Ally Carter Quotes

There were some entrepreneurial du Ponts that are a little different from the heads of the corporations today.

My parents were entrepreneurs. I grew up believing in the power of innovation.

I consider myself an inventor first and an entrepreneur second. In real life, my hero is Thomas Edison. He was a great inventor, but also an outstanding entrepreneur who was able to sell his inventions to the masses. He didn't just develop the light bulb; he invented the entire electric grid and power distribution system.

Thank God, I have the opportunity to do what I love, which is my family and work on a business and try and make it the best that it can be.

I've helped some of my classmates on how to strategize to get to the next level of their businesses. And it's interesting, because here I am sitting there from the entertainment industry and the fashion industry, and I'm giving a billionaire that has a business that's been in his family for 300 years - I'm giving him advice about strategy!

A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.

I've been in tankers for 50 years, and I like it. For me, it's still fun.

When we began Qualcomm, it had become quite clear that it was very important to patent new ideas.

My company invents all kinds of new technology in lots of different areas. And we do that for a couple of reasons. We invent for fun - invention is a lot of fun to do - and we also invent for profit. The two are related because the profit actually takes long enough that if it isn't fun, you wouldn't have the time to do it.

The family on my mom's side, their whole business is inventing and pitching stuff. My grandfather is in infomercials. He's a pitchman, so if you're ever watching TV late at night, you'll probably see him pitching knives. My great-grandfather also invented the plastic cheese grater.

Disruption is in my genes. My father owned one of the first discount toy stores, Duane's Toyland, in Albany and Schenectady, near where I grew up. Discount was always a huge disruptor - it disrupted Sears Roebuck.

I'm inspired every day by the great captains of industry and enlightened entrepreneurs like my great-great-grandfather and founder of Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli, who personally knew all his workers and gave so much to this country, or Adriano Olivetti, unique and innovative in every way.

I had to learn everything about manufacturing, patents and how to run a business, and eventually I came up with an prototype that worked.

I love boats. Anything that runs, anything mechanical. It's my God-given passion in life.

America started out as an invention society.

In America, innovation does not just improve our lives. It is the way we make our living.

I have a mother who never took no for an answer when it came to her creative pursuits. She started a hair salon in her spare bedroom and four years later had 30 employees.

The fact that my father set out on his own to build Hyatt - a business the family was not in and a business he was learning about as he was building it - is instructive.

My future was planned before my birth. I was supposed to get married or be involved in the family business. But I was all about breaking barriers and started thinking out of the box when I was 13-14 years old. Finally, at 17, I floated my own Microfinance Institution (MFI) called Svatantra.

Good work in the building of my vessel stood me always in good stead.

You know, Dr. Edwin Land was a troublemaker. He dropped out of Harvard and founded Polaroid. Not only was he one of the great inventors of our time but, more important, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that. Polaroid did that for some years, but eventually Dr. Land, one of those brilliant troublemakers, was asked to leave his own company - which is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of.

But if the 1 percent and the 0.1 percent are respected and allowed to risk their wealth - and new rebels are allowed to rise up and challenge them - America will continue to be the land where the last regularly become the first by serving others.

That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I’m pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we’d ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana.

Know your stuff. Have an angle. Know how to grow business, how to develop products, have patents and an undeveloped market that could be huge.

My father built low- and moderate-income housing in Queens and Brooklyn. I learned a lot from him. But I went in a different direction. I built Trump Tower in Manhattan, the most luxurious building in the world. It's not going to be easy for my son, but maybe it shouldn't be easy. Life is, after all, a test.