Elon Musk Quotes

We can no longer let the threat of an early frost send a chill of fear throughout a large portion of our workforce. Diversification is the only answer.

The great decision was the Explorer program. The thing we did not do well is that we allowed and somewhat encouraged too much exposure to the program.

It's a very difficult business, and I'm very interested in the future of it after I'm gone, and I thought that if I can't produce a strong management team here myself, and I can find better management elsewhere, then I should sell it.

Successful enterprises are built from the ground up. You can't assemble them with a bunch of acquisitions.

Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.

What an entrepreneur does is to build for the long run. If the market is great, you get all of the resources you can. You build to it. But a good entrepreneur is always prepared to throttle back, put on the brakes, and if the world changes, adapt to the world.

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

I do not think I will die, but whether I do or not, the company will pursue the same policies.

If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead.

Reducing future risks requires paying some immediate costs.

You have to build businesses for longer term.

One Hundred Year Starship really is about the idea that is we pursue an extraordinary tomorrow; we'll build a better world today.

Many who know me or have worked for me are aware of my penchant for strategic planning. I consider it a critical component of the success of any organization and believe in the value of planning for a company's needs over multiple time horizons, as well as reviews against that plan at regular intervals.

Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run.

I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do.

What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?

A strong sense of purpose drives businesses to take the long view and invest for growth.

Urban planning should be done with the mindset that we are determining the city's fabric for 100 years to come.

I understand that fans think short-term, and there's nothing wrong with that. You live or you die in the short term. But I believe in our system, and when you do that, you don't make knee-jerk decisions.

Our job is to find out what's the next thing that is going to be advantageous to us and contribute to winning.

As a CEO, you have to take the active action to force most of your resources to stand idle from time to time - or go bankrupt.

You have to go through a process, but you have to understand, if your objective is to win the World Series, we may not be winning it in 2017 or 2018, but that's got to be what your goal is, and you have to have a plan to get there, and you have to know, every step of the way, are you on plan - on schedule - or not.

At the end of the day, you want to do what's best for your organization, present and future.

If the short-term decisions you make damage the long term, you should resist those. But there are many short-term decisions that you need to make to be a successful manager.

One of many strengths that I often see in successful women on Wall Street is a responsible balance between risk taking and risk mitigation - the ability to assess situations smartly and make the right medium-to-long-term decisions without being lured into reckless, short-term profit-taking.