will.i.am Quotes

The CEO is, by far, the most important decision for a company... The company is going to rise and fall with the CEO.

Find somebody else to run your business on a day-to-day basis.

With some exceptions, the wrong people are running U.S. companies. It's been that way for years, and it hasn't gotten much better.

I certainly have no desire to sell a good controlled business run by people I like and admire, merely to obtain a fancy price. However, specific conditions may cause the sale of one operating unit at some point.

You can stay too long in a job, that's for sure. But by the same token, in the 12 years I have been CEO of GE, there have been four CEOs of Toshiba. So there's too short a time to do it, and there's too long a time to do it.

Quite often, people who build big businesses don't believe anyone else can run them, and you end up with an old rascal in their 70s and no one to take them on. I could name several - and I won't - who put themselves in that invidious position.

I do not want to be a long-term CEO.

If somebody's going on your board, and you're going to be C.E.O., it will help if that person knows how to be C.E.O., who has done it before.

Nobody is actually a natural C.E.O.

Michael Eisner let it be known last week that he had no intention of leaving the entertainment business once he steps down as CEO of Disney in October.

If I spend all of my day in the details as a CEO of a company like Wal-Mart, I think it would be trouble, because I wouldn't really be prepared to speak to the big issues that the country or the world should face.

Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, has been called 'Tim Cook's Tim Cook' by some.

Interestingly, many Indian companies where there's a father-and-son combination are being run as joint CEO organizations because the father has not given up running the company and the son is actively involved in running the company, and there is division of responsibilities.

I'm the non-executive chairman of nine or so major companies, and on the nine companies, it's a little trying because you jump from one industry to another, as the case might be. But one had the reasonable knowledge of those nine activities, and it's been an exciting job.

I don't think everyone wants to be a CEO.

I think running Apple is a great job, but it suits Steve Jobs so well. I wouldn't want to be the person that ran Apple after Steve, but he has a great job.

As much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.

Running a business is not the same as being president of the United States.

America is the largest corporation on the planet. You wouldn't hire a novice to run a similarly sized company in the private markets. My father has created more jobs through his private businesses than certainly any of the candidates. Mitt Romney has executive experience, but it's a different type. He didn't run entrepreneurial businesses.

I think the fact that father is running now as opposed to in 2012 where he didn't that he's had enough faith in myself and my siblings to be able to run the company.We've got tens of thousands of people that are under his direct employ. Those people, he wouldn't leave a company and leave those people and their lives and everything they've put into it at risk if he didn't think there was competent leadership to take over after him.

Being an entrepreneur is not about being in love with an idea, it's about being in love with running a company.

I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World.

Donald Trump says he wants to run America like he's running his business? God help us.

People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesi.

You don't characterize CEOs as dealmakers or in any one particular area. An important characteristic of a CEO is leader. That's probably the most important characteristic.