Quotes About Performance

By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. The original Mac team taught me that A-plus players like to work together, and they don't like it if you tolerate B work. Ask any member of that Mac team. They will tell you it was worth the pain.

performance" would double every eighteen months because of the increased power as well as the increased numbers of transistors that would be put onto a microchip.

The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players.

No, that's not right," Ferris replied. "The lines should be voluptuous, like a Ferrari.

The ladies staged tableaux vivants, in which they dressed in costume to re-create famous paintings.

Under Steve Jobs, there's zero tolerance for not performing, its CEO said. At another point, when VLSI Technology was having trouble delivering enough chips on time, Jobs stormed into a meeting and started shouting that they were fucking dickless assholes. The company ended up getting the chips to Apple on time, and its executives made jackets that boasted on the back, Team FDA.

conception is just the first step. What really matters is execution.

the skills possessed by a designated leader or the holder of an office may make him well-qualified to perform important group functions under certain conditions and poorly qualified under others…. The specific requirements of the group's tasks demand that members possess certain skills in order to serve the appropriate functions. If the task changes, different behaviors are required, and the same person may or may not be able to perform in the new way.

Eisenhower, in short, had perfected the art of playing against his assigned role, first as a nonmilitary general and later as a nonpolitical president. This deliberately cultivated style had proved enormously successful in war. How would it work in the White House?

He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage.—If this should be thee, Lovel!—Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions—on my life, I am sorry for the lad.

In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.

Furthermore, we do not think so-called EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is a meaningful measure of performance. Managements that dismiss the importance of depreciation - and emphasize cash flow or EBITDA - are apt to make faulty decisions, and you should keep that in mind as you make your own investment decisions

Year-to-year variances, however, cannot consistently be in our favor. Even if our partially-owned businesses continue to perform well in an economic sense, there will be years when they perform poorly in the market. At such times our net worth could shrink significantly. We will not be distressed by such a shrinkage; if the businesses continue to look attractive and we have cash available, we simply will add to our holdings at even more favorable prices.

It is comforting to be in a business where some mistakes can be made and yet a quite satisfactory overall performance can be achieved. In a sense, this is the opposite case from our textile business where even very good management probably can average only modest results. One of the lessons your management has learned—and, unfortunately, sometimes re-learned—is the importance of being in businesses where tailwinds prevail rather than headwinds.

He is also experienced. Though I don't know Ralph's age, I do know that, like many of our managers, he is over 65. At Berkshire, we look to performance, not to the calendar. Charlie and I, at 71 and 64 respectively, now keep George Foreman's picture on our desks. You can make book that our scorn for a mandatory retirement age will grow stronger every year.

There ain't enough happens in soccer. It's like watching twenty-two hair models kick a ball around for what seems like six months and then one of them falls over and the ball goes in the goal.

Prediction is the best circus act of all. But it is just an act. It's a carny turn. Stop doing it.

Enjoying life is far superior to being graded on your performance in life.

You cannot fail, you can only produce results.

Be a doer, not a wisher, hoper or critic.

Scott Fitzgerald has the one thing that a novelist needs: a truly seeing eye. He sees so clearly, in fact, that his latest book has embarrassed those critics who have come to look to him for entertainment, not for such deeply searching stuff as this. What does it matter that Tender Is The Night fails as a novel?—which it does. While it lasts, it is the most brilliant and heart-breaking performance you will find in recent fiction.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

I don't really care what a public figure thinks. I care about what he does. Let God probe his inner heart.

As for knowing the self of others, forget it. Know what they do and judge them by their works.