Quotes about company
page 5

Karl Denninger photo
John C. Dvorak photo

“Apple mentions the Mac less and less at its big events. The company knows that the machine is a drain on resources that detracts from its new core business … Mac will be phased out and the whole line will be replaced by iPads.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

Apple Is Ready to Ditch the Mac http://pcmag.com/commentary/357782/apple-is-ready-to-ditch-the-mac in PC Magazine (7 December 2017)
2010s

Warren Buffett photo
Verghese Kurien photo

“What you need is good management with farmer power. Good management gives this power the right direction and thrust. Nothing can stop the farmers then. Least of all the Multi national Companies|MNCs]].”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

John C. Dvorak photo

“I consider this situation to be dire for Apple. When the iPhone 5 arrives shortly, it will be crunch time for the company. … It may be the last important iPhone.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

Why Apple Actually Lost to Samsung http://pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409010,00.asp in PC Magazine (28 August 2012)
2010s

Peter D. Schiff photo
Anne Brontë photo

“Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves.”

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXIII : Two Evenings; Helen to Walter

Philip Kotler photo

“Companies pay too much attention to the cost of doing something. They should worry more about the cost of not doing it.”

Philip Kotler (1931) American marketing author, consultant and professor

Source: Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know, 2011, p. 127; Quote in the context of new product development.

Warren Buffett photo

“Diverting attention from the way in which certain beliefs, desires, attitudes, or values are the result of particular power relations, then, can be a sophisticated way of contributing to the maintenance of an ideology, and one that will be relatively immune to normal forms of empirical refutation. If I claim (falsely) that all human societies, or all human societies at a certain level of economic development, have a free market in health services, that is a claim that can be demonstrated to be false. On the other hand, if I focus your attention in a very intense way on the various different tariffs and pricing schema that doctors or hospitals or drug companies impose for their products and services, and if I become morally outraged by “excessive” costs some drug companies charge, discussing at great length the relative rates of profit in different sectors of the economy, and pressing the moral claims of patients, it is not at all obvious that anything I say may be straightforwardly “false”; after all, who knows what “excessive” means? However, by proceeding in this way I might well focus your attention on narrow issues of “just” pricing, turning it away from more pressing issues about the acceptance in some societies of the very existence of a free market for drugs and medical services. One can even argue that the more outraged I become about the excessive price, the more I obscure the underlying issue. One way, then, in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.”

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 54.

Dorothy Thompson photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Jimmy Wales photo

“Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

Wikimedia donation page https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage&country=US&uselang=en&utm_medium=spontaneous&utm_source=fr-redir&utm_campaign=spontaneous&rdfrom=%2F%2Fwikimediafoundation.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DFundraising%26redirect%3Dno.

Morrissey photo
Peter Medawar photo
Richard Stallman photo
Patrick Dixon photo
Johann Georg Hamann photo

“Let us assume that we invited an unknown person to a game of cards. If this person answered us, “I don’t play,” we would either interpret this to mean that he did not understand the game, or that he had an aversion to it which arose from economic, ethical, or other reasons. Let us imagine, however, that an honorable man, who was known to possess every possible skill in the game, and who was well versed in its rules and its forbidden tricks, but who could like a game and participate in it only when it was an innocent pastime, were invited into a company of clever swindlers, who were known as good players and to whom he was equal on both scores, to join them in a game. If he said, “I do not play,” we would have to join him in looking the people with whom he was talking straight in the face, and would be able to supplement his words as follows: “I don’t play, that is, with people such as you, who break the rules of the game, and rob it of its pleasure. If you offer to play a game, our mutual agreement, then, is that we recognize the capriciousness of chance as our master; and you call the science of your nimble fingers chance, and I must accept it as such, it I will, or run the risk of insulting you or choose the shame of imitating you.” … The opinion of Socrates can be summarized in these blunt words, when he said to the Sophists, the leaned men of his time, “I know nothing.””

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Therefore these words were a thorn in their eyes and a scourge on their backs.
Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), pp. 165-167.

