Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We don't go into a market without a chance of a 40 percent share and sustainable differentiation. We wouldn't get into wiring oil rigs if we didn't believe we could get 40 percent.
It's important to remember that finding a job is only the beginning of a smooth transition to civilian life for our troops - as employers, we must also ensure their ongoing success.
You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.
It's connectivity that really makes the industrial Internet work: it's giving the right information at the right time to the right person or right machine to make the right decision.
Digital is going to have five times the impact than the information era. Just because you led the first transition as a company or country, that doesn't mean you will lead in this one.
I don't make fun of people. I call people by what they want to be called. What does your best friend call you? What does your spouse call you? It helps you emotionally connect to people.
What NDS did is allow us to move into video capability with large service providers or cable providers - and the ability to do this out of the cloud. And that allows you to do it faster.
What makes Silicon Valley really work? It's a unique combination of great educational institutions - especially at Stanford - that generate engineers and a culture that starts companies.
Everything becomes connected, and cyber security becomes the top issue for CEOs. An average company has 40-60 security vendors, and they have a violation every three months with viruses.
If every company becomes a technology company, business models and transitions are going to occur. From a CEO's perspective, this is going to be the biggest technology transition of all times.
The window was open for us to play in the consumer as data, voice, video came together. This is where you have to have the courage to take good business risks because if you don't, you never win.
The industry has to learn how to do CEO succession well. If your definition of success is Intel or Microsoft or HP or IBM, that's not a good track record, and yet they are the most successful ones.
Do you have the same vision of where industry is going as the target of your acquisition? If visions differ, you might get together economically for a while, but then you are going to have problems.
The start of 2016 offers great promise as the world awakens to the power of connectivity and increasing digitization. The new Digital Age is upon us, and it is unlike anything we have experienced before.
There's a lot to learn from President Clinton. It kills me as a strong Republican saying it, but he was the most effective president during my lifetime. And when business got out of line, he smacked them.
We're very much focused on full shareholder-value return. We have to get our stock moving. But I won't do something in the short run that I don't feel is right for the long run. That, I've watched many CEOs do.
As a leader, you don't get too high on the highs or let the bumps balance down. Every leader over time has probably equal amount of good luck or bad luck - or, you could argue, has good opportunities or challenges.
The No. 1 country in the world to do business in is which one? To locate where you want to create jobs, where you want to have a great market? It's Canada. Even in Russia, you can build a Silicon Valley outside of Moscow.
The 'No.1 IT company' isn't by volume, it's in relation to business customers because those are my customers, not the consumer. Who do they view as their most important partner? That's my definition of the 'No.1 IT company.'
It's easy for me to see how a business proposition is going to play out, or who our next-generation competitors are, from taking this data point from this customer and another data point from another customer... and jump to Z.
Understand what you are acquiring and protect it at all costs. You are acquiring people and next-generation products. You are making an investment that together you can grow faster, make more profits, and take more market share.
It would surprise you how many government and business leaders with dyslexia. Some people view it as a weakness, and maybe it is. What dyslexia forces you to do, you don't go A, B, C, D, E... to Z. I can go A, B... Z with speed.
Since I became CEO, 87 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 are off the list. What that says is that companies that don't reinvent themselves will be left behind. I also think that's true of people. And I think it's true of countries.
I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, taught me to look at it like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.
Once you put in backdoors, once you allow a government to intercept anything they want, you have to give it to other governments around the world. Once you do that, there is no privacy; there is no security. There is no protection for democracy.
I hope that the new leader, whoever they are - and I hope that it will be Hillary - will bring our country back to participation by all groups and will talk about how technology will enable not just 10% of our population, but all of our population.
I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.
I learned another lesson from Jack Welch. It was in 1998, and at that time, we were one of the most valuable companies in the world. I said, 'Jack, what does it take to have a great company?' And he said, 'It takes major setbacks and overcoming those.'
I wasn't always interested in technology. I had been a student for a long time - I'd earned a bachelor's degree, a law degree, and an MBA - and decided that I wanted to work in a large corporation, focusing on finance and law, in either New York or Chicago.
Wearable technology will tell us how well we are sleeping and whether we need to exercise. Sensors in the street will help us avoid traffic jams and find parking. Telemedicine applications will allow physicians to treat patients who are hundreds of miles away.
Often, what I tell a new CEO asking for advice, or one of my own new leaders, is the two most important decisions that your team is going to watch is the first person you hire and the first person you promote - because you are saying that's the type of person I want.
Widening the talent pipeline sufficiently will require a generational commitment to teaching math and science, providing technical training, and mentoring young people of all backgrounds so they understand the full range of possibilities that a career in technology affords.
Our success at Cisco has been defined by how we anticipate, capture, and lead through market transitions. Over the years, I've watched iconic companies disappear - Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Wang, Digital Equipment - as they failed to anticipate where the market was heading.
People who might normally have to travel hours to a distant city to see a cardiologist can now do so virtually, through Cisco technology, at their local hospital or health clinic. Clinicians use technology to share patient reports and diagnostic images and collaborate on cases.
When I look at the success of the Cisco Networking Academy program, which has reached more than 4.75 million people since 1997, I know it could have never achieved this scale without our partners. Together we provide the tools, equipment and training for our students and teachers.
Today's world requires a different leadership style - more collaboration and teamwork, including using Web 2.0 technologies. If you had told me I'd be video blogging and blogging, I would have said, 'No way.' And yet our 20-somethings in the company really pushed me to use that more.
The definition of success is that the company doesn't miss a beat. Do I love what I do? Oh yeah - I love it more than ever. You've got to have that energy level 24/7. But you've also got to make sure the transition is smooth. Being realistic, most high-tech companies haven't done that well.
Organized crime and rogue nation states and terrorists are very much focused on the Internet of things. The challenge that goes with connectivity is always security. The bad guys go wherever the return is, and now it's more lucrative for bad guys to focus on cybercrime than traditional crime.
By exciting citizens about the new digital opportunity, breaking down silos of competing groups to form a truly open innovation ecosystem and shifting day-to-day resources to focus on big long-term investments for the future, countries can ensure that they break through and bridge the digital gap.
We'll have a sales leader go run engineering. A lawyer go run business development. A business development leader go run our consumer operations. We're going to train a generalist group of leaders who know how to learn and operate in collaboration teamwork. I think that's the future of leadership.
In France, President Francois Hollande is leveraging the next wave of the Internet to jumpstart economic reforms and create jobs for hundreds of thousands of citizens. A historically socialist government, France has had the courage to quickly implement unique partnerships with the business community to drive entrepreneurial spirit and thinking.