Nick Candy

Sometimes our idea of luxuries are our client’s ideas of necessities. You might think having a helicopter pad in the back garden, 20 housekeepers and two tennis coaches is over the top. But for them it’s like you buying a sandwich.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

In New York and Los Angeles, you can throw your car keys to the valet and he parks it. Same in Hong Kong and Singapore, the service is off the scale. In London it’s sub-standard to abysmal.

London has got better as it’s become more international – you only have to look at the quality of the restaurants to see how improved it’s become.

We’’ve designed swimming pools that turn into ballrooms, and fitted security devices that fill a garage with gas if someone is stealing your car.

Chris and I came from nothing. We’re selfmade. We started with nothing, so we have nothing to lose. And we have everything to gain.

There is a time and place for all things to be successful. There is fate and destiny and opportunity, and you need all three things in line at the same time.

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

Getting permanent value out of a job means purpose and fitting means to ends.

The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things.

Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.

A store’s best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.

My friends are people who like building cool stuff. We always have this joke about people who want to just start companies without making something valuable. There’s a lot of that in Silicon Valley.

We wish all users of Ford cars to know what they are entitled to.

When you are in real estate, you are going to make some mistakes.

As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for.

Once you have a product that you are happy with, you the need to centralize things to continue growth.

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.