Brian Acton Quotes

In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy. The goal is to acquire technology that is on your product roadmap or people that fit culturally within your organization and help you execute on your roadmap faster.

Speed is the No. 1 thing. Our core competency has been doing exactly this: buying companies and integrating them quickly.

Success in M&As comes with executing with vigour along with the obvious right choices that you got to make.

My mum always told me 95 per cent of success was partnering well.

If I'm on the board of any company where there's an offer that comes in, I want to negotiate.

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

The key to making acquisitions is being ready because you really never know when the right big one is going to come along.

I can well imagine making acquisitions so long as these are complementary to Puma and move it forward.

If we're going to acquire, what are we going to do differently? We came up with six rules of thumb. Whenever I've violated two of them, I usually get into trouble.

For acquiring companies, the excitement is almost always about where they are going - that is, their strategy for gaining greater growth and productivity. But when mergers fail, it's often because no one focused on who they are - that is, their culture, which is critical to successfully bringing different groups of people together.

You can think as Einstein as much as you want, but when you come in contact with another person as a work unit of some kind, you have to think as one. You have to figure out all the things that you've studied and that your mind is telling you, and then you have to figure out how to make it work as one, or you have a broken down team.

Business is nothing more than relationships. It's the secret.

A system depends on the players you have.

My job is to keep everyone together, strong big egos, and keep the peace in the family.

Leo Messi is a little football God. I love playing alongside him. We understand each other without needing to talk.

It's important for people to give every leader the chance to step forward and look for ways to have dialogue.

When the key players in your team perform well, the team does well, too.

As coaches say, it's about finding your role. We're coming together as a team.

I have always liked to have face-to-face talks with my bosses.

But I would not refuse a meeting with Putin. I would like to spend a week with Putin, so that I could better understand him.

There's always been conflict, inherent conflict between players and coaches.

I find it very easy and good to cooperate with President Donald Trump. Because he's very down to earth, very concrete. He tells me what he wants; he asks me what he can get from us.

When leaders choose to burn bridges instead of build them, they sacrifice their ability to do their jobs.

You learn to respect team chemistry. It's the fourth quarter, there's two minutes left, the shot clock is winding down, and we're like, 'What do we do?' We didn't have that flow. Chemistry comes down to repetition. It's not, 'We've played some games; we have chemistry now.'

Leadership requires the ability to engage and to create empathy for communities with disparate needs and ideas. Telling an effective story - especially in romantic suspense - demands a similar skill set.