Getting permanent value out of a job means purpose and fitting means to ends.
It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.
Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.
I live on a plane. I like to visit London. If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice, and second would be New York. In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.
Should I give up my career at this point in my life and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket?
While several parties have expressed interest in buying the company, I’m not shopping it, I haven’t sold it and I’m not about to sell it.
America is not a land of money but of wealth-not a land of rich people, but of successful workers.
If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.
[In 1990 on the president of MCA calling and saying ‘We’re going to make you the biggest offer this company has ever made, and I’m going to send it to you by messenger right now.’] It’s 1990. Send me a fax.
Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about ‘hard work’ without having a corresponding result to show for it.
I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.
About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
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.
Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.
I have a great, great company. I employ thousands of people. And I’m very proud of the job I did.
The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
I started the site when I was 19. I didn’t know much about business back then.
There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.
No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.
