Transparency, accountability and sustainability have become the slogans of the market leaders. Companies carry out environmental and social audits to court the consumer, and even the bluest chips woo organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty.
Market leaders inevitably slip into decline when they tell the people what they want instead of giving the people what they want.
It only takes a handful of sizeable companies to reach a tipping point and to transform markets.
We always enter markets where the leaders are not doing a great job, so we can go in and disrupt them by offering better quality services.
We like to invest in market leaders.
Breaking the rules and challenging convention is in the DNA of every successful entrepreneur. Doing things differently and solving problems with new, innovative and fresh approaches are the very reason many start-ups are able to compete and sometimes outpace the established market leaders.
It would be easier to screw up American Express than Coke or Gillette, but it's an immensely strong business.
The Internet rewards scale; by trading higher up-front costs for lower marginal cost, market leaders can invest in better technology and service. As a result, there is nothing online that is both great in quality and small in scale. Amazon wasn't originally a better bookstore than the small shops we mourn, but it is now.
I believe confusion is good. Worldwide market leaders gain when there is confusion in the market.
Look at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. They have all entered many sectors, and actually, in many of those sectors, they weren't as early as Tencent.
If you look at the numbers from 2002 to 2016, we have consistently been market leaders. We have followed a well-articulated strategy, and our focus is to continue that strategy.
With tech companies, whoever's the leader is always questioned, you know. They say, 'Is this the end of them?' And - there's more - more times people think that's the case than it really is the case.
The best merchants in the world aren't the ones predicting what's cool next; we're the ones dictating what's cool next.
Every time you see a new paradigm emerge, it's always new vendors that lead it. I can't think of one case where an incumbent led a paradigm shift.
