Meg Whitman Quotes

Do what you love and success will follow. Passion is the fuel behind a successful career.

Problems are good, as long as you solve them quickly.

Remember that you can do anything you want to do. Don't let anyone say, 'You're not smart enough... it's too hard... it's a dumb idea... no one has done that before... girls don't do that.' My mom gave me that advice in 1973. And it allowed me to never worry about what others were saying about my career direction.

'Perfect' is the enemy of 'good enough'.

A business leader has to keep their organization focused on the mission. That sounds easy, but it can be tremendously challenging in today's competitive and ever-changing business environment. A leader also has to motivate potential partners to join.

To be effective, leaders must have the qualities and attitudes essential to work in a group setting.

When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.

Many companies operate from more of a command-and-control environment - they decide what's going to happen at headquarters and have the organization execute. That doesn't work here because it's the community of users who really have control. So we enable, not direct. We think of our customers as people, not wallets. And that has implications for how we run the company. We partner with our customers and let them take the company where they think it's best utilized.

If you have fun at your job, I think you're going to be more effective.

Most of us can't even begin to imagine.

Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community.

My view is that, just as in many businesses, brands really matter. There will always be a role for destination sites. Eighty million users come to our destination. I think that will be the vast majority of our future business.

We have always said that advertising is just the icing on the cake. It is not the cake.

If we don't rededicate ourselves to education with the same attitude Americans have applied to going to the moon and fighting wars, the results will be profound. We will gradually lose our successful workforce.

You know, in a workplace, when you shrink the size of a workforce, there is pain there. But there is no question: we have a government that we can no longer afford.That is the cold, hard fact. So we have to make this more efficient. We have to sunset programs that no longer work. We have to eliminate waste and fraud. We must do this.

We can't impede progress in the name of environmental action that yields little for the environment and even less for our people.. and we should look at the environment as an economic opportunity.

A monkey could drive this train.

Because if you don't have a great workforce, a great higher education system, you're not going to have the next eBay, the next AmGen, the next, you know, Miasole, and not only California but America is going to fall behind a whole new competitive context which is obviously China, India, and other countries.

Sometimes it's a little bit like being a politician. We have work to do in understanding our users sentiments.

Steve Jobs was an iconic entrepreneur and businessman whose impact on technology was felt beyond Silicon Valley. He will be remembered for the innovation he brought to market and the inspiration he brought to the world.

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?

Guess what? The world changes. eBay has defined e-commerce.

I'm not a career politician. I spent 30 years in business. I can tell you that people in California have had it with career politicians: they are done.

I want to spend 100 percent of my time focused on what I think I can make the biggest difference on as the governor of California.

We can put our head in the sand and continue to lose jobs overseas and to other states, or we can say, 'You know what? We are not going to lose another job from California, and we're going to be the very best place to start and grow a business.' So I'll be the chief sales officer for California businesses.