Elon Musk, Tesla/SpaceX, on why he mistrusts process
"When I interview a potential employee and he or she says that 'it's all about the process,' I see that as a bad sign.
"The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You're encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren't that smart, who aren't that creative."
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, on pushing yourself
"I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that's how you grow. When there's that moment of 'Wow, I'm not really sure I can do this,' and you push through those moments, that's when you have a breakthrough. Sometimes that's a sign that something really good is about to happen. You're about to grow and learn a lot about yourself."
Jeff Bezos, Amazon, on focus
"If you're competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering."
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, on what drives him
"My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being 'just' a company means to me is building something that actually makes a really big change in the world."
["The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick, 2011]
Larry Page, Google, on what he does every day
"My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they're having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society. As a world, we're doing a better job of that. My goal is for Google to lead, not follow that."
Tim Cook, Apple, on why CEOs can't live in a bubble
"Not allowing yourself to become insular is very important — maybe the most important thing, I think, as a CEO. Now fortunately, I think it would be really hard for a CEO of Apple to become insular, but maybe it could happen. I don't know. But between customers and employees and the press, you get a lot of feedback. The bigger thing is processing and deciding what to put in the distraction category vs. where the nuggets are."
Travis Kalanick, Uber, on not backing down in the face of regulation
"If you're legal and you're allowed to operate a business, which we are, we don't have to cower to regulators or to incumbents who don't want us to exist. But at the end of the day, we're making cities better. And there's a principle to standing up — free enterprise and building a business."
Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn, on communicating with your team
"The more people you're responsible for, the more your words and the way you communicate those words and your body language and essentially everything you do is taken into consideration by the team.
"You have to be that much more aware of the way in which you're coming across. And I think the best leaders maintain awareness of their environment and in real time can course correct."
Susan Wojcicki, YouTube, on how she learned to be an exec
"When I first got here [to YouTube], I really wanted to spend time to learn and to listen. I wanted to understand the ecosystem. One of the things that I really wanted to do is look at our creators, and think about how we can help them to grow and accelerate their businesses and this amazing content they're building."
Reed Hastings, Netflix, on trusting employees
"Responsible people thrive on freedom, and are worthy of freedom. Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, [and] to continue to attract and nourish innovative people so we have [a] better chance of sustained success."
Dick Costolo, Twitter, on building a team
"We had the good fortune to have Adam Silver, the new commissioner of the NBA, in the office the other day, and someone asked him about the culture of the NBA.
"Adam said, 'One of the great players in the NBA told me that championships aren't won on the court, they're won on the bus.' And what he was referring to is that sense of team building, and making sure that it feels like a team, and that you're all pulling for each other and working together.
"That is what makes something work."
Brian Chesky, Airbnb, on hiring
"You gotta build a team that is so talented that they almost make you slightly uncomfortable because you know by being with them you're going to have to raise your game."
Satya Nadella, Microsoft, on not getting comfortable
"As a leader, I'm interested in fighting the new battles. You need new concepts with new innovation, and you have to have new capability and culture to go after those new concepts. Your existing success kind of fights those things, so you have to over-amplify the new concept and the culture required for it. And that's the journey."
Tony Hsieh, Zappos, on the importance of vision
"Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you."
Jack Ma, Alibaba, on the virtues of being nontechnical
"Intelligent people need a fool to lead them. When the team's all a bunch of scientists, it is best to have a peasant lead the way. His way of thinking is different. It's easier to win if you have people seeing things from different perspectives."
Jack Dorsey, Square, on how to build an empathic culture
"One of the framings that we got into was that we are all buyers. We love these merchants that we go to. We love these [cafés] like Blue Bottle and Sightglass Coffee. We want to do right by them. We want to have a great experience as well. We don’t want to have them wait and try to figure out an ugly point-of-sale system and all of these mechanical things, because that actually impacts the time that I spend in line or the time it takes to get the cappuccino that I just ordered."
David Karp, Tumblr, on being the change you want to see
"There was a tool that I wanted to use that didn't exist. And I found myself increasingly frustrated with the direction that the technology was going, which was less and less creative. It was more and more about these restrictive tools, where you put your photos in this directory, you put your articles over here. And I wanted something where I could be free, where I could do anything."
Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox, on how to develop your career
"If you work hard, ask questions, and learn from every opportunity, you are going to have a fulfilling journey in your career.
"Choose your manager over your industry. It is also highly important to remember to enjoy building your career. And yes, go to happy hour!"
Ev Williams, Medium, on attention to detail
"Most of the web is really ugly and a terrible experience from a consumption stand point. We wanted to design something modern, which works beautifully on any device, and it is clean and focuses on the content.
"If you build the right system, that quality will actually get more attention, but I think it is possible to use the network, and use great design, and build the system that produces a better product."
