One percent improvement in 1,000 things is better than 1,000% improvement in one thing.

If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you're nuts to stay there.

Forget all the conventional 'rules' but one. There is one golden rule: Stick to topics you deeply care about and don't keep your passion buttoned inside your vest. An audience's biggest turn-on is the speaker's obvious enthusiasm. If you are lukewarm about the issue, forget it!

Think about the market, think about the design, and think about who is going to design for that market. Hit the mark.

The manager, in today's world, doesn't get paid to be a steward of resources, a favored term not so many years ago. He or she gets paid for one and only one thing: to make things better (incrementally and dramatically), to change things, to act - today.

The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.

The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit.