The company that creates one global social graph will be very important going forward. It will be Facebook, with maybe 2-3 local social networks able to sustain competition long term.
Big Internet companies on average are capable of generating revenue of $1 million per employee, and that compares to 10 to 20 percent of that which is normally generated by traditional offline businesses of comparable size.
We monitor close to 50 companies globally that can be potential investment opportunities. I'd like to see DST as a significant global investment company in the Internet arena.
We don't believe the market can be dominated by one company in e-commerce in China - namely Alibaba. The Chinese market is very wide and deep, with a huge population.
The U.S. and European markets have become mature, profit margins are lower, and equipment isn't so new. Because profits are relatively low, it limits the willingness of companies to invest in newer equipment.
I'm going to continue doing my thing and work my butt off to add value for shareholders and as long as they and the board see fit to keep me in this role, I feel enormously privileged to serve.
I mean, when I started out I was billing per hour, like a shrink because you would sit with somebody and work. But most of it, if it's for a live show it's usually a buy-out. A flat fee.
I can't think of another enterprise other than being a homeowner that can't have its debt restructured in bankruptcy. Corporations can but a homeowner can't? Now with securitization the homeowner can't go to the owner of the loan and work things out.
If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.
I actually believed if you work hard enough it was inevitable you'd succeed. Then I lived the 'Social Network' movie, but only the first half. The hardest part is the grueling work of constantly being wrong.
Prayer is not a substitute for work. First we have to do all we can ourselves to understand a situation. Then when we ask for help, sometimes it is very evident, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we may well be helped by not getting a decision.
I like that people who are not experts can not only understand but get engaged by my work. I like that Joe Paterno can read me. Bill Bradley.
It really matters whether people are working on generating clean energy or improving transportation or making the Internet work better and all those things. And small groups of people can have a really huge impact.
Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.
In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?
Dirt used to be a badge of honor. Dirt used to look like work. But we've scrubbed the dirt off the face of work, and consequently we've created this suspicion of anything that's too dirty.
I can say the willingness to get dirty has always defined us as an nation, and it's a hallmark of hard work and a hallmark of fun, and dirt is not the enemy.
Archimedes was my ideal. I admired the works of artists, but to my mind, they were only shadows and semblances. The inventor, I thought, gives to the world creations which are palpable, which live and work.
Even in an organization that's doing something big and bold, there's the mundane, day-to-day execution work of keeping it going. But people need to stay connected to the boldness, to the vision, and stay plugged in to the main vein of the dream.
It's just impossible to ignore the activists in your party. These are the people who stuff the envelopes, and walk the precincts, and make the telephone calls, and do all the so-called grunt work that brings about a successful campaign.
If you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But ten years later somehow, you don't quite know what problems are worth working on.
