Peter Drucker Quotes

You don't think, when you start a company as the founding CEO, that if your venture actually works, you end up with three jobs: founder, CEO, and chair of the board. The first eight years at Bonobos, I have learned a lot about the tension between the first two. It didn't even occur to me that I had the third job until much later.

In large companies, the CEO is very distant from operations.

The World Bank is a shareholder-driven organisation, and as in all such organisations, the majority of shareholders would want a manager of their liking at the top.

I'm the C.E.O., nominated by the shareholders. If they're not happy, I have to take the consequences.

An organization is a set of relationships that are persistent over time.

The lesson is that, No. 1, this management has to be at the highest class possible. No. 2, they have to have a succession plan.

That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

I'm willing to have two directors on the DuPont board, me being one of them.

In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.

I'm not too involved in day-to-day matters. I only supervise at the board level.

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.

You can't build a strong corporation with a lot of committees and a board that has to be consulted every turn. You have to be able to make decisions on your own.

I think there's few cases in history where the C.E.O. steps down and is also the founder and reports to someone and that works.

Lots of entrepreneurs don't want to be hassled by a board of directors early on. The entrepreneurs want to control the company, don't want to be responsible to a board, or don't want to waste time communicating with board members. This is a classic error of thinking about the early stage board incorrectly.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

Barack Obama is a president who, when he had to deal with the 2008 economic crisis, has led the American economy on a completely different path than the one that Europe has chosen eight years later.

Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.

The buck stops with me, but I can tick off dozens of very good senior executives that are responsible for hundreds or thousands of people who work for me.

I would love to be a corporate leader.

Hierarchy is an organization with its face toward the CEO and its ass toward the customer.

At the heart of any good business is a chief executive officer with one.

Leadership starts at the top.

You don't characterize CEOs as dealmakers or in any one particular area. An important characteristic of a CEO is leader. That's probably the most important characteristic.

In life and business, there are two cardinal sins, the first is to act precipitously without thought, and the second is to not act at all. Unfortunately the board of directors and top management of Times Warner already committed the first sin by merging with AOL, and we believe they are currently in the process of committing the second; now is not a time to move slowly and suffer the paralysis of inaction.