Jimmy Buffett on business

If you're an artist, if you want to have control of your life... then you gotta be a businessman, like it or not.  So the businessman part evolved out of being an artist.

~ Jimmy Buffett, 1946-2023

John Templeton on business ethics

If a business is not ethical, it will fail, perhaps not right away but eventually.

~ John Templeton

Andy Grove on business transition

Q: When a company goes through these periods of transition - I've heard you refer to it as going through the "valley of death."  Explain that metaphor. 

Andy Grove: I kinda have this little movie playing in my mind of people riding down one side of a mountain.  They know that there is another mountain out there someplace that they want to get up on top of, but they are stuck in the middle.  Think of a hazy Death Valley where you can't really make out the two sides.  You kind of ride in a particular direction and you start to get concerned about whether you know where you are going.  And in that situation the leader of the group of riders becomes far more important than at other times.  Because people look to him to stick his neck out and decide on a direction - which they have to decide, because if they don't they will start breaking up and debating which way they're gonna go and they will die of thirst.  The demand on this mystical leadership ability to drive toward a relatively ill-defined destination - and the need to instill conviction in the group to keep going - is greatest when you're in the middle of that valley, and you know that you can't go back where you came from, but you can't really see the other side that clearly.

~ Andy Grove, "Andy Grove's Rational Exuberance," Wired, June 1, 2001

Henry Ford on failure

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. 

~ Henry Ford

Andy Grove on business survival

Success breeds complacency.  Complacency breeds failure.  Only the paranoid survive.

~ Andy Grove

Andy Grove on when a company begins to decline

There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance.  Miss that moment - and you start to decline.

~ Andy Grove

Andy Grove on corporate transformation

A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin.  Methods have to change.  Focus has to change.  Values have to change.  The sum total of those changes is transformation.

~ Andy Grove

David Novak on how to treat employees

People leave when they don't feel appreciated.  That's why we've made recognition a really high value.  Our business is people-capability first; then you satisfy consumers; then you make money.

~ David C. Novak, CEO of Yum! Brands

Henry Ellenbogen: "Companies are like biological organisms"

Companies are like biological organisms.  They're either fundamentally healthy or out of balance.  If they're in balance with their employees, customers, shareholders and the greater community they can grow and thrive.  If not, they can seem in sync for a while, but eventually there will be an imbalance.

~ Henry Ellenbogen, Durable Capital Partners

Andy Grove on crisis and business

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, good companies survive them, great companies are improved by them.

~ Andy Grove

Warren Buffett on the connection between business and investing

I am a better investor because I am a businessman and a better businessman because I am an investor.

~ Warren Buffett

Lee Iacocca on business

There's no mystery to satisfying your customers.  Build them a quality product and treat them with respect.  It's that simple.

~ Lee Iacocca

Nassim Taleb on science and business

In science, you need to understand the world; in business, you need others to misunderstand it.

~ Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Xin on diversification

When it comes to business and relationships, I don't buy this idea of diversification. It neglects comparative advantage. The best way to lower risk is to specialize: Put the things you love into one portfolio.

Zhang Xin, co-founder and CEO, Soho China, "'The Best Advice I Ever Got'," Fortune, May 12, 2008

(Zhang, a woman, is one of Beijing's most successful property developers and a product of Western training - Cambridge, Goldman Sachs. Her husband, Pay Shiyi, focuses on sales while she handles construction.)

Frederic Bastiat on the difference between war and business

In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker.  In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker. 

~ Frederic Bastiat