Quotes from Tim O'Reilly

There's not a single business model, and there's not a single type of electronic content. There are really a lot of opportunities and a lot of options and we just have to discover all of them.

Conferences are really like parties, and an A-list party is one where A-list people are in attendance. You figure out who are the really important people to invite and get them to show up as speakers or as guests. Then everybody wants to be there. If you don't know who the important people are, you shouldn't be doing a conference.

There are a lot of lousy conferences that pander to sponsors. They end up creating an opportunity for boring speakers who are paid shills for their companies. We still get a few of those, but we really try to police it. Think about who the audience is and what works for them, and deliver high-quality content.

At O'Reilly, the way we think about our business is that we're not a publisher; we're not a conference producer; we're a company that helps change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

I have to say there are a lot of me-too products and companies. Yet another social network, of the 15th flavor - that's common in every new technology revolution. There are imitators who have marginal improvements.

Who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic? Lindbergh. Who was the second? No idea.

An invention has to make sense in the world it finishes in, not in the world it started.

Everybody who goes into government gets somewhat chewed up in the process. Being a senior appointee is like being at a startup, only more so: You run into opposition from the entrenched oligopoly of contractors whose business model is to extract as much money from government as possible for doing as little as possible.

We're entering a new world in which data may be more important than software.

The network is opening up some amazing possibilities for us to reinvent content, reinvent collaboration.

What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done.

Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don't want to run out of gas on your trip, but you're not doing a tour of gas stations.

Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried.

The nice thing about twitter is the architecture of visibility. Email is invisible unless you reach out to someone directly. With Twitter, anyone can follow you and this is one of the big changes that was really introduced by Flickr, was this wonderful idea that you can follow somebody without their permission. Recognizing that relationships are asymmetrical, unlike facebook where we have to acknowledge each other otherwise we can't see each other.

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

anyone can download and use the code, and new projects migrate from the edges to the center as a

We built something, we get feedback, we try to figure out what make sense out of the suggestions, and then we do something about it and then we listen some more." That is a great description of how Internet software is typically built today, with what is now called a "build-measure-learn" cycle, in which the users of a minimally useful service teach its creators what they want from them.

personal conversation last year, "SQL is the new HTML." Database management is a core competency of Web 2.0 companies, so much so that we have sometimes referred to these applications as "infoware" rather than merely software. This fact leads to a key question: Who owns the data? In the internet era, one can already see a number of cases where control over the database has led to market control and outsized financial returns. The

Intel Inside logo: Cars with navigation systems bear the imprint, "NavTeq Onboard." Data is indeed the Intel Inside of these applications, a sole source component in systems whose software

didn't keep all the files in one place like existing online music sites. Instead they stored them on the hard drives of millions of users across the Internet. Andy Oram, one of the editors at my publishing company, made the point to me that the architectural implications of these programs were more important than their business implications. (This is a history that has repeated itself fifteen years later with bitcoin and the blockchain.)

Amazon sells the same products as competitors such as Barnesandnoble.com, and they receive the same product descriptions, cover images, and editorial content from their vendors. But Amazon has made a science of user engagement. They have an order of magnitude more user reviews, invitations to participate in varied ways

In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example: Web 1.0 Web 2.0 DoubleClick --> Google AdSense Ofoto --> Flickr

We need to start seeing Moore's Law apply to healthcare," I said. "What's Moore's Law?" the senator asked. "You have to understand, Senator," Reid interjected, "that in Washington, you assume that every year things cost more and do less. In Silicon Valley, everyone expects our products to cost less every year but do more.

one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate