Vinod Khosla Quotes

I have always felt that public, commercial and community organisations should be as open as possible about their affairs. They need to be accountable to their owners, their customers, their members and communities and other interest groups.

I think good companies can navigate being public and doing the right things for their customers.

I really believe that all CEO pay should be voted on by shareholders ahead of time. Mine was.

A local company has more accountability.

The decision came from the publisher. It certainly was cleared by Chicago. And then they come out with these fine sounding words about relation to readers and their obligation. It has nothing to do with that.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

When it comes to major decisions in any area of the organization, I like to get the blessings of the shareholders - of which my siblings are the majority - and build a consensus even if it isn't something that all of them agree on.

The board is currently undertaking what could be its most important task, ... We are confident that we're going to make a choice that is in the best interest of the company, shareholders and others.

If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.

You have more independent eyes scrutinizing the decision-making and financial statements of companies.

There are two ways of looking at the talking filibuster. My way is as a form of unanimous consent.

Killing Intel, I, I just had to resign from the Apple Board.

A company is not accountable just to its owners, but to its workers and its customers.

If you work for and eventually lead a company, understand that companies have multiple stakeholders including employees, customers, business partners and the communities within which they operate.

Even President Bush has cited the need to outlaw the practice of corporations making loans to their officers. Strangely enough, when the President was a corporate officer, he took out several loans from the company.

The real mechanism for corporate governance is the active involvement of the owners.

I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

I don't think anybody has indicated that I did anything but do my job at Fannie Mae.

My predecessor, P. W. Botha, had an inner circle, and I did not like it. I preferred decisions to evolve out of cabinet discussions. That way, we achieved real co-ownership of our policies.

I want our company to leave a legacy of learning to find the balance between what's good and what's good for you.

Board meetings should not be for the benefit of the board. They should be for the benefit of the CEO and the senior team.

Only the corporation that shirks from the light would have anything to fear from government. About the welfare of such corporations we need not be over-sensitive.

Boards are screens. What “the Board” does is the act of nobody; and nobody can be made to answer for it.

We mean to make little business big, and all business honest, instead of striving to make Big Business little, and yet letting it remain dishonest.

My objection to interlocking directorates is not on the assumption that men mean to do wrong. It is because it is humanly impossible for a man representing conflicting interests on two boards and do right by both, no matter how pure his purpose is.