Tom Hopkins Quotes

If people tell you it's impossible, it's an even better reason to want to do it. People have a tendency to see the problem rather than the final result. If you treat the problems as possibilities, life will start to dance with you in the most amazing ways.

In Silicon Valley, if you spend a lot of time thinking about the obstacles, you'll talk yourself out of everything, because the more you look at it, the less logical something sounds, since no one has done it yet.

The impossible - we are told - cannot be achieved. To overcome the 'impossible,' we need to use our wits and be fearless. We need to break the rules and to circumvent - some would one say to cheat.

Today's accomplishments were yesterday's impossibilities.

Part of the challenge of being an entrepreneur, if you're going for a really huge opportunity, is trying to find problems that aren't quite on the radar yet and try to solve those.

A mistake is simply another way of doing things.

The best work for creative folks on the team is when the problem is big and the solution escapes everyone.

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems.

Think on your toes, use what's around you, and come up with something organic and fun.

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

Oculus is a company that often does things differently. But we don't want to do things so differently that we start to get into trouble.

I think there is something to be said for what you can do when you don't know what you aren't supposed to be able to do.

The thing about genius is it will never yield to circumstances. Genius regards what's given as the beginning of its need to find or devise something else.

Innovation often starts with the ordinary. They simply took what was "normal", and added a twist. They added an innovation. The innovation solved a key problem of the "normal" use case that we all already understood.

Crazy ideas sometimes work, and the technological society that we have is built on a foundation of those crazy ideas that work.

Instead of being intimidated by the limitations, be inspired to find new ways around them.

The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest.

If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.

Necessity, they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.

To have a major breakthrough in policy, you have to be able to stop and think.

We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You’re on it, and you can’t get off.

Enterprise is first creativity. You need creativity to see what's out there and shape it to your advantage. You need creativity to look at the world a little differently. You need creativity to take a different approach, to be different.

I'm not a professional politician. I'm a professional problem solver.

Impossible just means they ain't thought of a name for it yet.

I find inspiration everywhere. I love challenges and my favorite thing is to find something ridiculous and be like "if it's all that I have available to me, I am gonna make it look the best that I can".