in Business

Lessons From People No Smarter Than You

“Most people fail in science because they talk themselves out of doing the experiment. Ideas are dime a dozen. What makes the difference is the execution.”

CRAIG VENTER

“I arrived in Beijing (1991) – I saw no cars, only bicycles, no tall buildings. The GDP was 4% of what it is today. Nonetheless, we decided to open our first Louis Vuitton store in China.”

BERNAURD ARNAULT

“If I were starting out now, I would look at what the competition is like in various fields – and then consider some that aren’t so popular.”

JULIAN ROBERTSON

“If a digital super-intelligence were inadvertently optimized to do something detrimental to humanity, this could have catastrophic consequences. It could be something like directing the AI to get rid of spam, and it concludes the best way to get rid of spam is to get rid of humans. Or a financial program decides the best way to make money is to increase the value of defense stocks by starting a war. We are the first species capable of self-annihilation, and it’s extremely likely, given enough time.”

ELON MUSK

“Sometimes it pays to be a little crazy early in your career”

FRED SMITH

“Someone once asked Francisco Alcaraz, the genius distiller creating all of our formulas for Patron, “What is the secret? Why is Patron so good? Why do people keep coming back” He says, “The secret’s very easy. It’s called love. We are all treated so well, we love what we’re doing. We never want to leave. We want every bottle to be reflective of us.”

JOHN PAUL DEJORIA

“I use what I call the “mother test”. If your mother calls you and tells you that she is proud of what you are doing, that’s probably a good indication that you are on the road to happiness. My mother used to call much more when I was giving away my money than when I was making it.”

DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN

“Integrity means honesty and willingness to fulfill a promise, even at high cost. Commitment means dedication and loyalty to a task or an organization. Innovation means change.”

MORRIS CHANG

“The four most important words in business are “What do you think?”

J.W. “Bill” MARRIOT JR.