Quotes About CEOs

I have met with hundreds of young fashion designers, hundreds of fashion startups, hundreds of CEOs and business leaders. All I do is get to ask questions of professionals in the industry. I learn from every conversation. It is the best education I could have.

Startups can be the most conservative organizations in the world. We spend so much energy nurturing our delicate egos against naysayers and self-doubt that we can hardly admit mistakes. This is especially true of first-time CEOs.

When I started to go out there and listen to different startups or different CEOs talk about how you build this company from a two-person team to a team of 500, I really just stepped back and was like, 'Well, it's not necessarily a business, but football has a lot of similarities to that.'

I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing happening with more and more CEOs stepping up, saying, 'I have to fight carbon emissions.'

In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.

We are suspicious of those CEOs who regularly claim they do know the future—and we become downright incredulous if they consistently reach their declared targets. Managers that always promise to "make the numbers" will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers.

My direct experience (limited, thankfully) with CEOs who have played with a company's numbers indicates that they were more often prompted by ego than by a desire for financial gain.

Most chief executives rise to that position by being good operating managers. Few have extensive experience or training with capital allocation. What CEO wants to return excess cash to shareholders when it could be used to expand his or her empire?

CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise—and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.

It seems some CEOs who pay extremely large acquisition premiums Ã¢â'¬Â¦ come to believe their own press.

Entrepreneurs don't seem to believe that forecasting is worth the bother: One survey found that 60% of Inc. 500 CEOs had not even written business plans before launching their companies. To

I called up a bunch of the CEOs of Silicon Valley companies and said, 'Hey, can I come and see you? And I'd like to learn about what you're doing.' And I don't know, most of them said yes.

That's what makes you so interesting, Fiona. All the male CEOs I meet are press whores. You aren't. And they bore me to extinction. They're dying to have me write about them. You won't give me a five -minute interview, and I won a Pulitzer, for chrissake.

CEOs hate variance. It's the enemy. Variance in customer service is bad. Variance in quality is bad. CEOs love processes that are standardized, routinized, predictable. Stamping out variance makes a complex job a bit less complex.

CEOs the world over are fond of pointing to their workforce and saying "Our people are our greatest asset." And yet today, only two out of ten people think their assets are being well used at work.

There's a joke that when the economy got tough for Vito and his father, they laid off judges, politicians and CEOs.

I believe that if you go and ask a chief executive of a Goldman Sachs or a BP, and they answer you honestly...they want monopolies, they want government subsidies, they want preferences they're not interested in free markets.

psychopaths aren't necessarily monsters. They're just...unemotional. Detached. Able to become such great surgeons, CEOs, lawyers...even profilers for the FBI...

never hesitated. I mean, I always suspected I was a bit of a psychopath, but as we all know...psychopaths aren't necessarily monsters. They're just...unemotional. Detached. Able to become such great surgeons, CEOs, lawyers...even profilers for the FBI...

Everything becomes connected, and cyber security becomes the top issue for CEOs. An average company has 40-60 security vendors, and they have a violation every three months with viruses.

Visionary CEOs are product- and business-model-centric and extremely customer focused.

Visionary CEOs don't need someone else to demo the company's key products for them. They deeply understand products, and they have their own coherent and consistent vision of where the industry/business models and customers are today, and where they need to take the company.

When CEOs become vampires, Congress outlaws stakes.

CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise - and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.