The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.

First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.

It may seem odd to talk about something as soft and fuzzy as "passion" as an integral part of a strategic framework. But throughout the good-to-great companies, passion became a key part of the Hedgehog Concept.

The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure; but to build one that is worthy of enduring.

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.

In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.