Nick Candy

Our aim is to compete with any luxury brand. Candy & Candy will be a luxury brand, recognised in Rodeo Drive, New York, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and London. Those are the major centres in the world. It will be synonymous with the design of homes, houses, flats, yachts, aircraft and retail.

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

We decided not to show One Hyde Park til we were 100% ready. A lot of people open the doors too early.

We’ve created a recognisable brand that has the ability to be the Louis Vuitton of our era.

On Beverly Hills we paid too much. One hundred per cent, we did over-pay. We didn’t do our research properly.

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.

From the start I had my own ideas about how the business should run. I wanted it to benefit everybody who contributed to its success-stockholders, labor and the American public.

I never insisted that I was a good student.

A low wage business is always insecure.

While I love technology and social media, a text or a tweet can never replace the real value of conversation.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing and by falling over.

The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.

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

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

Entrepreneurs are always taking feedback, especially from their customers, bankers, workers, and sales force. Without straightforward feedback, entrepreneurs cannot make sound decisions.

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.

There are good examples of companies – Coca-Cola is one – that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come.

I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also burnish their image.