Patrick M. Byrne Quotes

Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.

We use technology to make it cheaper, better, and faster for the client. And then if you have the most flow, you can win. Now, having said that, Silicon Valley wants to take on this business. They think they see an opening.

This is the age of disruption.

Not everybody wants to be Mark Zuckerberg, but everybody wants to create a little piece of the American dream, the Silicon Valley version. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Before I came to Silicon Valley I was in Beijing, China and I was twenty-seven. When I saw the Internet, I immediately realized that it was going to change everything.

When you look around Silicon Valley at new companies, there are very few ideas that are going to make a dent in the universe.

The benefit to building a startup is that customers don't have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption.

History is littered with great firms that got killed by disruption. Of course, the personal computer, a technology that first took root as a toy, got Digital Equipment Corporation. Kodak missed the boat for a long time on digital imaging. Sony was slow to get MP3 technology. Microsoft doesn't know what to do with open source software. And so on.

I'm a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

Every kid coming out of Harvard, every kid coming out of school now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and with these new technologies like cloud computing, he actually has a shot.

Amazon has well passed any expectations of its ability to change distribution and marketing.

Disruption is a critical element of the evolution of technology - from the positive and negative aspects of disruption a typical pattern emerges, as new technologies come to market and subsequently take hold.

I often have said to people that there are really two cities in the country where the outlook is always forward-looking - there is never really a backward-looking tendency. My banking work has taken me out to Palo Alto, what is commonly called Silicon Valley. And you sense out there is always a forward-looking outlook. And New York City.

Is there anyone out there who is the next Steve Jobs? I think Jeff Bezos is pretty close. He is very smart. He is extremely creative. He has completely reinvented the way in which commerce is done online.

I don't think love for technology itself breeds change.

We are proposing that there is value in a totally new product category and a totally new set of questions. Just like the Apple II proposed, 'Would you reasonably want a computer in your home if you weren't an accountant or professional?' That is the question Glass is asking, and I hope in the end that is how it will be judged.

It's very difficult in the technology space when you have been leapfrogged to prosper again.

Something new will always be the source of growth in Silicon Valley.

History is replete with examples of tech firms that were marginalized by new companies and technologies.

I got lucky because my dad moved us to Silicon Valley before it really was known worldwide as an important tech hub.

Now along comes the potential creative destruction brought by a different distribution methodology, the Internet.

Whether it's steamships disrupted by the railroads or railroads disrupted by the airlines, it's typically the large entrenched incumbents that are displaced by innovators.

The more angels we have in Silicon Valley, the better. We are funding innovation. We are funding the next Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

Innovation and disruption are the hallmarks of the technology world, and hardly a moment passes when we are not thinking, doing, or talking about these topics.