Tim Cook Quotes

You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.

Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e., companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well.

You do what is manageable, and you do it well rather than trying to do a thousand things just a little bit OK.

Strategy 101 is about choices: You can't be all things to all people.

Focus is about saying, No. And the result of that focus is going to be some really great products where the total is much greater than the sum of the parts.

One skill of a great entrepreneur is to get a whole complicated discussion and then say, 'We're going to do this one and we're only going to do this one'. Managers are good at prioritizing. Entrepreneurs know what is the one thing.

Only when a man will not do some things is he capable of doing great things.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

When you do everything to make the very best product, it also means you're very focused on just a few products.

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, 'You guys are doing too much stuff.' He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We'd like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

In devoting more time and attention to fewer commitments, we can have a bigger impact on the things that matter most.

We need to execute fewer things better.

Do one thing well, and then build from there.

If you think about stripping away 80 percent of the things that don't matter and focusing on the the 20 percent that will actually make a difference, I think you'll find great results even in the toughest of situations and the harshest of environments.

It took me a long time to figure out that I didn't have to do everything, that it was actually a lot more helpful if I did a couple things really, really well than a whole bunch of things really badly, or nothing at all, because the whole thing was overwhelming.

I admit I'm choosy. That's because I like to concentrate on what I'm doing.

I just take everything one at a time and make sure everything I do is the best.

I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way.

We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose.....It's not just saying yes to the right products, it's saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as the other ones.

If you are going to have less things, they have to be great things.

Much better to do fewer things and have time to make the most of them.

Strive for excellence in few things, rather than good performance in many.

Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre

I focus on things that are the highest value and do them perfectly.

Don't think to hunt two hares with one dog.