Michael Lewis Quotes

One great worker equals three not-so-great workers, so it's worth paying terrific people not just for today but to find people that we think have upward mobility to become tomorrow's leaders.

People actually aren't moving on from companies much more quickly than in the past, but there's a perception that they do, so companies are investing less in talent on the assumption that young employees won't stay long.

I want to negotiate what I'm worth. I want to put my analytics forward, man-to-man, and to be like, 'This is what I'm owed now. Pay me.' And then we can talk.

One of the challenges of having exceptionally high quality talent is that they're constantly restless, and they're constantly on the lookout for opportunities.

Today, a skilled manager makes more than the owner. And owners fight each other to get the skilled managers.

You have got to attract the brightest and the best, but the brightest and best won't stay unless they see real career options.

I don't pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.

Really in technology, it's about the people, getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.

I have been firming up and making changes in my roster for 2001. This needs to be done from now and then, to make sure what you are booking is working, and to keep a balance in your roster that works.

When you're having conversations about actors, you realize these same conversations have happened about you. If you want to make a film for $5m, then you cast A, B and C, but if you want $20m, you won't be able to cast them, you need X, Y and Z.

About half the people at Valve have run their own companies, so they always have the option not just to take a job at another game company, but to go start their own company. The question you always have to answer is, 'How are we making these people more valuable than they would be elsewhere?'

The actors are in control, getting outrageous amounts of money. The reason they're getting this kind of money is because the studios don't know what else to do. They don't have a clue about what to do except to pay an actor a lot of money.

What I learned at Miramax is that if you see where extraordinary creative talent can be brought into the family, move quickly, because if you don't, someone else will.

The key is grow your talent, attract talent, and then you'll attract the institutions that want to be around talent - and that, to me, is what we need to do at the national level.

When it comes to setting the market values, I let that stuff take care of itself. I know my value in this league, and I know the team appreciates me. I'm going to continue to make myself an indispensable part of this roster. When you do that, when your time comes up to get a contract, you usually get a contract extension.

If people work for me over the years, I expect them to be paid what they're owed, but I don't expect them to be paid more than they earn.

I think that's the responsibility of the CEO and the CEOs below me: to make sure that we're constantly putting people in places where they have the opportunity to develop into those careers but also having a rewards and recognition system that allows a great programmer to stay as a great programmer.

The catch in the industry is that if you want to get a picture made for little money, you have to get a big star. But the two are usually mutually exclusive.

Successful business leaders who have helped build institutions of lasting value - all are committed to talent and a culture of excellence. This is usually accomplished by the identification, retention, and development of great people.

Running businesses of all sizes and stages, I've seen the challenges companies face in trying to identify, attract, and retain talent.

Nobody's offering me $100,000 for a video.

Hiring and retaining talent in the tech industry is expensive and vital. Those people have real power over their bosses, especially because it is often fairly easy for them to find work elsewhere, and employee walkouts are terrible PR for these leaders who are often obsessed with their public image.

A talented executive whose interests are aligned with the firm's and is confident in her role will always recruit stars who exceed herself in various ways, but one who is worried about her value to the firm will not.

Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Quinn Buckner, Scott Wedman. Even if you get talent like that, it's hard to keep talent like that together.

More and more, leadership, whether it's profit or nonprofit, is about recruiting and keeping talented people. That's the biggest challenge. Yes, you've got to create systems that will enable people easily to innovate continuously; you've got to be a system-builder. But finding and keeping geeks and shrinks is the biggest challenge. That means leaders have got to be salespeople, they've got to be recruiters, and they've got to be actively able to understand and keep the talent they have. Leadership is courtship. That's what it's becoming.