Steve Ballmer Quotes

We like to say at Khosla Ventures, and this is one of the reasons to do what we do, we'll take technical risks that nobody else will.

We had this unbelievable faith that no business has done, quite frankly, and we tripped along the way doing it, but within two years, we were in 40-plus countries. So we ran at an amazing pace, and this is where venture capitalists play a role. Making Groupon into what it is today, we had no role in it; the entrepreneurs did it.

We need an economy that fosters and encourages competition and innovation.

Many first-time founders fail to understand the difference between the potential of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and the very finite subsection they can hope to capture. No company ever captures the entire market they pioneer. Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and others will jump in from the moment you've identified the potential.

No company has a permanent consumer franchise. No one has the only game in town. The never-ending cycle of destruction and change inherent in a capitalist economy always provides new opportunities for those with determination, goals and concentration.

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

The Internet free marketplace is defined by fierce competition. And that competition has transformed the world with innovation, investment, and what we need most of all right now: jobs.

We invented television and stuck with it for 50 years, and then I decided to get out of that. I would like people to know that we are broader than consumer electronics.

I didn't have that when I invented MyPillow. I didn't have a safety net.

Technology companies tend to operate in winner-take-all spaces and thus adopt a very high-commitment culture.

I'll put every cent that Wanxiang earns into making electric vehicles. I'll burn as much cash as it takes to succeed, or until Wanxiang goes bust.

The pace of change in marketing and the marketplace continues to accelerate. Unicorn companies are challenging long-established brands, and categories are being re-imagined.

Companies that tend to survive are the rebels.

If you immediately take a job somewhere, you've given up on the dream of being an entrepreneur and creating jobs for people and making new technologies and making new paths.

At some point, Apple will become much more aggressive and much more daring in taking their brand and capital to really reshaping markets.

It never seems like a good idea to do something that's way out there. But usually, the thing that's way out there is where we are heading.

When you look around Silicon Valley at new companies, there are very few ideas that are going to make a dent in the universe.

Often-times it's madness, not genius that moves the world forward. Who else but the mad would reach so far, stretching for the impossible and, in so doing, prove the impossible possible!

To most observers, innovation is a solitary process that requires creativity and genius, perhaps even greatness. It can't, in their view, be managed or predicted, just hoped for and, perhaps, facilitated. But for me innovation was and still is more than that. It was a battle in the marketplace between innovators or attackers trying to make money by changing the order of things, and defenders protecting their cash flow.

I want to be in an industry where the upstarts can grow and displace the incumbents, because that's why there's so much innovation.

You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or the wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beaten you to it and you are out of business.

In this remarkable time for the world, I refuse to believe it's time to stop believing in the possibilities of our remarkable country. I refuse to accept the downsizing of the American Dream. I refuse to bet against American entrepreneurial spirit and American ingenuity.The competition's tough, and it requires us to be tougher - tough-minded, never hard hearted.

For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe it's better to shoot higher. You don't want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what's possible and how to make the world better.

An entrepreneur is someone who dares to dream the dreams and is foolish enough to try to make those dreams come true.

An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life.