Howard Aiken Quotes

The most essential thing for us was to get the business model right, then put the world-class technology under it to support it. At Merrill, that meant not doing what people expected.

I always recommend, if you can, to patent or protect whatever your idea is. If you can't, you have to make your best judgment. Sometimes people don't get anywhere because they sit on something, so afraid to reveal it. And yet, in the reverse, sometimes if you expose something too widely, you can risk losing it.

If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us.

One of my top tips for aspiring entrepreneurs: Tell everyone you know about your idea. This runs contrary to the instinct that most people have, because they're afraid someone is going to 'steal my ideal.' Ideas alone are worth very little; it's in the execution and market feedback that companies are made.

To disclose too much of one's inventions and achievements is one and the same thing as to give up the fruit of one's ingenuity.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.

I don't invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster, and continue to transform.

To thrive, all businesses must focus on the art of self-disruption. Rather than wait for the competition to steal your business, every founder and employee needs to be willing to cannibalize their existing revenue streams in order to create new ones. All disruption starts with introspection.

My view of AMD is that we have a tremendous set of technology assets, people, capability, customer relationships. We're not going to define ourselves in somebody else's shadow.

Often, I'm sitting opposite a client, and I'm thinking, 'How do I convince him to not copy the best-selling product out there?' And sometimes I don't know. Really, it's smarter to be a thief.

You know you've have a good idea when you're lying awake at night going 'someone else is going to take it, I just know it!'

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.

I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!

I try to get people to see what I have. . . . When you run a computer company, you have to get people to buy into your dreams.

Strategy is about shaping the future.

Marketing strategy is a series of integrated actions leading to a sustainable competitive advantage.

We are addressing duplication and complexity. At the same time, we are investing more in research and development, speeding up the time to market of new innovations, and expanding our sales force in markets where growth is to be found, like Turkey, Russia, the Mideast, China, and southeast Asia.

I love to think about business. It's what makes me happy.

I live by the business model that there is a better than, a less than, or a different than. Those are the three categories. I chose to be different than. The one that's different than will stand out with the proper work ethic.

Make a list of competitors who will be disrupted by you. You do have competitors, right? You are better, right? If not, why are you going to Disrupt? Post a blog post about them and what makes you different.

EVERY MOMENT IN business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

You want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can't get a monopoly, in a big market right away; too much competition for that.

Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.