The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process.

The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose.

We choose to believe that the granite is alive. If life is movement, then rock - with its atoms flying around like stars in cosmos - is alive.

Growth isn't central at all, because I'm trying to run this company as if it's going to be here a hundred years from now. And if you take where we are today and add 15% growth, like public companies need to have for their stock to stay up in value, I'd be a multi-trillion-dollar company in 40 years. Which is impossible, of course.

The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable; it is merely difficult.

I purposely try to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do, and then I just leave them alone.

The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you’re an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back.