Dean Kamen Quotes

You need to be honest and always see new opportunities coming. So I call it intuition, innovation, execution - these are my working principles.

As an entrepreneur, you work out solutions.

We must improvise, and we must experiment, and we must do things that might go wrong, and everything we bring - the people and the equipment - must serve us in that goal.

You have to think that the answer - and the right answer - for you and your organization might not be something that's been done before. And it's up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do successfully.

I think entrepreneurship is combining a passion with the tenacity to problem-solve and the fearlessness to fail.

I'm a great collaborator. I really am. I will steal anyone's idea if it is a good one.

There's a key for every door, and if you can't find it, you can make one. That's always an option.

When something doesn't go exactly to plan, money is tight or a business is struggling - see it as a challenge rather than a failure. Look outside the box and try and find a solution - you'll be surprised how many great opportunities and possibilities arise when things look bad. You've just got to open your mind and not be afraid of sticking your neck out!

The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you've got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don't give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

Business is about people. It's about passion. It's about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas.

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.

I'm an engineer turned entrepreneur who's passionate about connection.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

In this business, you never say no to anything.

I've been fortunate to come on places where the question isn't why did I do it? The question to me is always, why didn't anybody else do it before me? Those are the ones that I scratch my head about.

I really want to be part of things from the ground up wherever possible. Not to say that I'm not open to being a gun for hire - I am, absolutely - but I really enjoy developing.

Creativity has always depended on openness and flexibility, so let us hope for more of both in the future.

We can always find creative ways to do things.

Part of being innovative in government is sometimes not trying to plot out the last chapter of the book, but to be open and see what comes back.

You know, I've always been very open to any project.

To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.

The heart of the entrepreneur can beat freely in anyone.

It's such a great thing to work with people and not have a plan.

I've never taken any issue off the table for lack of suitability. Only for lack of imagination.