Quotes from Ted Waitt

I'd be lying to you if I said I had not done some soul searching.

People are looking for more than a faster and faster PC. It has to do what they want. Will it fill some void, add some value, deliver something that they can't do previously at a price that people are willing to pay for?

It's not a matter of being first, it's being there at the right time, being first in volume to market, and knowing what trends to stay away from.

If any PC manufacturer has made money selling PCs retail in the last 10 years, I'd like to know who they are.

I didn't have the patience to wait to take a degree before starting work, because I wanted to run my own business.

I don't see anybody pointing to desktop PCs as being a hot Christmas item.

Anything that helps consumers get more for their money is fine by us.

We hope to be a leader in the convergence of consumer electronics and communications.

The Internet is the number one reason people buy PCs, and the number one use of PCs is on the Internet from our customer base.

The PC business is not about price, it's about value, or what you can give the customer for his or her money.

Companies that are closest to the customers are the ones who are going to lead the industry.

I definitely don't welcome takeover interests.

When Mike Hammond and I started Gateway 12 years ago on my father's cattle farm, we knew it could be big. We talked big. But there's no way we could have been prepared to go from less than $300 million in revenues to $5 billion in six years. You can't so much prepare for that kind of growth as sort of ride it and try to manage it.

We think the right categorization for digital devices is something you hold in your hand, a mobile-type product, and something you sit two feet away from.

Technology for technology's sake is not innovation. What we in the industry have to be concerned about is what products do, as opposed to what the processing power is.

I love Gateway, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure the company can grow and prosper in this challenging environment.

Technology people have as much interest in protecting patents as the entertainment industry.

When I look back through the 1980s and 1990s, those were some of the funniest experiences I had and, sometimes, some of the most difficult.

You don't know the impact of Windows XP. You don't know what the economic impact is going to be.

The first thing I got was a jet. And it's the last thing I'd get rid of if I go bankrupt.

We started putting '2000' at the end of our name. That was in 1985, and 2000 seemed very futuristic.

You have to have great products out at the right time. It's difficult to go with one foot on the gas and the other a little bit on the brake.

We never put any limitations on what Gateway could be. We had big dreams, big goals.

I mean, you don't get a chance to buy a company like Gateway, you know, at or near book value very often.