You can stay too long in a job, that's for sure. But by the same token, in the 12 years I have been CEO of GE, there have been four CEOs of Toshiba. So there's too short a time to do it, and there's too long a time to do it.
My father taught me many important giving lessons, but two stand out. First, always give as much as you possibly can. And second, give equally from among your resources - your time, your mind and your capital. These are principles I live by.
Instead of waiting until the holiday season - when mail solicitations flood in from worthy organizations - and making a flurry of gifts because this is the time of year to give, sit down and take stock. Identify your passion, learn about it, and dire...
I read the papers, I surf the Web. At the beginning of the year, I try to see at least two episodes of every show on our network. Am I surfing? All the time. I'm aware of the landscape. I'm a competitor, so I have to know whom I'm competing with.
My mum is totally crazy for fashion still. Her job was as a laundress, but I loved it when she would dress up in her red suit with a mini jacket and flared trousers and get her wig fixed at the hairdresser's - it was the time of wigs - and we would g...
I think there's a time to be private and a time to be public, and I think that companies like Facebook and Groupon are basically transformational companies. You don't come across them very often, and I'm pretty sure that they can continue to grow for...
The directories businesses still make nothing but money. They're overleveraged, they're bankrupt entities, but they still are the largest. This is all going to move online over time. Why Citysearch and Service Magic are so important to us, is because...
What we need to do is replace the entire tax code. I do not think it makes sense to say, 'Let's just grab money from, quote, the wealthy'... The issue is the tax code's rotten and we should start truly over with a simple code that is fair and transpa...
Anybody who gives away money is mostly looking at things where they think they can make a difference. I'm trying to help people who helped me, educational institutions that helped me with scholarships, or organizations that were very useful to me in ...
The biggest challenge is that when people look at low price point products, they essentially invest less money in development, innovation, and new technology. And in order to innovate at a lower price point, and make sustainability attainable to the ...
It's clear to me when you do private equity well, you're making companies more efficient and helping them grow and become more profitable. That success means our investors - such as public pension funds - benefit, which contributes to the economic we...
I think that if you run a big company, you've got to, four or five times a year, just say, 'Hey team, look, here's where we're going.' If you do it 10 times, nobody wants to work for you. If you do it zero times, you have anarchy.
September 11 was horrific, but I've been through enough crises before that I had my own pattern as to how to collect facts, what a leader should do, how to communicate with people, how to set up operating mechanisms to work our way through it.
As the TiVos and the Replays are coming into our world - and they're coming - it's better to - be inside the tent and figure out what they're doing and to work hand in hand with them as opposed to saying, 'You know what, the automobile is not going t...
Macintosh felt like a system. As I learned more, I felt like I was able to guess how new things would work. I felt like the bugs in my programs were more my bugs and not things I misunderstood.
After World War II, a lot of people moved to the cities for work and abandoned the old vineyards. Then in the 1950s and 1960s, wineries were paid to produce volume at a cheap price. That's when the Lambruscos and bad Chianti were popular.
Every small business will give you an entrepreneurial way of looking at things. I guarantee you that for every plant that closes, if you gave it to one small-business person in that community, he or she would find a way to make it work. The small-bus...
I don't want to be known as a serial entrepreneur. I like doing one thing at a time and making sure that gets my full attention until it's well established. I enjoy the initial years of a company because they are the most dynamic, and that is when I ...
The menu should be part of the entertainment, part of the dining experience. It's kind of like reading the 'Playbill' when you go to the theater. It should be an alluring and interactive document. Does it have burn marks on it from the candle? If you...
My transactions are above board: I do not have money deposited in other accounts and have transparently declared all assets. My real wealth is, however, my experience as cofounder of Infosys and as Aadhar Chairman, which gave away 60,000 crore identi...
It's surreal to think that I own this beautiful island. It doesn't feel like anyone can own Lanai. What it feels like to me is this really cool 21st-century engineering project, where I get to work with the people of Lanai to create a prosperous and ...
