Randall L. Stephenson Quotes

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

You've got to figure out how you're going to come in and significantly impact and redefine a market such that you become a market share leader in it.

Most of what we've done at SurveyMonkey is create a market, which I would say is much harder than trying to enter a market that already exists. But if you get it right, it can become a great business.

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.

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

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

No company has a permanent consumer franchise. No one has the only game in town. The never-ending cycle of destruction and change inherent in a capitalist economy always provides new opportunities for those with determination, goals and concentration.

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.

Our view is that just because Amazon can disrupt somebody else's profit stream, it doesn't mean that Amazon earns that profit stream.

Being a 'monopoly' is not illegal, nor is trying to best one's competitors through lower prices, better customer service, greater efficiency, or more rapid innovation.

I think the challenge for all technology companies is to modify what they're doing to be what the market needs at that point.

I believe confusion is good. Worldwide market leaders gain when there is confusion in the market.

In a competitive industry, only paranoid incumbents - those constantly striving for betterment - have any hope of surviving.

A monopoly is like running on firm ground. Nothing compels you to move, but if you do, you move forward. The faster you run, the more scenery you see - so you have some incentive to run fast.

If a company is not a monopoly, then the law assumes market competition can restrain the company's actions. No problem. If a monopoly exists, but the monopoly does not engage in acts designed to destroy competition, then we can assume that it earned and is keeping its monopoly the pro-consumer way: by out-innovating its competitors.

You can't be in a certain business and not sell to Amazon or not sell to Wal-Mart. You have to reckon with them, because even though there are other buyers, they're the only buyers that matter.

I think our Acompli acquisition was an interesting one, which started with a partnership and looking at their mobile e-mail app on iOS and Android. And what I would like to highlight with that one is the speed that we actually turned that around and brought it out the door.

Competition matters.

Of course I'm not stupid enough to think that we could take on WWE head-on and win, because they're too big of a monster.

At Netflix, we realized that we weren't in business with the Toshibas and the Sonys of the world. We were in business with the guy sitting at home trying to find a DVD to watch. If we had the courage to focus on him, everyone - movie studios, electronics companies, Netflix itself - won.

Many first-time founders fail to understand the difference between the potential of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and the very finite subsection they can hope to capture. No company ever captures the entire market they pioneer. Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and others will jump in from the moment you've identified the potential.

Benchmark has threatened to block investments that could bolster Uber's competitive position in global markets by bargaining over board seats and its own control.

Innovation means taking risks, and that is where the private sector can play a role.

Innovation is critical to the heartbeat of any successful corporation in the industrialized world.

Make a list of competitors who will be disrupted by you. You do have competitors, right? You are better, right? If not, why are you going to Disrupt? Post a blog post about them and what makes you different.