Quotes About Risk

Now we must ask whether the internet has created an asymmetric technology risk for democracies that authoritarian governments can counteract more readily than the republican form of government that Franklin's words urge us to protect. The answer is probably yes. Digital technology has created a different world, and not always a better one.

Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.

It is far better to cannibalize yourself than have someone else do it," said Diego Piacentini in a speech at Stanford's Graduate School of Business a few years later. "We didn't want to be Kodak." The reference was to the century-old photography giant whose engineers had invented digital cameras in the 1970s but whose profit margins were so healthy that its executives couldn't bear to risk it all on an unproven venture in a less profitable frontier.

great companies fail not because they want to avoid disruptive change but because they are reluctant to embrace promising new markets that might undermine their traditional businesses

that, "as unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely." After those incidents, employees had to write a

You've built this lovely castle, and now all the barbarians are going to come riding on horses to attack the castle," Bezos said, according to a former AWS exec who reports hearing the comment. "You need a moat; what is the moat around the castle?" (Amazon denied that Bezos said this.)

What we are doing here is building a giant rocket ship, and we're going to light the fuse. Then it's either going to go to the moon or leave a giant smoking crater in the ground. Either way I want to be here when it happens.

Thus did Jeff Bezos become one of the original investors in Google, his company's future rival,

precipitously,

Moving cautiously and playing by the rules had proven to be a costly mistake.

There are two ways of building a business. Many times, you aim, aim, aim, and then shoot," he said, according to three executives who were there. "Or, you shoot, shoot, shoot, and then aim a little bit. That is what you want to do here. Don't spend a lot of time on analysis and precision. Keep trying stuff.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,

You've built this lovely castle, and now all the barbarians are going to come riding on horses to attack the castle," Bezos said, according to a former AWS exec who reports hearing the comment. "You need a moat; what is the moat around the castle?

Spend money to make money.

Do we really want to protect our children by giving guns to two underpaid cop wannabes and then mixing them in with a bunch of wiseass teens? Seemed a recipe for disaster. Wilde

The risk was greater, far greater, when you let your target or enemies work with impunity. Remove

Get this, we played Condom Roulette like the old days. Ever play? Every guy guesses a color—there's Hot Red, Stallion Black, Lemon Yellow, Orange Orange. Okay, the last two are jokes, but you get the point. There's this condom dispenser in the bathroom. It's still there! So each guy puts a buck on the table. One guy gets a quarter and buys a condom. He brings it to the table. You open it and whammo, if it's your color, you win!

Let's live on the edge, old friend. That's where all the goodies reside.

Ray could be in serious trouble. Ray could be serious trouble. She

Myron got out of the car. There was a padlock on one end of the chain. Using his heel, Myron kicked down on it. The lock broke. The chain fell to the ground with a heavy clunk. "We're trespassing," Myron said. "Let's live on the edge, old friend. That's where all the goodies reside." As

We're in a minefield," she said. "Like someone just dropped us right in the middle of it, and if we move too fast in any direction, we're going to step on an explosive and blow this whole thing up.

be careful of monsters with teeth

One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger. —FRANÇOIS, DUE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Maximes, 1665

Women who don't let out their strong feelings—including anger—are at a higher risk of getting cancer," notes Josette Mondanaro, MD, director of a women's medical clinic.