Great Company Quotes:

We're enamored with the concept that there's always a price. But sometimes, your goal is to build a great company, not sell it.

- Aaron Levie

topic: Goal, Sometimes, Great Company, Enamored

Being a great company is the new brand.

- Alex Bogusky

topic: Great Company, Company, Brands

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, Good companies survive them, Great companies are improved by them.

- Andy Grove

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

topic: Good Company, Crisis, Great Company, Bad Company

Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.

- Ben Horowitz

topic: Investment, Stage, Great Company, Valuation

Great companies are built on great products.

- Elon Musk

topic: Great Company, Company

Great companies don't throw money at problems, they throw ideas at problems.

- Greg McAdoo

topic: Ideas, Problem, Great Company

Great companies don't just have one founding moment. They have many founding moments.

- Jack Dorsey

topic: Moments, Great Company, Company

I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.

- Jack Ma

topic: Thinking, Assets, Great Company

A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.

- James C. Collins

topic: Business, Opportunity, Great Company

We're building a great company, and we're very excited about the future of the company.

- James L. Barksdale

topic: Excited, Building, Great Company

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

- Douglas Leone

topic: Chief Executives, Chiefs, Great Company

Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.

- Charlie Munger

topic: Investing, Ass, Great Company

Truly great companies are built on ideals, not just deals.

- Alan Watts

topic: Accountability, Great Company, Deals

The great companies get built by their founders

- Marc Andreessen

topic: Founders, Great Company, Company

The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line.

- John Steinbeck

source: John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.228, Hamilton Books

topic: Lines, Hunger, Great Company

The root of great companies is make meaning vs. make money.

- Guy Kawasaki

topic: Roots, Making Money, Great Company

I am confident that partnering my Dollywood Company with a great company like Gaylord will create something truly special.

- Dolly Parton

topic: Special, Great Company, Company, Partnering

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

- Howard Schultz

topic: Discipline, Understanding, Great Company

Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.

- James C. Collins

topic: Tension, Great Company, Continuity

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

topic: Business, Tables, Want, Great Company, Investing Money

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

topic: Ambition, Self, Goal, Great Company, Good To Great

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

- Carl Icahn

topic: Media, Circles, Leader, Great Company, Visionary Leaders

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

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

topic: Technology, People, Competition, Great Company, Throttle

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

topic: Inspirational, Teamwork, Business, Great Company, Daily Business

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

- Richard Pascale

topic: Names, Giving, People, Great Company

In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

- James C. Collins

topic: Organization, Ironic, Twists, Great Company, Good Organization

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck.

- Guy Kawasaki

topic: Inspirational, Entrepreneur, Want, Great Company, Disruptive

Great companies that build an enduring brand have an emotional relationship with customers that has no barrier. And that emotional relationship is on the most important characteristic, which is trust.

- Howard Schultz

source: "Piers Morgan Tonight", edition.cnn.com. August 17, 2011.

topic: Emotional, Important, Characteristics, Great Company, Emotional Relationship

In determing "the right people," the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience.

- James C. Collins

topic: Educational, Character, Skills, Great Company, Educational Background

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

topic: Inspiring, World, Doe, Great Company

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

source: Source: bobmorris.biz

topic: Communication, People, Priorities, Great Company

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

topic: Athlete, Needs, Alive, Great Company

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

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

topic: Entrepreneur, Secret, World, Great Company, Conspirators

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

- Don Yaeger

source: Source: bobmorris.biz

topic: Heart, Purpose, Employee, Great Company

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

topic: Two, Innovation, Three, Great Company, Best Company

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

topic: Long, Leader, Problem, Great Company

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

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

topic: Space, People, Moments, Great Company, Innovators

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

topic: Way, Weakness, Good Company, Great Company, Bad Company

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

topic: Strong, Thinking, Order, Great Company

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

topic: Jobs, Size, Building, Great Company

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

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

topic: Running, Jobs, Believe, Great Company

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

topic: Goal, Understanding, Good To Great, Great Company, Bravado

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

source: Source: bobmorris.biz

topic: Crush, Team, People, Great Company, Liability

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

- Philip Kotler

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

topic: Needs, Good Company, Company, Great Company

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

topic: Running, Guy, Today, Great Company, Animator

One of the great strengths of American culture is this empowerment of individual, is the individual being able to be entrepreneurial, create new things. But you create a whole group of people to make great companies. It's employees and investors and customers and partners. The fabric of society, of a network of relations, is key to being successful.

