Business Quotes
Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.
Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.
Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don't believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you're likely to have issues.
Most people think companies are basically evil. They get a bad rap. And I think that's somewhat correct.
We have a mantra: don't be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.
There are basically no companies that have good slow decisions. There are only companies that have good fast decisions.
We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served - as shareholders and in all other ways - by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.
For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe it's better to shoot higher. You don't want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what's possible and how to make the world better.
If you can run the company a bit more collaboratively, you get a better result, because you have more bandwidth and checking and balancing going on.
Over time, it's becoming more and more understood by people that we're acting in their interests. And that's a very, very powerful thing for our brand.
Part of our brand is that we're pretty understated in what we do. If you look at other technology companies, they might preannounce things, and it will be a couple years before they really happen, and they don't happen in the way they said they would.
We understand the need to balance our short- and longer-term needs because our revenue is the engine that funds all our innovation.
That's why I find Elon to be an inspiring example. He said, 'Well, what should I really do in this world? Solve cars, global warming, and make humans multi-planetary.' I mean those are pretty compelling goals, and now he has businesses to do that.
We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind.
We're lucky to have a very direct relationship with our users, which creates a strong incentive for us to do the right thing .
From a very early age, I also realized I wanted to invent things. So I became really interested in technology and also then, soon after, in business, because I figured that inventing things wasn't any good; you really had to get them out into the world and have people use them to have any effect.
You're working because you want to change the world. You want to make it better. Why isn't the company that you work for, worthy not just of your time but your money as well? I mean, but we don't have a concept of that. That's not how we think about companies, and I think it's sad, because companies are most of our effort. They're where most of people's time is, where a lot of the money is, and so I think I'd like for us to help out more than we are.
I think companies have a big problem making a big transition, so leaders get replaced.
I think it sounds stupid if you have this big company, and you can only do five things. I think it's also not very good for the employees. Because then, you have 30,000 employees and they're all doing the same thing, which isn't very exciting for them.
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