Stephen A. Schwarzman Quotes

IBM's long-standing mantra is 'Think.' What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me, is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.

History has shown that one cannot legislate a culture of integrity. And yet, one of the paramount responsibilities and challenges of corporate leadership is to ensure such a culture.

I don't know if a company can have a soul, but I like to think it can.

Our culture is the foundation for our company.

For a firm to be exceptional, it has to be led by purpose. Our purpose is to make an impact that matters.

We will always put our values before our bottom line.

In fact, the individual outlook becomes less and less valuable and more and more harmful unless it is transmitted into the corporate outlook.

I would never sacrifice my individual beliefs as a citizen to my corporate responsibilities.

The future of any corporation is as good as the value system of the leaders and followers in the organization.

Some of the greatest businesses operating from a deeper purpose have a real commitment to service, like Four Seasons, Joie de Vivre hotels, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue.

A sour corporate culture can actually make an entire society unhappy. This means that a strong corporate culture can have a positive impact on a society.

When you are led by values, it doesn't cost your business, it helps your business.

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

You can't live if you don't eat, but you don't live to eat. And neither does business exist primarily to make a profit. It exists to fulfill its purpose, whatever that might be.

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

I think you're defined as a company by what you choose to do and what you choose not to do.

What I would like to do is to leave behind a sustainable entity of a set of companies that operate in an exemplary manner in terms of ethics, values and continue what our ancestors left behind.

The Ford Motor Co. should stand for something more than cars and trucks. There is a Ford way of doing things that we cannot lose... We need to be continuously polishing that Ford oval.

Many companies claim they have core values, but typically what they're referring to are generic beliefs: having integrity, making a profit, responding to customers and so on. These values only have meaning when they're defined in terms of how people behave and are ranked to set priorities.

Microsoft is not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness.

I want to be a purpose-driven, purpose-led organization, and I want the organization to achieve this aspiration of being the undisputed leader in professional services.

For millennials, conducting business with a purpose that goes beyond making profits is critically important in determining the kind of company they want to work for - and the kind of company with whom they are willing to do business.

I am deeply honored by the trust the board has placed in me to lead Duke Energy. I have a high degree of confidence in the strength of our company's leadership and dedicated employees.

I do not work for the shareholder, to be honest. I work for the customer.

If you see culture, to my mind it is something you need to consciously have to create. It's not like a box, where you put some input and you will get some output. In my view, it begins with the mission, vision and values.