I love what the Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a founder and a product creator, or as an investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying.
We're the biggest food and agriculture company in the world.
Rural technology is moving from kind of the back office to where everything, every company - sales, marketing, customer acquisition, new product development, media - all industries are becoming technology industries. And it's not information technology: it's business technology.
No day is similar to another, but usually mail is part of my start of the day. Our company never sleeps: we have business in 180 countries, so there are no real mornings or nights.
I was the King of Twinkie-Vision one day, the King of Jiggle TV the next, thanks to Farrah Fawcett and 'Three's Company.'
We target people who understand that relationships are the lifeline of a small company.
My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point - because of the injury, he couldn't walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food.
I'm not interested in gigs unless I really want to do them. I walked away from music in 1997, and then there was a greatest hits in 2002. Thank God, it didn't do too well because the record company wouldn't promote it.
In high school, I started my first company, called M Cubed Software. We named it that because it was me and two other guys named Mike.
I am not a sort of person who wants to run a company.
I'm supposed to be the director of a television company, but I've only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.
Subsequent to the original Quicken, the whole idea that we, as a consumer products company, could actually make business products, that was a whole revolution in our thinking.
I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know.
Even though we live in a fast-changing world with short term-ism all around, it requires years of determination to transform a company and structurally reap the rewards. Innovation companies need to set their sights on solving unmet needs - but this approach requires focus and long-term tenacity.
I got several litmus tests for songs, but usually the people at the publishing company... they're straight-shooters.
There's a lot of pressure to look like the last company that was successful.
Financing for 'Shotgun Stories' was initiated with money from close friends and family. This is where the money to go into production came from. After production, a company called 'Upload Films' came on board and provided post-production funds and services. In both instances, people were taking a gamble on us.
I used to get a sort of sociophobia, and I still get it sometimes these days when I'm in a confined space with too many people. It's not like I freak out or anything, it's just that I'm far more comfortable in my own company sometimes than being surrounded by one thousand strangers.
The first thing I ever invested in was Twitter. Blaine Cook, former CTO, was leaving the company and asked me if I wanted to buy his stock.
Anybody who is running a marathon or doing a walkathon, doing a fundraiser for their school, their company, by far it's guaranteed the easiest and most fun way to quickly set up a fundraising campaign and send it around to your friends and family.
I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.
I really felt that 'Three's Company' was a gift. When it ended, I had money in the bank and had the luxury to pursue a life that meant something, to learn and discover.
The American people were really not 100% convinced that this idea of default was really going to occur, and I think the media, current company excepted here, did not help in that regard because they confused the American people about what default actually meant.
I want to leave this company in the best possible shape.
People tend to associate Qualcomm with the chip - and they should: We're an excellent chip company - but I think we have a larger role in the ecosystem of cellular that I think people are not aware of. And our relevance to more consumer electronics - and, I would say, industries - is actually just increasing.
I'm a walking advertisement for PBS and for the Discovery Channel. All of my DVR settings are pretty much set to record anything that's on the Discovery Channel. I'm a big fan of 'MythBusters' and 'Deadliest Catch,' and I'm constantly watching 'Moyers & Company' and the 'NewsHour' and 'Antiques Roadshow.'
The human mind evolved always in the company of the human body, and of the animal body before it was human. The intricate connections of mind and body must exceed our imagination, as from our point of view we are peculiarly prevented from observing them.
Edge goes out every night, and not just on pay per views; every night, Edge goes out there with the intention of stealing the show. I know that he felt like his title run had not been given the respect from the company that it deserved, and he was really hell-bent on proving that he belonged as a main event guy.
If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you're nuts to stay there.
If you were the boss of a company and some of the employees of your company were known to sexually abuse children, you would fire them instantly.
If you're going to run a public company, be absolutely certain of what the parameters are, what the clarity is, that you can explain it to yourselves and explain it externally.
Having the urge to write a novel, especially if you've yet to be published, is like having a medical condition impossible to mention in polite company - it's a relief simply to know there are fellow-sufferers out there.
It's one thing to experience your Broadway debut alone, but to share it with an entire company was like summer camp or a college experience, where you were really growing up together.
42% of our management team are women. So we've reset the goal to 50% by 2017. Because that's when Westpac becomes 200 years old as an institution - the oldest bank, and indeed the oldest company in Australia. So that's a lovely point to reflect on.
Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.
Noir has always shown that greed and chaos are as close as the company we work for or the politicians we vote for.
