Andrew Cherng Quotes

When you turn a company profitable you've gone from a company whose days are numbered to a company whose days can be infinite.

Keep your shop, and your shop will keep you.

The way you continue to be a successful business is you don't wait for the car to go off the cliff. You have to manage yourself. And make sure you do it in the right way so you are not making decisions in crisis.

Some people want fame, popularity and huge sales. I've always hoped to have a really long career. So I've tried to make each of my creative decisions and business decisions to allow for longevity. As a side effect I got really famous and really big. I didn't realize the two could go together.

I opened Union Square Cafe when I was just 27 years old, and my first hope was simply that it would stay in business. My higher hope was that in its lifetime, it might grow to play an essential role in the lives of its stakeholders.

There was never any danger of Business 2.0 ever going under.

Companies like GE and Procter & Gamble have been in business for a long time. Over decades or a century you're bound to figure out a management structure that works.

My advice to fledgling entrepreneurs is always the same: build a company that you plan to be with for the next 10 years - that is the best way to increase your chances of success.

I'm a hard-nosed businessman, that if a company is paying its way, increasing profits for thirty-odd consecutive years, you don't put it into receivership.

My goal is to get another 30 years out of this business. So I need to figure out the fuel to do that. And so far, I think it's respect and quality and company, not celebrity or box office or stardom. It's not a sprinter's approach. It's more like a long-distance thing. You can stick around a lot longer if you kind of slow-play it.

I truly believe that the combination of a strong top line together with a strong bottom line is what makes for a sustainable business.

Companies that have been built and operated for a long time are the most successful companies.

If I get a lucky win, it is difficult to sustain that over time, so we have to maintain a style.

We are trying to build large, lasting businesses.

Knopf is solidly profitable, and that is how I intend to keep it.

I've always been terrified about not having money. I've been a big saver and a big earner. When I've been out of work, I've always found another job. I never wanted to get into debt, because money was very tight when I was growing up. I never felt deprived, but I couldn't have the things I wanted.

We're certainly interested in maximizing our return and doing it - we're interested in maximizing our return, but we're also interested in doing it over a long period of time and in doing it in a way that never endangers the firm from a survivability standpoint.

Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.

The one thing I don't do, that helps make me successful, is I don't rob Peter to pay Paul. All of my businesses have to stand on their own.

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.

If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.

I have never had personal debt and never will.