The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.

I went to a general store. They wouldn’t let me buy anything specifically.

Short cuts make long delays.

On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.

I’m a slow worker; I’m, I think, a steady worker.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Working with a lot of people at the same time is a task. I really like making stuff and getting stuff done. One of the things I really liked about Facebook was that I could always move so quickly. I wrote the original application in, like, nine days at the end of January.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.

Nature does nothing in vain.

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

When I finish something, I want it out that day. Pop music is like the daily paper. Its got to be there then, not six months later.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

It’s easier to add things on to a PC than it’s ever been before. It’s one click, and boom, it comes down.

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

In order to fulfill the aspirations of masses, we have to sharpen the tool called the government machinery: we have to make it keen, more dynamic, and it is in this direction that we are working.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

I come from – I came from Wales, and it’s a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don’t waste time being soft. I’m not cold, but I don’t like being, wasting my time with – life’s too short.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.

I’ve sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don’t need sauce. I know he doesn’t even want you to pour sauce. And I’ve seen customers come in and do that, and I’ve seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I’ve seen him die a little inside.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

You want your customers to value your service.

I had a great time being a salesman because of the pitches that I gave when I was selling shoes. However, I don’t think I’m as well versed in shoes as I am in comedy. Being a salesman was all about being a people person, and I enjoy being around people. I also love talking to people – which is why I think I did so well.

I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.

It takes me about two hours to run into Target. People always want a picture. They hem and haw, and they can’t spit the words out, so they waste about five minutes of my time just standing there getting ready for a picture. Just do it!

We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

I have a company, and I’ve got to think about that. I’m trying to do my best there, and that’s a much harder task. We recycle as much as possible, and we conserve. But I’ve always been one to save everything – I even walk up stairs on the very inside or the very outside to not wear out the tread.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

I don’t think people are going to switch over to bikes because it’s good for them or because it’s politically correct. They’re going to do it because it gets them from A to B faster.

I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.

I’d just like to be treated like a regular customer.

Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

Move fast with stable infrastructure.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

By putting the employee first, the customer effectively comes first by default, and in the end, the shareholder comes first by default as well.

I don’t want to hear the specials. If they’re so special, put ‚em on the menu.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‚Oh no, it’s on the house.‘

With the amount of fixed expense that goes into developing something like the BE-4 engine, you want it to be used as much as possible.