Tim Cook photo
Hermann Rauschning photo
Mary Meeker photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo

“damn gentlemen, there is not such a set of enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper distance.... They think (and so may you for a while) that they reward your merit by their Company and notice.... if they don't stand clear, know that they have but one part worth looking at, and that is their Purse; their Hearts are seldom near enough the right place to get a sight of it..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 2 Sept 1767; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 380 (Appendix A - Letter II)
1755 - 1769

Herbert Spencer photo
Caspar David Friedrich photo

“You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote from: Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape; Joseph Koerner, p. 66; as cited in the article 'Caspar David Friedrich's Medieval Burials', Karl Whittington - http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring12/whittington-on-caspar-david-friedrichs-medieval-burials
undated

Dennis M. Ritchie photo
Simon Phipps photo
A. Wayne Wymore photo
David Graeber photo

“A legitimate enterprise had to have some moral basis, and the only morality the company knew was debt.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, "Age of the Great Capitalist Empires", p. 350

Andy Kessler photo

“Stocks are a voting mechanism, pure and simple. They are a collective vote of expectations of each company's future fundamentals.”

Andy Kessler (1958) American writer

Part V, The Next Barrier, Do Stocks Talk?, p. 181.
Running Money (2004) First Edition

Théodore Rousseau photo
Michelle Obama photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Eliot Spitzer photo

“One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition.”

Eliot Spitzer (1959) 54th Governor of New York

[William D. Cohan, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-01/how-wall-street-scams-counties-into-bankruptcy.html, How Wall Street Scams Counties into Bankruptcy, Bloomberg L.P., July 1, 2012, 2012-10-15]

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries photo
David Cameron photo
Don Tapscott photo
W. Edwards Deming photo
Marc Benioff photo

“He was certainly one of that company who tried to raise descriptions of matches from mere reporting to literature.”

Dudley Carew (1903–1981) English journalist, writer, poet and film critic

Obituary in The Times, quoted in Obituary, Wisden http://www.cricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/228582.html
About

Kenneth Grahame photo
Charles Erwin Wilson photo

“For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the nation is considerable.”

Charles Erwin Wilson (1890–1961) American secretary of Defence

Charles E. Wilson (1952) in: Confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, responding to Sen. Robert Hendrickson's question regarding conflicts of interest. Quoted in Safire's Political Dictionary (1978) by William Safire.

Indra Nooyi photo
Rob Enderle photo

“[Steve Jobs] is not somebody [who] any one of us would want watching our kids, but, in terms of running the company, he's excellent.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

The rock star of Corporate America http://marketwatch.com/story/apples-jobs-rock-star-of-corporate-america-2010-12-08 in MarketWatch (7 December 2010)

“Industrial age companies created sharp distinctions between two groups of employees. The intellectual elite—managers and engineers—used their analytical skills to design products and processes, select and manage customers, and supervise day-to-day operations. The second group was composed of the people who actually produced the products and delivered the services. This direct labor work force was a principal factor of production for industrial age companies, but used only their physical capabilities, not their minds. They performed tasks and processes under direct supervision of white-collar engineers and managers. At the end of the twentieth century, automation and productivity have reduced the percentage of people in the organization who perform traditional work functions, while competitive demands have increased the number of people performing analytic functions: engineering, marketing, management, and administration. Even individuals still involved in direct production and service delivery are valued for their suggestions on how to improve quality, reduce costs, and decrease cycle times…
Now all employees must contribute value by what they know and by the information they can provide. Investing in, managing, and exploiting the knowledge of every employee have become critical to the success of information age companies”

David P. Norton (1941) American business theorist, business executive and management consultant

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 5-6

William Dalrymple photo
Steve Keen photo

“If investors disagree about future prospects of companies, then inevitably the future is not going to turn out as most — or perhaps even any — investors expect.”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 10, The Price Is Not Right, p. 235 (See also: Andy Kessler)

Bernard Mandeville photo
Akio Morita photo

“…the differences between U. S. and Japanese companies go beyond the cultural.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 179.

Glen Cook photo

“Life with me and the Company has not been anything like happily ever after. Reality has a way of slow-roasting romance.”

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 383)

Linus Torvalds photo
Izaak Walton photo

“Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.”

Part I, ch. 2.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

John Gay photo
John Bright photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Sinclair Lewis photo

“Whether you are big or small, or face a high or low potential for crisis, a day devoted to discussing company business is never wasted.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 23

Clay Shirky photo
Ambrose Bierce photo

“Alone, adj. In bad company.”

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Utah Phillips photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Jeremy Taylor photo

“He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions.”

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) English clergyman

Holy Living (1650), ch. 1, section 1

Cesare Borgia photo
James C. Collins photo
Richard Stallman photo
Andy Kessler photo

“You invest in companies with great long-term prospects.”