- Reid Hoffman

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Successful, People, Empowerment, Great Company

Some representatives of monopolistic capitalism, sensing this evil in their system, have tried to silence criticism by pointing to the diffused ownership in the great corporations. They advertise, "No one owns more than 4 percent of the stock of this great company." Or they print lists of stockholders, showing that these include farmers, schoolteachers, baseball players, taxi drivers, and even babies.

- Fulton J. Sheen

topic: Baseball, Baby, Player, Pointing, Great Company

The Chinese are not stupid people. They're very smart people. They told me very, very distinctly that they cannot believe how stupid our representatives are in the United States. They cannot believe that they can continue to take all our jobs - you know, through the manipulation of the currency, of their currency, they make it almost impossible for our great companies to compete.

- Donald Trump

source: Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

topic: Jobs, Smart, Stupid, Great Company, Not Stupid

Forget luxury; as a great company you have to keep evolving.

- Angela Ahrendts

source: Source: wwd.com

topic: Luxury, Forget, Evolve, Great Company

You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training. There's no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Great law firms or design companies don't spring up overnight... Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little.

- Seth Godin

topic: Motivational, Spring, Winning, Great Company, Law Firms

As president, I could run the Trump organization, great, great company, and I could run the company - the country. I'd do a very good job, but I don't want to do that.

- Donald Trump

source: "Watch: Trump Press Conference at Trump Tower", www.breitbart.com. January 11, 2017.

topic: Country, Running, Jobs, Great Company

This is our moment of reckoning as a society and as a civilization itself. I didn't need to do this [run for presidency], folks, believe me — believe me. I built a great company and I had a wonderful life. I could have enjoyed the fruits and benefits of years of successful business deals and businesses for myself and my family. Instead of going through this absolute horror show of lies, deceptions, malicious attacks — who would have thought? I'm doing it because this country has given me so much, and I feel so strongly that it's my turn to give back to the country that I love.

- Donald Trump

source: Donald Trump's Speech Responding To Assault Accusations, www.npr.org. October 13, 2016.

topic: Running, Country, Lying, Great Company, Business Deals

The top 25 at every company really set the tone. Everyone watches them. They need to be present and focused. No slackers at the top. They need to meet in combination every recruit. They need to meet them on the first day. They need to teach by example. This is the lesson that great companies teach.

- Michael J. Silverstein

topic: Example, Watches, Needs, Great Company, Slacker

All great companies have spirit and culture. Mean spirited returns mean spirit.

- Michael J. Silverstein

topic: Mean, Culture, Return, Great Company, Mean Spirited

I built a net worth of more than $10 billion. I have a great, great company. I employ thousands of people. And I'm very proud of the job I did.

- Donald Trump

source: Source: www.cbsnews.com

topic: Jobs, People, Proud, Great Company, Net Worth

I just spent a lot of time on 'ER' for that eight years. I also started working when I was 16, so by the time I left 'ER,' I was 40 years old, I had this incredible experience, my wife had this great company, we had four kids, it was like, 'Let's go to New York and live for a while and make that the priority.'

- Anthony Edwards

topic: New York, Kids, Eight, Great Company

A market downturn, doesn't bother us. For us and our long term investors, it is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices. Only for short term investors and market timers is a correction not an opportunity.

- Warren Buffett

topic: Opportunity, Long, Management, Great Company, Timer

Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.

- Jonathan Swift

topic: Believe, Character, Pride, Great Company

I couldn't have built the great companies I've built if I didn't have a strong temperament. And she's got a weak temperament. She [Hillary Clinton ] is a weak person.

- Donald Trump

source: Source: townhall.com

topic: Strong, Weak, Clinton, Great Company