Mark V. Hurd Quotes

I would never suggest anyone to stay at a company more than six or seven years. We grow as individuals and the world is moving so fast. Typically, I'll always sell a piece of each of my companies along the way.

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

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.

There's always something happening in the world that creates an opportunity to try to fix a business and build a business.

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

Basically if you study entrepreneurs, there is a misnomer: People think that entrepreneurs take risk, and they get rewarded because they take risk. In reality entrepreneurs do everything they can to minimize risk. They are not interested in taking risk. They want free lunches and they go after free lunches.

American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up.

If you're doing business, not that simple to only buy. You have to create something. You have to create something that never exist for the future.

New products, new markets, new investors, and new ways of doing things are the lifeblood of growth. And while each innovation carries potential risk, businesses that don't innovate will eventually diminish.

In 2001, I did some research and identified four characteristics that successful companies share. One, they aspire to be leaders in their businesses. Two, they have global potential. Three, they are innovative. Four, they display a ruthless focus on financial returns.

Dream, diversify-and never miss an angle.

I love the business of business; I love the risk raking.

An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth.

I love doing deals and operating companies.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Business is all about risk taking and managing uncertainties and turbulence.

Building fast-growing, globally competitive companies is tough.

I always recommend, if you can, to patent or protect whatever your idea is. If you can't, you have to make your best judgment. Sometimes people don't get anywhere because they sit on something, so afraid to reveal it. And yet, in the reverse, sometimes if you expose something too widely, you can risk losing it.

For most Indians in America, wealth is not inherited. Neither do we make it as heads of large hedge funds and private equity funds. For us to make it to the top, we have to use our knowhow to create great new technology products and build high-tech companies.

Most of what we've done at SurveyMonkey is create a market, which I would say is much harder than trying to enter a market that already exists. But if you get it right, it can become a great business.

I've always had to create my own markets and I've always been at a juncture in my career.

I know how to make stuff happen, how to create wealth, create jobs, create investment.

The essence of good business is knowing when to step on a train and when to step off.

If you look historically, what creates growth and wealth is innovation and investment, and increase in scale - more customers.

Growing Ineos has been a lot of fun.