I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

If you run a business, put on top your employees, then your consumers, and then your shareholders.

I think in life the key thing is just to fight really hard to make sure something survives. If it looks like you've done everything you can to avoid failure, just move forward, move on and learn from it.

To me, business isn't about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It's about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

Communication: the thing humans forgot when we invented words.

As an entrepreneur, you've got to protect against the company going bust. And as an adventurer, you've got to protect against losing your life. It's even more important as an adventurer to get it right.

In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.