Pierre Omidyar Quotes

We appreciate size, but only if it is robust growth. Just to be big is not a target.

In general, great companies prefer to grow 'organically,' as Wall Street likes to say. That is, from the inside out, by finding new markets or by taking market share from their competitors.

I think if you look at the commonalities between eBay, PayPal and OpenTable, all three are businesses that built a network in a vertical. Network effect businesses are very attractive businesses.

Focusing on the long term and building a great product that is scalable ultimately leads to a great company.

Solving problems for users at scale ultimately results in monetization opportunities.

If you ask me, 'So what is your business model?' Our business model's always about shifting to higher value opportunities.

The whole idea behind virtual integration is that it lets you meet customers' needs faster and more efficiently than any other model. With vertical integration, you can be an efficient producer - as long as the world isn't changing very much.

There's nothing wrong with a business that supports you and perhaps an extended family. But if you want to build a scalable startup, you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year.

Growth and momentum are what a startup lives on and you always have to focus on maintaining these.

We always keep things very, very simple. We can make a respectable living playing a smaller room that somebody else couldn't, because they're spending a lot of money. If we can't get a show up and deliver with what we almost intrinsically have in our brains and our pockets, then I don't really want to do it.

eBay had two main things that really spoke to me. It enabled individuals to do things that they could not have done without the Web. The second thing was what Pierre said: "People have met their best friends on eBay. What this has enabled is truly online community."

So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.

I'm just a basketball player, you know? Just put me where you need me.

It makes life very simple actually. You could be giving a TV interview in howling gale and it no longer matters.

It's amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.

Where a chunk of business is simple, the chances are that it is.

I got a standard box. I don't never want nothing special. Then if I drop my box, I can borrow somebody else's.

Success...is no longer a simple ascension of steps. You need to climb sideways and sometimes down, and sometimes you need to swing from the jungle gym and establish your own turf somewhere else on the playground.

Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver.

We explore within postures everything we deal with in life: the interplay between resistance and surrender; establishing stability and maintaining flexibility; learning to receive and release; being present to all the complexities of our lives, and returning to the fundamentals of our "beginner's mind" again and again.

I'd love to be able to fit in a box. Like one of those people who fit into small boxes. I'd love it.

Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once.

You can't really conduct your life by one or two phrases.

The easier you make it for people to go, the more likely they are to stay.

Act without doing; work without effort. Think of the small as large and the few as many. Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts. The Master never reaches for the great; thus she achieves greatness. When she runs into a difficulty, she stops and gives herself to it. She doesn't cling to her own comfort; thus problems are no problem for her.