Brian Roberts Quotes

Why is it that big companies fail when the technology changes? It happens in every industry, so what's the pattern? What are they all doing wrong?

They're protecting an archaic industry. They should turn their attention to new models.

Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall. That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet.

Some of the most innocuous inventions have proven earth-shattering, with reverberations felt around the planet. The Internet is the poster child for disruptive technology, but even such inventions as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPod have rocked their respective industries by changing how we entertain ourselves.

Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.

I think Microsoft will have to change. I think that the business of Microsoft, the company of Microsoft, is going to continue to succeed. But I think the business model of Microsoft is going to have to change.

One of the things you learn operating in the technology industry is disruptions are occurring every day.

We, we - as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

Today, the forces of competition, technology, and globalization have converged to spur innovation and to transform the way business is done in the securities industry.

The way customers relate to brands and how profit is generated has changed so dramatically almost every professional is being challenged to reconsider what they do in order to stay relevant.

In the digital world, he who hesitates is abandoned. So you have to generate 3-D excitement with as many devices as you can find.

No one should expect building a new high-growth, software-powered company in an established industry to be easy. It's brutally difficult.

A disruptive innovation is a technologically simple innovation in the form of a product, service, or business model that takes root in a tier of the market that is unattractive to the established leaders in an industry.

I don't know what would have happened to Wal-Mart if we had laid low and never stirred up the competition. My guess is that we would have remained a strictly regional operator.

At XL we are continually focused on the rate of change, the increasingly interconnected world and the need to help our clients advance wherever their business occurs.

I tell young entrepreneurs to use the leader in their industry and as a benchmark as they work to create their own brand. Don't look at what your competition is doing - if you emulate the leader in your industry, you will achieve a higher level of engagement with consumers and make their buying experience richer.

But any big change is more likely to result if there is a disruptive event such as new technologies or platforms that have a surprising effect on market share.

As companies become bigger, the global environment more competitive, and the rate of disruptive technological innovation ever faster, the value to shareholders of attracting the best possible CEO increases correspondingly.

Unless you stay focused on innovation, you can be disintermediated.

Any small business that's predicated on technological innovation and is differentiated and superior can expand globally very effectively using the Internet as a vehicle for promotion.

You can't replicate Seamless or OpenTable for another industry.

I think that sometimes people talk about disruption, and I've seen tons of startups come in as disruptors and then disappear. And I think what we need to do as an industry is think about a world that is dominated by mobile and software and not extrapolate from what was. And I think a lot of big companies tend to want to do that.

I look at technology as a way for us to engage with and help our customers. If we don't do it, someone else is going to.

Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.

We use technology to make it cheaper, better, and faster for the client. And then if you have the most flow, you can win. Now, having said that, Silicon Valley wants to take on this business. They think they see an opening.