Ben Elliot Quotes

I routinely make trips to China and India where we have offices to continue to maintain the linkages that are necessary to run a successful business.

Technology has saved us money in some circumstances, but it has really afforded us the ability to cover stories from locations we might not have been able to in the past.

All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.

I travel probably four days a week. That's the game of international development. You have to be at your properties. No developer is successful sitting behind their desk.

I am not concerned about my foreign audience.

I don't think it's any different if I'm in the U.S. or in London. I look at operations globally.

If you run a global business, it's so important that you understand what happens in each place, and you can't do that remotely. I don't want to go anywhere and leave and not have seen the people who work for us. That doesn't feel good.

As an Indian company, to go outside India and motivate people, have them align to our vision, and get them excited about what an Indian company can do was a hard thing to pull off.

We have to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space, across five-and-a-half time zones, in what as once a wilderness of scattered settlements, in what is now a sprawl of suburban edge cities and satellite towns. Technology forges connections and disconnections here.

I am sure innovation will blossom around the world, given that the Internet and mobile platforms enable innovators anywhere in the world to reach a global market with ease.

A Swedish physicist can not discuss his work with fifty people unless he goes abroad. A Swedish economist can get opinions and instructions in his native language from thousands upon thousands of his fellow citizens.

We can collaborate with a Netscape employee or partner who's halfway around the world. We can distribute information and software to customers and shareholders, and get their feedback.

I can go all over the world with Skype.

The kids think we're wacky. Mum and Dad are in showbiz - they don't know any other way. They've grown up travelling all over the world and are getting a worldly education. My son is 12 and he can speak eloquently on religions and cultures.

Who would have thought that the telephone would bring back drawing?

I encourage all my key people to bring their mobiles when they travel.

Increasingly, corporate executives who don't speak Japanese are coming into Japan. Unlike their predecessors, they expect their employees to be able to communicate in English.

No day is similar to another, but usually mail is part of my start of the day. Our company never sleeps: we have business in 180 countries, so there are no real mornings or nights.

At HBO, my leadership had to inspire and gain the respect of employees in a large company with over 100 external business relationships in dozens of countries.

Globalize yourself!

Americans' scandalous incompetence in foreign languages also explains our dangerously inadequate understanding of world affairs.

Our team has always believed that neither cost and distance should ever prevent people from connecting with their friends and loved ones, and won't rest until everyone, everywhere is empowered with that opportunity.

I think U.S. and Chinese businesses need a common language and dialogue.

The only thing that kept us from going bigger worldwide was the language barrier. All the corn that we did on 'Hee Haw,' it was hard to translate into their slang.

You can't compete globally unless you have appropriate communication skills.