Andy Kessler (1958) American writer

Part I, Raising Funds, H & Screw Conference, p. 21.
Running Money (2004) First Edition

Louis Tronson photo

“Have we fled the company of worldly persons, whom the saints, especially the Ecclesiastics, advise us to avoid like the plague, whom one should see only by necessity, and from whom we should separate ourselves as vigilantly as we can?”

Louis Tronson (1622–1700) French Roman Catholic priest

Avons-nous fui la compagnie des personnes mondaines, que les Saints conseillent, surtout aux Ecclésiastiques, d'éviter, comme des pestiférés, que l'on ne voit que par nécessité , et dont on se sépare le plutôt que l'on peut?
Examens particuliers sur divers sujets, p. 322 http://books.google.com/books?id=esY9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA322
Examens particuliers sur divers sujets [Examination of Conscience upon Special Subjects] (1690)

Lee Iacocca photo
Glenn Beck photo

“If I'm not mistaken, in the early days of Adolf Hitler, they were very happy to line up for help there as well. I mean, the companies were like, "Hey, wait a minute. We can get, you know, we can get out of trouble here. They can help, et cetera, et cetera."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-04-01
After stating, "I am not saying that Barack Obama is a fascist," Beck compares auto bailout to actions of German companies "in the early days of Adolf Hitler"
2009-04-01
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200904010036
on bailouts of General Motors, American International Group, and CitiGroup
2000s, 2009

Satoru Iwata photo

“Talking about the definition of the niche, or niche market, I really have the completely opposite opinion. The people the other companies are targeting are very limited to those who are high-tech oriented, and core game players. They cannot expand beyond that population. We are trying to capture the widest possible audience all around the world. In other words, we are trying to capture the people who are even beyond the gaming population. So for that kind of company, we don't think the term 'niche' is appropriate.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Q&A: Video-game industry maverick promises a Revolution, 2007-03-03, Bishop, Todd, 2005-05-20, Seattle Post-Intelligencer http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/225097_e3iwata20.html,
In response to Bill Gates' labeling Nintendo as a "niche player" in the seventh generation console wars

Andrew Tobias photo

“What kind of bank gives back 65 percent-often less-of what you deposit? Indeed, when you compare the services of a bank and an insurance company, common sense suggests something is out of whack.”

Andrew Tobias (1947) American journalist

Source: The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know (1982), Chapter 1, The Biggest Game In The World, p. 15.

Adolph Freiherr Knigge photo

“Learn to take on the tone of whatever company you find yourself in.”

Lerne den Ton der Gesellschaft anzunehmen, in der du dich befindest.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)

Thomas Brooks photo
Maithripala Sirisena photo
Ben Horowitz photo

“It helps to have founded and run a company if you're going to help somebody run a company who is a founder.”

Ben Horowitz (1966) American businessman

Ben Horowitz in: Ben Parr, " VC Ben Horowitz Says Founders Make Best Startup CEOs http://mashable.com/2011/10/18/ben-horowitz-web-2/," at mashable.com, 2011/10/18

“There are many people in the industry that know nothing about games. In particular, a large American company is trying to do engulf software houses with money, but I don't believe that will go well. It looks like they'll sell their game system next year, but we'll see the answer to that the following year.”

Hiroshi Yamauchi (1927–2013) Japanese businessman

In reference to Microsoft, prior to the release of the Xbox "Top 10 Tuesday: Wildest Statements Made by Industry Veterans" ign.com http://www.ign.com/articles/2006/03/14/top-10-tuesday-wildest-statements-made-by-industry-veterans

Samuel Johnson photo

“I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.”

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 26

Dylan Moran photo
John C. Dvorak photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Steve Huffman photo

“Hate speech is difficult to define. There's a reason why it's not really done. additionally, we are not the thought police. It's not the role of a private company to decide what people can and cannot say.”

Steve Huffman (1983) American businessman

As quoted in Conde Nast Sibling Reddit Says Banning Hate Speech Is Just Too Hard https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-ban-hate-speech-hard_us_5b437fa9e4b07aea75429355 (9 July 2018) by Ashley Feinberg, HuffPost.

Jonathan Swift photo

“And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid…”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation (1709)

Christopher Hitchens photo
Ted Nelson photo
Paul Graham photo

“Consulting is where product companies go to die.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"How to Fund a Startup" http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html, November 2005

Richard Rumelt photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo