Tim Cook Quotes

You can't build any kind of organization if you're not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

The greatest luck that I've had has been the ability to find men and women who came into my administration who worked with me and brought extraordinary talents that we were able to take full advantage of.

I just want to work with the best people I can get my hands on.

If there's any secret to my success, it's that I just hire people who are smarter and more talented than I am.

An entrepreneur need not know everything but he or she should lead a team of persons who are thorough in different aspects.

The smartest thing a director can do is surround himself with really good people.

The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. That's 20 percent of my week.

Growth and profit are a product of how people work together.

As I've conducted my interviews with crowdsourcing entrepreneurs and experts, it's constantly hit me that your ability to do something big and bold is really a function of the size and quality of your crowd.

One of the things I learned from working on the Olympics was, the world does not need another big multimedia show.

People say the most important thing is building a world-class team.

Obviously I've got a great team of people within the company. You can't operate all by yourself. We have a good board of directors and a big bench, and they can make decisions if I'm not around.

The important thing is to get the right players on the team so Mike can be successful.

Everybody on my team - I couldn't do their jobs. I could not. I really mean that. So I figured out early on that the way you're successful is you hire really successful people.

I believe the director's primary role is to create an atmosphere where his company can be created.

I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it's 80 percent.

The skilful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man.

In order to build a great technology company, you have to hire lots of incredibly smart people. It's a total waste to have lots of big brains but not let them work on your biggest problems.

So I won't say I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.

As a director, you have to understand what is happening - if I don't understand it, you can't make changes.

I like to make everything my friends are involved in a little better. I should have just become a manager.

You can have a phenomenal technology with bad people; you're not gonna have much success. You can have mediocre technology with great people; they'll figure out a way to make a buck.

What I learned at LucasArts was, you don't make your bets on ideas: ideas are cheap. You make your bets on people.

Whether it's developers or industry veterans on the business side, top talent likes to work together.

The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.