Tim OReilly Quotes - Page 2

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

It's a great discipline to have to report to somebody, even if you're the sole owner

The biggest mistake we see companies make when they first hit Twitter is to think about it as a channel to push out information.

The Lean Startup isn't just about how to create a more successful entrepreneurial business, it's about what we can learn from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do. I imagine Lean Startup principles applied to government programs, to healthcare, and to solving the world's great problems. It's ultimately an answer to the question: How can we learn more quickly what works, and discard what doesn't?

I think that Microsoft will increasingly feel margin pressure from Linux as well as people saying: well actually the applications that really matter to me are not on my PC. And so they're going to be able to extract less of a monopoly rent, so to speak.

When you have to prove the value of your ideas by persuading other people to pay for them, it clears out an awful lot of woolly thinking.

Life is not a tour of gas stations.

There are more than 21 eBook channels already. Authors can’t possibly get to these and do what they do best.

A key function of a publishing brand is the bestowal of status by who and what you pay attention to.

The nice thing about twitter is the architecture of visibility. Email is invisible unless you reach out to someone directly. With Twitter, anyone can follow you and this is one of the big changes that was really introduced by Flickr, was this wonderful idea that you can follow somebody without their permission. Recognizing that relationships are asymmetrical, unlike facebook where we have to acknowledge each other otherwise we can’t see each other.

Anyone who puts a small gloss on a fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from building on it, is a thief.

Architecture trumps licensing any time.

You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn't be about the money.

Data is the next Intel Inside.

No matter your sector, chances are that people are already twittering about your products, your brand, your company or at least your industry.

Apple is in a position they've been in a lot of times before. They're like Moses showing the way to the promised land, but they don't actually go there.

I think Microsoft will have to change. I think that the business of Microsoft, the company of Microsoft, is going to continue to succeed. But I think the business model of Microsoft is going to have to change.

I think that companies always become complacent, over time. Or most companies, that is.