Tom Reiss Quotes

In technology startups, there's a lot of winging it.

You can't get married to any one particular plan. That is the biggest lesson I learned at PayPal.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

It is human nature, especially as we get older, to look for stability in our lives. But if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to fight against that somewhat, as starting a business requires movement. You cannot stay still.

I like to do new things, so I always take on roles that I feel will keep me on my toes. I never want to pigeon myself, so I always like to surprise myself. I believe in versatility and so I would play anything as long as it was a challenge.

Great founders live for chaotic moments.

I wanna keep people on their toes, and that's just kind of how we've always operated.

The entrepreneurs that really make it are the ones that start with an idea but are ready to change it at a moment's notice.

The metaphor that I frequently use for entrepreneurship is jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane plane on the way down.

People who need certainty are unlikely to make good entrepreneurs.

When something doesn't go exactly to plan, money is tight or a business is struggling - see it as a challenge rather than a failure. Look outside the box and try and find a solution - you'll be surprised how many great opportunities and possibilities arise when things look bad. You've just got to open your mind and not be afraid of sticking your neck out!

The entrepreneurial journey starts with jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down.

The biggest threat to a better life is the desire to keep the future under control - to make the world predictable by reining in creativity and enterprise. Progress as a neat blueprint, with no deviations and no surprise, may work in children's cartoons or utopian novels. But it's just a fantasy.

I know for sure that nothing is guaranteed. Life always changes. I know for sure that I'm open to all possibilities always... let's just say my life is never boring.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

The important thing to remember, if you are trying something that is an innovation, is not to think too much about it. Because if you take too long, by the time you get there, the world will have changed. You take a risk, and if it doesn't work, you make a change. We are not betting our lives on it.

I like to write in all different genres. I just like a new challenge.

I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it's going to work or whether I'm going to fall flat on my face.

What I love about my work is the variety and not knowing what's coming next, and being able to embrace something for a period of time and know something new is going to follow.

Entrepreneurs have the flexibility and the ability to do things that large companies simply cannot. Could a large company pull off a trick like Amyris, going from anti-malaria medicine to next-generation fuel?

This business is always changing. If you're going to be a leader, you've got to take chances.

In Silicon Valley, if you spend a lot of time thinking about the obstacles, you'll talk yourself out of everything, because the more you look at it, the less logical something sounds, since no one has done it yet.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

One of the challenges of innovation is figuring out how to wipe your mind clean about what you should be doing at any given moment, and not having a religious attachment to what's gotten you there thus far.

As much as I long for a sort of security and consistency sometimes, I do enjoy sort of being busted around. I really don't know what's happening sometimes next week, let alone this year.