Tobias Lutke Quotes

I've taken the leap of faith to stop punching the company time clock and start working for myself. I'm now the CEO of Starfish Media Group, my production company, in New York City.

I wanted to be my own boss. I was fascinated by airlines and how I could change travel for the average person. Then I wanted to diversify.

I thought, 'I have ideas. I'm creative.' I just didn't see why I should be pigeon-holing myself in the business world or staying in corporate America when I already knew that I was capable of taking risks.

I had been an independent entrepreneur from the beginning, and I felt I could do it myself. I didn't want to get a job.

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

I was well motivated. What I wanted to do was work for myself. I had twenty two jobs before I started my business at the age of twenty three and I didn't want one more boss telling me what to do. So I was motivated simply because I didn't want a boss.

You have to create your own stuff. It's really exciting to create something, sell it, and feel like I'm not just a pawn waiting to be cast.

I thought, if I went into business I'd be able to control my own destiny.

At age 28, I had no retail experience, no consumer marketing experience and no real Internet experience. But I decided I wanted to work for myself. I felt starting a company would enable me to get the responsibility I deserved and that I couldn't do that within the confines of a bigger company.

As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee.

I never wanted to work for anybody else; I always wanted to be my own boss.

I suspect there's a lot of validity to the premise that big companies aren't going to attract entrepreneurial talent.

For me, I've always been an entrepreneur.

A lot of the reason I wanted to become an entrepreneur and avoid working for others is that you get to create the world you want to live in and the company you want to work for, and I've loved that. It's a part of entrepreneurship that women should really embrace.

All of us have an entrepreneur in us.

Part of the American dream is 'I can own my own business, I can control my destiny. I can have the opportunity to work for myself.'

If you immediately take a job somewhere, you've given up on the dream of being an entrepreneur and creating jobs for people and making new technologies and making new paths.

I'm an entrepreneur.

If you're positioned to start your own organization, that's great - but rare.

If you're looking to become an entrepreneur then don't waste your time going to university or business school - just get on and do it.

I think the hallmark of a really good entrepreneur is that you're not really going to build one specific company. The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneurship - is you realize one day that you can't really work for anyone else. You have to start your own thing. It almost doesn't matter what that thing is.

When I was starting out, being a young entrepreneur was not fashionable. Parents would ask, 'When are you going to get a real job?'

I may not be able to work for anybody else again. I may just have to work for myself.

Your parents ask you to follow the standard path: School, job, security. Is this really the best way? I don't think so - be your own boss!

Entrepreneurs: The only people who work 80 hour weeks to avoid working 40 hour weeks.