Gary Hamel Quotes

Breaking the rules and challenging convention is in the DNA of every successful entrepreneur.

Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules.

Entrepreneurs are misfits to the core. They forge ahead, making their own path and always, always, question the status quo.

To be successful, you don't have to have all this crazy start-up capital or a ton of knowledge. I think it's actually helpful sometimes to not know all the rules because that way it's easier to break them.

Great founders live for chaotic moments.

I feel that one thing that a businessman can learn is do not follow a path that has already been successful. You will never be a path-breaker then.

My favorite quote about entrepreneurship is that to understand an entrepreneur, you should study a juvenile delinquent. They're both saying: "This sucks and I'm going to do it another way." You have to want to break the rules and prove that your way works.

I'm also a big believer of being a scrappy entrepreneur. To be successful you don't have to have all this crazy start-up capital or a ton of knowledge. I think it's actually helpful sometimes to not know all the rules because that way it's easier to break them. And that's why it's so much easier for younger people, I think, to start companies that are challenging more traditional business models than older people. Especially if you're trying to do something good.

I want to do something different, really different, and if it alienates people that's too bad.

Creativity and business acumen don't always go hand in hand.

It is the creative and enterprising spirit of people that is indispensable. Everything else is supplemental.

In Silicon Valley, if you spend a lot of time thinking about the obstacles, you'll talk yourself out of everything, because the more you look at it, the less logical something sounds, since no one has done it yet.

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.

If no one ever broke the rules, then we'd never advance.

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

I like entrepreneurial people; I like people who take risks.

I knew nothing about the industry, I didn't go to fashion school, but I was brave enough to do things in a different way.

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

The man with a new idea is a crank until his idea succeeds.

I think Uber is just very different; there's no model to copy. It may be the reason why we've been a lightning rod in so many ways, because we don't do anything conventional... And then I think also, as an entrepreneur, I'm a bit of a lone wolf.

A lot of times, the people who have the confidence to say, 'I don't know what the rules are, so I'm just going to do what I want,' are the most exciting people.

It's important to be unconventional.

In a startup, there have to be challenges. Otherwise, someone else would have done it already. And that's almost the most exciting part.

Companies that tend to survive are the rebels.

You need to be a little crazy to change the world, and you can’t really fake it.