Quotes from Andrew S. Grove

As we throw ourselves into raw actions, our senses and instincts will rapidly be honed again

It's harder to be the best of class in several fields than in just one

Remember that by saying "yes"—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying "no" to something else.

You can be the subject of a strategic inflection point but you can also be the cause of one

We must recognize that no amount of formal planning can anticipate changes such as globalization and the information revolution we've referred to above. Does that mean that you shouldn't plan? Not at all. You need to plan the way a fire department plans. It cannot anticipate where the next fire will be, so it has to shape an energetic and efficient team that is capable of responding to the unanticipated as well as to any ordinary event.

In short, strategic inflection points are about fundamental change in any business, technological or not

Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment worth $2,000, you shouldn't let anyone walk away with the time of his fellow managers.

Selectivity - the determination to choose what we will attempt to get done and what we won't - is the only way out of the panic that excessive demands on our time can create.

Reports are more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information. Writing the report is important; reading it often is not.

The ability to recognize that the winds have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat in crucial to the future of an enterprise

in the work of the soft professions, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between output and activity. And as noted, stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

When a person is not doing his job, there can only be two reasons for it. The person either can't do it or won't do it; he is either not capable or not motivated. To determine which, we can employ a simple mental test: if the person's life depended on doing the work, could he do it? If the answer is yes, that person is not motivated; if the answer is no, he is not capable.