Tim Cook Quotes

Whatever business you're in - it doesn't matter - it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value.

... whatever business you're in, it doesn't matter, it's going to commoditize over time, it's going to devalue, you've got to keep moving it to a higher value. Keep going to a higher value in whatever it is that you do and force yourself and force the organization to always do it ahead of time

The entrance strategy is actually more important than the exit strategy.

If we're building high quality companies, if the customers like the products, if the technology innovation is real, then the substance is going to win out in the end.

The PC is successful because we're all benefiting from the competition with each other. If Twitter comes along, our games benefit. If Nvidia makes better graphics technology, all the games are going to shine. If we come out with a better game, people are going to buy more PCs.

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.

You need more than just a great idea. Your product or service must add an enormous amount of value to some industry. If the idea isn't completely new, it has to be better, cheaper, or more efficient than what we already have.

The most essential thing for us was to get the business model right, then put the world-class technology under it to support it. At Merrill, that meant not doing what people expected.

A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.

The only way to generate sustained exponential growth is to make whatever you're making sufficiently good.

It's really hard to compete with Apple on pure coolness, and if you do, you're probably going to use some of the things they pioneered.

No matter how skillful you are, you can't invent a product advantage that doesn't exist. And if you do, and it's just a gimmick, it's going to fall apart anyway.

In the past, the U.K. got away with selling things that weren't unusual. Now it's no use trying to export without having something that's unusual and better.

Not long ago, the term 'business model' was not exactly on the tip of everyone's tongue. Then, in the early to mid-1990s, 'business model' became a catchphrase that described how a company makes money or saves money.

I learnt the hard way about positioning in business, about catering to the right segments.

As MBA professors endlessly tell their students, companies do best when they stick to what they do well. There's a reason Apple doesn't make blenders. There's a reason Haagen-Dazs doesn't sell meat. And there's a reason drug companies should focus on saving and improving lives - not jeopardizing them.

The founder of Dell found ways of delivering Hewlett Packard's most profitable products for much lower prices but forgot to deliver their quality so within a few years had fallen behind again. Ideas need constant renewal. A great idea will never be perfect and will never work perfectly in all markets and all seasons.

The basic idea that marketing is wrong at its core is one of the main reasons why innovation seems blocked and unpredictable.

Entrepreneurship is all about an idea that creates differentiated business value to one's customers. You must be able to convince your customers about the benefits that association with you or your products will give them. People are ready to pay if they are convinced about your services or products.

Once you understand business models you can then start prototyping business models just like you prototype products.

A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.

If you want to be promoted into the first league of carmakers, then you can't just follow suit.

If you really stay focused on what your beliefs are and what your customer wants, you'll find the right markets.

What we need to do is run our business. We need to come up with a value prop that is so compelling that customers have to go for it.

We don't go into a market without a chance of a 40 percent share and sustainable differentiation. We wouldn't get into wiring oil rigs if we didn't believe we could get 40 percent.