A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

I got an album concept called ‚Exit Strategy,‘ that might be one of my last ones. It’s a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don’t wait till you’re five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we’re getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best: We’re making things again.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, ‚Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we’ll talk.‘

We pay attention to every demographic in every country, so we’re going to focus on building things that teens are going to like, and we’re also going to focus on building things that other folks are going to like.

I get asked a lot why Apple’s customers are so loyal. It’s not because they belong to the Church of Mac! That’s ridiculous.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

Your company’s most valuable asset is how it is known to its customers.

Great industries are never made from single companies. There is room in space for a lot of winners.

I’ve always had my own access to the public, because I started off making my clothes for a little shop, and so I’ve always had people buying them. I could always sell a few, even if I couldn’t sell a lot, and somehow my business grew because people happened to like it. I’m in a fortunate position.

I can be accused of trying to be commercial sometimes.

There are good examples of companies – Coca-Cola is one – that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come.

There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.

The connectivity declaration is about uniting the whole industry – a lot of companies that typically compete very fiercely – to push in a coherent direction.

I don’t think so, in that Virgin is already a global brand. Brands like Amazon have had to spend hundreds of millions of pounds you know, building their brands, whereas Virgin is already well-known around the world.

A complaint is a chance to turn a customer into a lifelong friend. I say that seriously, not as some press release baloney.

Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it’s possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you’ll be successful.

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

I do not have a merchandise line. I don’t sell knives or apparel. Though I have been approached to endorse various products from liquor to airlines to automobiles to pharmaceuticals dozens of times, I have managed to resist the temptation.

I’ve never gone into business to make money. Every Virgin product and service has been made into a reality to make a positive difference in people’s lives. And by focusing on the happiness of our customers, we have been able to build a successful group of companies.

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products and those very bedrock things that are why people at Apple and outside of Apple are getting more excited about the company and what Apple stands for and what its potential is to contribute to the industry.

As I see it, fast food outfits have targeted small children with their advertising in a very effective way. You know, it’s clowns and kid’s toys and bright colors and things like that.

If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.

I think we’re having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we’re always trying to do better.

The community – more than two billion people use our products, and we get that, with that, a lot of people are using that for a lot of good, but we also have a responsibility to mitigate the darker things that people are gonna try to do.

Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products.

Socialists tend to want to pay people more money to do less work, and capitalists tend to want to provide better products at better prices.

If you go through some big corporate change, it’s just not going to be the same. If we sold to Yahoo, they would have done something different; if you want to continue your vision of the company, then don’t sell because there’s inevitably going to be some change.

I’m never fully satisfied with any Microsoft product.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‚Too much of a good thing can be wonderful‘.

I have moved to a smaller house in Paris, and I don’t fancy having so much staff now.

On the Internet, companies are scale businesses, characterized by high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs. You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It’s very hard to be medium. A lot of medium-sized companies had the financing rug pulled out from under them before they could get big.

There’s 20 companies that I have investments in – some batteries, some solar-thermal, one big nuclear thing. We need hundreds and hundreds of companies like that, so that in a 20-year time frame we really are starting to change the energy infrastructure.

You want your customers to value your service.

I think right now it’s a battle for the mindshare of developers and for the mindshare of customers, and right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle.