If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you're going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to 'be different'.
You have to believe in what you do in order to get what you want.
The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.
When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.
Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.
A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.
The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life.
You have to act and act now.
Life's a journey. It's a journey about discovering limits.
I have had all the disadvantages required for success.
You realize that life is short and fragile; and when you are facing walls of water, you understand your own mortality can change and how quickly things could change.
Microsoft is already the most powerful company on earth but you ain't seen nothing yet.
There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense...You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.
In some ways, getting away from the headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake that I made or someone else is about to make.
We have been doing things that are contrary; the things that people tell us won't work from the beginning. In fact, the only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.
When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits.
Because software is all about scale. The larger you are, the more profitable you are. If we sell twice as much as software, it doesn't cost us twice as much to build that software. So the more customers you have, the more scale you have. The larger you are, the more profitable you are.
So what makes me happy? I was really happy to build this house. That's it; building things. The trouble with software is that it's very hard to show your aunt in Florida what you've done.
I believe people have to follow their dreams-I did.
Bill Gates wants people to think he's Edison, when he's really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn't right... wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence.
Everyone thought the acquisition strategy was extremely risky because no one had ever done it successfully. In other words, it was innovative.
When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don't know what you are going to do.
I'm addicted to winning. The more you win, the more you want to win.
You can't spend as much money as I have, even if you try. I've been trying.
If your cash is about to run out, you have to cut your cash flow. CEOs have to make those decisions and live with them however painful they may be. You have to act and act now; and act in the best interest of the company as a whole, even if it means that some people in the company who are your best friends have to work somewhere else.
