Great Company Quotes

• The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble...We want to buy them when they're on the operating table.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Investing Money, Tables

  "Homespun Wisdom from the 'Oracle of Omaha' Businessweek". July 5, 1999.

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• Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It's not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious-but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.

  James C. Collins

  Ambition, Self, Goal

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• A great company in the media business needs visionary leaders, not a conglomerate structure headquartered in Columbus Circle that second guesses.

  Carl Icahn

  Leadership, Greatness, Media

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• People are definitely a company's greatest asset. It doesn't make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

  Mary Kay Ash

  Inspirational, Teamwork, Business

  Mary Kay Ash (1995). “Mary Kay, You Can Have it All: Lifetime Wisdom from America's Foremost Woman Entrepreneur”, Prima Lifestyles

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• Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.

  James C. Collins

  Business, Technology, People

  "Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t". Book by James C. Collins, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 16, 2001.

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• Great companies make meaning. A company has a name, but its people give it meaning.

  Richard Pascale

  Names, People, Giving

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• A good company delivers excellent products and services, and a great company does all that and strives to make the world a better place.

  Bill Ford

  Inspiring, Doe, World

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• The characteristic of great innovators and great companies is they see a space that others do not. They don't just listen to what people tell them; they actually invent something new, something that you didn't know you needed, but the moment you see it, you say, 'I must have it.'

  Eric Schmidt

  Space, People, Moments

  "What does a networked future look like?". The Yale Insights Interview, insights.som.yale.edu. May 15, 2013.

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• A tremendous chief executive in a small market will never be great. All great companies start with great markets.

  Douglas Leone

  Chief Executives, Chiefs, Company

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• Great companies create an environment in which employees act like owners. They do this through clear communication, articulation of clear vision and priorities, coaching and openness to debate/discussion. I would argue that this type of environment helps people to be at their best - and helps the company to be at its best.

  Robert S. Kaplan

  Communication, People, Priorities

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• The word 'ego' is very important. The ego is an important element of being human, and of being creative. We need that ego in order to give us a confidence of doing what we're doing. Ego pushes us into the creative world in order to create for something more. I think that a great company of actors, they all have egos, very strong egos, but they're all prepared to share together in order to achieve something even better than that.

  George Ogilvie

  Strong, Thinking, Order

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• The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.

  Peter Thiel

  Entrepreneur, Secret, World

  Peter Thiel, Blake Masters (2014). “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”, p.83, Crown Business

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• Great companies connect to the heartstrings of their employees to make their purposes known.

  Don Yaeger

  Heart, Purpose, Employee

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.

  Sam Altman

  Two, Innovation, Three

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• It's like athletes: To be a great company you need great competitors...It's what keeps you alive and keeps you honest.

  Craig R. Barrett

  Athlete, Needs, Alive

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• As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.

  Sam Altman

  Jobs, Size, Building

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• I consistently run into young adults who have quickly turned away from traditional jobs at great companies to try their hand at a start-up. I believe that some of this stems from the desire to strike it big like Mark Zuckerberg, but I also believe it is because starting a company has become far cooler than working in one.

  Maynard Webb

  Running, Jobs, Believe

  "There’s Something Happening Here: Entrepreneurship and the Decline of Corporate Appeal" by Maynard Webb, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 16, 2011.

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• Great companies are defined by their discipline and their understanding of who they are and who they are not.

  Howard Schultz

  Discipline, Understanding, Defined

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• Good-to-great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding; comparison companies set their goals and strategies based on bravado.

  James C. Collins

  Goal, Understanding, Good To Great

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• One of the factors that make great companies so great is that they have processes that allow them to solve difficult problems again and again. These processes have developed over time as teams have successfully wrestled with a certain type of challenge. Eventually, people begin to say, "This is just how we do something around here." The problem develops when that team then has to solve a very different set of challenges. The processes that are such strengths can be crushing liabilities.

  Clayton Christensen

  Crush, Team, People

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.

  Howard Schultz

  Long, Leader, Problem

  Howard Schultz, Dori Jones Yang (1997). “Pour your heart into it: how Starbucks built a company one cup at a time”

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• Good companies will meet needs; great companies will create markets.

  Philip Kotler

  Needs, Good Company, Company

  "The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made". Book by Stuart Crainer, 2002.

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• All the old great companies were run by guys who knew what an animator meant, and guys who knew how to draw. All the companies today are run by executives.

  Ralph Bakshi

  Running, Ghouls, Guy

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• I chase a little white ball around and work on my farmer tan, that's about it. I think that I've been lucky enough to represent some great companies, and I think maybe that's what it is.

  Tiger Woods

  Thinking, White, Lucky

  Interview with Jon Robinson, www.ign.com. October 13, 2006.

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• Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength.

  Ryan Holiday

  Weakness, Way, Individual

  Ryan Holiday (2014). “The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph”, p.10, Penguin

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