Business

Customer orientation

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. Samuel M. "Sam" Walton - American entrepreneur, founder of Walmart (1918-1992), quotations book 2004

Responsibility

It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute. C. William Pollard - American entrepreneur, investor and author (b. 1938)

Increase assets

The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily. Morgan E. Housel – American investor and writer, partner at "Collaborative Fund" (b. 1983), from "The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness" (2020), Quotations book 2023

Behavior more important than knowledge

Financial success is not a hard science. It's a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know. Morgan E. Housel – American investor and writer, partner at "Collaborative Fund" (b. 1983), from "The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness" (2020), Quotations book 2023

Customer love

Times of adversity and customer screw-ups may be the only times when you can really show your customers how much you love them. Malcolm B. Decker - American copy writer (for "Wall Street Journal" and others) and company founder (1927-2015), Quotations book 2023

Great companies

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck. Guy Kawasaki - American company founder, venture capitalist, author and marketing evangelist (b. 1954), Quotations book 2023

Endurance

Any superiority an investment process may have will only emerge with time, so patience is important. Nick Sleep - British investor and co-founder of Sleep, Zakaria and Company and the IGY Foundation (b. 1968)

Wait

The single most important skill for being a good investor is to be very content with not doing anything for extended periods, and that’s perfectly fine. Mohnish Pabrai – Indian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist (b. 1964)

Competition as a guide

It is one of the chief tasks of competition to show which plans are false. Friedrich August von Hayek - Austrian economist and social philosopher, Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences 1974 (1899-1992), from "Law, legislation and liberty: a new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy" (1973), Quotations book 2022

Entrepreneurs

The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on. following Joseph Alois Schumpeter -...

Go to the customer

If I don"t go to the customer, my competitor was already there. maxime for successful entrepreneurs - Quotations book 2022

Small and big

The business of business is a lot of little decisions every day mixed up with a few big decisions. Thomas S. "Tom" Murphy Sr. - American broadcast executive, former chair and CEO of Capital Cities Broadcasting/ABC Inc. (1925-2022), Quotations book 2022

Crisis

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, good companies survive them, great companies are improved by them. Andrew Stephen "Andy" Grove - born András István Gróf, Hungarian-born American businessman, co-founder of Intel (1936-2016), in December 1994, quoted in "Creating the Digital Future: The Secrets of Consistent Innovation at Intel" (1998), Quotations book 2022

Late surprises

As in the case with marriage, business acquisitions often deliver surprise after the "I do’s". Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (2016), Quotations book 2022

Two options

The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution. Ludwig von Mises - Austrian economist (1881-1973), from "Planned Chaos" (1947)

Master-economist

The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. […] He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. John Maynard Keynes – British economist and investor (1883-1946), from his...

Worth

It"s almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO... but the species is rare. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930)

Needle or haystack

People always look for the needle in the haystack. Why not buy the haystack? Fayez Sarofim – Egyptian-born American investor (1929-2022), from the interview "A Lion in Winter" by Andrew Bary ("Barron’s", December 28th, 2013)

Capital allocation

Capital allocation is the CEO"s most important job. William N. Thorndike, Jr. – American writer (*1963), from "The Outsiders - Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success" (2012), Quotations book 2021

Complete, do nots top

Entrepreneurs don’t finish when we are tired. We finish when we are done. Robert T. Kiyosaki – American businessman and author (b. 1947), in a facebook message (March 19th, 2013), Quotations book 2021