Waris Ahluwalia Quotes

We had just recently moved to California from Italy, and while we were driving around, we saw a billboard ad for McDonald's on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. The word 'guess' was in the ad, and my brother decided that that would be the name of our company!

My heart really lies in my jewelry line, Archangel. I have really enjoyed watching the company go from nothing and slowly building it year by year, and getting into one store, then another store. And then I'll see someone wearing a piece of it on the streets, and it's all very exciting.

The jewelry business is a very, very tough business - tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.

I've always been an engineer devoted to the potential of advanced technologies. Like most engineers, I have a keen sense of curiosity and a deep desire to learn. Garmin was my first entrepreneurial endeavour, and it has been an incredible journey.

I didn't want a day job anymore, so I somehow made the jewelry line work. Now that I look back on it, it was, like, the dumbest idea ever. Everyone and their mother has a jewelry line, so in retrospect, maybe not the smartest fallback plan. But it ended up working out great!

The reason we went into jewelry was we were trying to cater to our consigner base, who was saying, 'Can you sell this for me? Can you sell that?' And we said, 'You can bring in your jewelry and watches; we have a gemology and a watch expert on site.' And it just exploded our business.

In the '80's my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I'd like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.

I made two rings for myself and when I was in Los Angeles, I walked into a store called Maxfields and they essentially bought them off my hands. Those were originally made in New York. There wasn't craftsmanship, there was just manufacturing, and I wasn't interested in doing that. My first workshop was in Rome, and that was the start of House of Waris. In a little magical atelier, a goldsmith, his apprentice, his stone setter - and that was where it began.

I made lots of movies while in school while everybody else was running around saying, "Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish they'd give me some film."

The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

You know you're ready to write a book when you have a feeling that you should do it, no matter what anybody says. It's like falling in love or starting a company. When you're still wondering if you should get married or you're still wondering whether you should start a company that might be not the right person or the right idea. And writing is the same way. When you've locked on to the topic, you'll just write it.

In terms of the stars, the only ones I cast were Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. I was in Los Angeles working and a lot of this took place on the telephone. I'd met Maggie [Smith] once and I'd come back-stage, which I'm usually loathe to do because as an actor you don't want people coming back because you want to get home [laughs].

The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles.

We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.

Capitalism is being attacked not because it is inefficient or misgoverned but because it is cynical. And indeed a society based on the assertion that private vices become public benefits cannot endure, no matter how impeccable its logic, no matter how great its benefits.

Americans have always pursued our dreams within a free market that has been the engine of our progress. It's a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and rewarded the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon of science, and technology, and discovery. But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided the market's invisible hand with a higher principle - that America prospers when all Americans can prosper. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest.

First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public Library.

Breaking the rules and challenging convention is in the DNA of every successful entrepreneur. Doing things differently and solving problems with new, innovative and fresh approaches are the very reason many start-ups are able to compete and sometimes outpace the established market leaders.

I started doing [acting] for a living, no one really warned me about the amount of traveling I would do. I always thought everything was shot in Los Angeles.

My sense of Los Angeles was very New York provincial, as in 'all those people are crazy out there' (which they are), and stupid (which they're not), and immoral (it's more interesting than that).

It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman.

In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it.

The way forward is to learn to see every startup in any industry as a grand experiment.

Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to passionate about it and love what you’re doing. If you don’t, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There’s no way you’re going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world.

True entrepreneurshi p comes only from risk-taking.