Aaron Levie Quotes

You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

Delegation requires the willingness to pay for short term failures in order to gain long term competency.

The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose.

If you're too methodical, too fearful, you're not going to win. But the clever thing is to make the calculation correctly about where and when to go over the top. You've got to know when to push it and when to come back.

When we talk about change, we, the business leaders, have to implement it. We have to look at what we're not doing and what we should be doing.

When I was made captain, one of my things was that whatever happens in those four years, you don't want to make major changes just before a World Cup. We'd done it before, and it never worked.

You cannot change strategy due to a trend.

People say, 'Dream big!' - but you have to think about the logistics. It's not just coming up with a great idea; it's how you can sell or market or promote that great idea.

There are some keys to success in the fad business. One is never give up. You need total motivation and the right kind of creativity. You also have to back the right activity. It is a disaster if you back the wrong idea with your energy. You not only lose money, but you take a big social risk.

I will take the lead in turning risks into opportunities.

So I think you want to keep a keen eye on things. Grab it and go. Sure, you check your financials, but don't be afraid to take a jump. Learn the trends.

Taking big risks combined with having a team you believe in and that believes just as much in you as a leader make for long-term wins, even in a game of inches.

One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.

If you are armed with knowledge, if you are aware that certain dynamics are at play then you have options. You can play defense, you can ignore certain person and take the consequences perhaps with a game plan in mind and it goes on, you've increased your options.

We need to put our good research, our good work, our principles into actionable items whenever we can.

When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?

In strategic decisions, I'd be really concerned about overconfidence.

Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.

Whenever I throw caution to the wind I make sure I'm facing the right way so that it doesn't blow back and hit me in my face.

Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential.

Once a decision is made, you should stop worrying and start working. It’s not always what we know that makes it a good decision. It is what we do to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision.

In my experience of large enterprises, I have found it is often a mistake to try to settle everything at once.

Hope is not strategy. Hope fits with vision, but we must have a strategy and a process to make our vision become a reality.

Strategic planning is the continuous process of making present entrepreneurial (risk-taking) decisions systematically and with the greatest knowledge of their futurity; organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions; and measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through organized, systematic feedback.

The risk of a business being hit by a low probability, high impact event is far higher than most boards realize because the number of potential wild cards is so great.