the histories of the time and the group of people that made them. They can not be copied. They can not be recycled.

We knew well how much these people were paying for cocaine - and that the more coke cost, the more people wanted it. We applied the same market plan to our budding catering operation, along with a similar pricing structure, and business was suddenly very, very, good.

Trying to think of startup ideas doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

There are not more than five primary colors (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

Every telecomm company is as big a corporate welfare bum as you could ask for. Try to imagine what it would cost at market rates to go around to every house in every town in every country and pay for the right to block traffic and dig up roads and erect poles and string wires and pierce every home with cabling. The regulatory fiat that allows these companies to get their networks up and running is worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars.

If phone companies want to operate in the “free market,” then let them: the FCC could give them 60 days to get all their rotten copper out of our dirt, or we’ll buy it from them at the going scrappage rates. Then, let’s hold an auction for the right to be the next big telecomm company, on one condition: in exchange for using the public’s rights-of-way, you have to agree to connect us to the people we want to talk to, and vice-versa, as quickly and efficiently as you can.

Wanna run a killer business? Design it from the start so that it's leverageable, expandable, predictable & financeable - & you're unstoppable.

Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.

"The most powerful productivity tool ever invented is simply the word "No.

If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business — you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic.