David Geffen

I buy my clothes at J.Crew online. I’m a very casual guy.

I’ve always thought that each person invented himself… for whatever reason, through whatever circumstance, through whatever he is gone through… that we are each a figment of our own imagination… And some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

I used to be able to read memo’s upside down… It was like going to the college of the entertainment business.

Most of the artists were trying to make a living, trying to get laid, trying to figure out who they were. They weren’t trying to change the world. That’s what other people put on them. I knew all those people. I knew them all, intimately and well. Bob Dylan. I would say that Bob Dylan is as interested in money as any person I’ve known in my life. That’s just the truth.

There are so many people who are trying to make it in the music business. It’s a very open business, more open I think than any other area of show business.

[On his early day in the music business] I stepped on a lot of toes… at that time.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

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.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

Everything I do in life is framed through the view of a businessman. That’s my instinct. If I go into a pharmacy to buy shaving cream, then I’m going to look for the best deal on shaving cream.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

There should be rivalry between men and between business.

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

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

Owning a great golf course gives you great power.

Listen – it makes you sound smarter.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.