Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

You can't study to be an entrepreneur. Sometimes, you just have to jump.

I don't think anybody ever started a great business because they wanted to make a little more cash. They had a dream. They wanted to better their life.

Once you're an entrepreneur you're always an entrepreneur, and you need that fix.

Well, you know, I've always been an entrepreneur. I've had it out of necessity.

Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. It is a high-risk, high-reward proposition.

If you look at the careers of great entrepreneurs and you look at the moment they took their plunge, the plunge is rarely a great financial or material risk, it’s a social risk. At the moment they started their new businesses, everyone around them said ‘you’re an idiot’.

Being an entrepreneur doesn't make you a rich tycoon and being an innovator doesn't mean that you're successful. It just means that you're interesting.

Going into business for yourself, becoming an entrepreneur, is the modern-day equivalent of pioneering on the old frontier.

If you're looking to become an entrepreneur then don't waste your time going to university or business school - just get on and do it.

The only reason you should be an entrepreneur is because that's the only way the idea will come into the world.

Entrepreneurs are motivated by independence as well as challenge, knowing they are ultimately responsible for themselves. Monetary success is certainly helpful, but it often becomes more of a score card than anything else.

Never let money get in the way of an idea

Entrepreneurs are all a little crazy. There is a fine line between an entrepreneur and a crazy person. Crazy people see and feel things that others don't. An entrepreneur's dream is often a kind of madness, and it is almost as isolating. What differentiates the entrepreneur from the crazy person is that the former gets other people to believe in his vision.

I've always wanted to be a professional golfer. So what if you always wanted to be an entrepreneur?

True entrepreneurshi p comes only from risk-taking.

I'm glad I'm successful at it, because it's allowed me to live very well financially, and give my kids a lot of things. It's enabled me to do stuff that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do. But it's not who I am.

I never knew anything other than wanting to be an entrepreneur. I tried my first business when I was 6 years old, and I started another business when I was 8. I don't think I knew anything besides that.

Nobody does just one thing. But the real difference between being an entrepreneur and everyone else in the world is the ability to monetize. I am an entrepreneur in the classic mold.

As the years passed, and I was nine, 10, 11 years old, it became obvious I was going to start up a business of some sort.

But it's a blessing to be so successful within a year; it's the greatest feeling in the world, making money and doing the things that I'm doing, and I definitely trying to continue doing what I'm doing.

I'm an accidental entrepreneur.

I've been an entrepreneur three times. I started three companies.

I think that in the earlier days, when I was a 'wantrepreneur,' I was really doing things because I thought what I wanted was to be rich.

Jay and I used to talk about this: we never had a goal of making a lot of money. We had a goal of having a business of our own. And there were many times we could have sold out and had a lot of money. Billions. We just put it in our pocket and go home, OK? But that was never our goal.

A startup for entrepreneurs is like a baby, and I have five babies so far - experienced father.