QUOTES

Failure's not an option when you come from where I came from.

You don't want to be rigid in your thinking. You want to be open-minded, you want to be flexible, you want to be scientific about it. If new evidence comes along that disproves your theory, then modify your theory.

You never sort of want to go over into the arrogant zone because that's really a dangerous place to be.

Inside the IBM PC, none of the chips were made by IBM. None of the disc drives were made by IBM. The power supply wasn't made by IBM. I was also interested in the economics of it. 'Well, what does this chip cost? What does that chip cost?' And you sort of add it all up, and then you compare it to the price that they're selling the thing for, and you go, 'Wow. They're really charging an incredible markup for this.'

The biggest flip in my hiring was when I went from looking for positives, which is what you do when you're trying to grow talent, to looking for negatives, which is what you do when you're trying to select talent.

I want all A-players around me. I want people whose relationship with me I value so much that if it was terminated, I would be lost.

Nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically.

I'm never satisfied. There's always something wrong. I've got to go on improving it. I'm just driven like that.

How did I distinguish myself from the 20 or 25 other people in the mail room? Everyone showed up at 9:00 for a 9:30 start. Everyone showed up except me. I showed up at 6:30.

I love naivety, people asking silly questions, stupid questions, because it creates a different way of doing things.