innovation quotes

The vision is to figure out how there can really be dynamic entrepreneurialism in space.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

It’s not going to do any good to land on Mars if we’re stupid.

I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

The solar system can support a trillion humans. And then we’d have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

I was very into making the Big Artistic Statement – it had to be innovative; it had to be cutting edge. I was desperately keen on being original.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices. It’s really a different product category.

I think technology really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

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

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

I just want to keep pushing the envelope without it feeling forced.

People expect your behavior to conform to known patterns and conventions. Your task as a strategist is to upset their expectations.

If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

Every aspect of human technology has a dark side, including the bow and arrow.

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.

There’s no point in starting a business unless you’re going to make a dramatic difference to other people’s lives. So if you’ve got an idea that’s gonna make a big difference to other people’s lives, then just get on and do it.

Our goal is not to build a platform; it’s to be cross all of them.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

There are different ways to do innovation. You can plant a lot of seeds, not be committed to any particular one of them, but just see what grows. And this really isn’t how we’ve approached this. We go mission-first, then focus on the pieces we need and go deep on them and be committed to them.

For me, when you are have people wondering what is next, what is coming out, you are on the right track.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

I’m never going to go to Mars, but I’ve helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.

People use technology only to mean digital technology. Technology is actually everything we make.

What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.

I’m not a futurist.

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you’re good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Infrastructure web services had to happen.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren’t thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about – they weren’t putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

With Virgin, I’ve just loved creating things. And as a private company, I can get away with moving Virgin from records to airlines to train companies to space companies to whatever, without ever having to worry about analysts knocking the value of my stock.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

We have the resources to build room for a trillion humans in this solar system, and when we have a trillion humans, we’ll have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts. It will be a way more interesting place to live.

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

Think off-center.

Once you get into space, you can really unleash a lot of creativity, but the launch itself? I have been through all of the creative ways, and believe me, chemical rockets are the best.

I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future.

You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.

The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it’s Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‚Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?‘ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

The United States is definitely ahead in culture of innovation. If someone wants to accomplish great things, there is no better place than the U.S.

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

What I’m trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.