Dean Kamen Quotes

The Pentagon should use data to guide financial decision-making.

Creativity should be balanced with commercial interests.

You have to make a decision whether it's a new product or you integrate it with an existing product. It takes time to work these things out.

We're certainly interested in maximizing our return and doing it - we're interested in maximizing our return, but we're also interested in doing it over a long period of time and in doing it in a way that never endangers the firm from a survivability standpoint.

Our ultimate goal is to stay in business. We are not here with a specific plan. That's kind of how our entire career has evolved. We will figure things out as we go along.

The emphasis on innovation and technology in our companies has resulted in a few of them establishing global benchmarks in product design and development, manufacturing practices and human resource capabilities. However, there is no room for complacency.

If you're successful and growing, you can manage any way you want to. Growth makes so many dimensions of management easier. It's when growth stops that things get tough.

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.

It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

I learned that you shouldn't take your most esoteric concept and fit it into the largest space with the highest fixed costs. It puts too much pressure on the restaurant to hit grand slams every day when there just aren't enough people who want to watch that sport.

I remember very clearly at the first budget review having a pretty direct conversation with the head of manufacturing... We began to get huge improvements in productivity and responsiveness. I got a chance to see that firsthand.

The second thing we did was said, OK, we've now identified the risk, but what do you want to do with the money? Because it's not enough to have risk; you've got to have a meaningful use for the money we give you.

I want to take TSA to the next level.

The effort invested in 'getting it right' should be commensurate with the importance of the decision.

Efficiency innovations provide return on investment in 12-18 months. Empowering innovations take 5-10 years to yield a return. We have ample capital - oceans of capital - that is being reinvested into efficiency innovation.

It is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.

Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.

One of the great responsibilities that I have is to manage my assets wisely, so that they create value.

The key, I think, from a business point of view, is to learn how to be efficient in making a record that's not too expensive, so that you're not going crazy spending tons of money making a product that might not ever return that money.

Creating value isn't enough - you also need to capture some of the value you create.

If companies don't think systemically enough - if they try to capture too much of the value - eventually, innovation moves somewhere else.

Intelligence collection has its place—no question—… But no matter how important collection is, in the short and even the long run, it just doesn’t cost very much.

One of the challenges of a good policy is trying to figure out what your priorities are.

We must strike a balance between speed and thoroughness, between the need for time frames and the avoidance of mistakes which will later cost us dearly.

We have multiple challenges competing for finite resources—–and grotesque uncertainty with regard to the military budget.