William Lyon Phelps Quotes

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

News organisations that have been around a while have a lot of traditions and ways of doing things that may have served them for many years but perhaps make them less flexible in the digital era. As an entrepreneur, it just makes more sense to start something new.

We tell prospective hires, 'If you want an environment that is never going to change, don't come here. This is not the place for you.'

You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.

The only way to avoid disruption is to constantly do what you would if you were just starting out.

The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday's logic.

A Start Up is an institution designed to thrive in the soil of extreme uncertainty

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change.

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.

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.

I like change, and I like being in the middle of change.

Technology-fueled change is happening so fast that even a six-month-old process could be outdated. Saying this is the way it's always been done not only makes you sound lazy and resistant to change, but it could make your boss wonder why you haven't tried to improve things on your own.

I take a lean-startup approach: creating agile, interdisciplinary teams that get the minimum viable product to market as soon as possible. It's my job to be entrepreneur-in-residence, an internal change agent.

As soon as you know what you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

Each new situation requires a new architecture.

Our only security is our ability to change.

There has to be a willingness to constantly accept critical feedback and rapidly iterate to make things better.

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence - only in constant improvement and constant change.

We need to build change in to our systems and let these systems evolve as circumstances change. Change is inevitable, but we need to do a better job of dealing with it, because when we start building huge gleaming monoliths, I think we start getting into trouble.

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

Embracing change is central to Amazon's DNA.

One of the difficult things in a high-growth company is that, even with the best intentions, the company moves so fast, and growth happens so regularly. When you move at that rate, you have to be willing to change, and you have to be willing to take advice.

I used to have a five-year plan when I was younger. But that's changed. Technology is changing every day. So you have to live in the day. You have to see what the opportunities are, and go for them.

Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent.

In a world that's changing so quickly, you're guaranteed to fail if you don't take any risks.