My Lyrical Technique Will Leave Your Body Weak: D9 in Quotes
As in years past, the D stage this year was a showcase for some great quotes and one-liners. Below, a few of the more memorable ones.
Before we get started there’s just one thing I’d really like to talk about. I’m not sure it was going to get covered otherwise. But I really want to talk about the Groupon IPO. And the news is that we have nothing to announce.
— Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, the day before the company announced plans to go public
When I talk to entrepreneurs today, I feel like the grandfather who was in the Civil War.
— Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen, who co-authored Mosaic and co-founded Netscape
I screwed up.
— Google Chairman Eric Schmidt on the company’s failure to make inroads into social networking
As temporary head honcho of News Corp., I am enacting a few substantive changes to the company. Number one, The Daily. Never heard of it. Never seen it. So I am shutting it down. Clayman, you might want to have another drink, because it’s gonna be a rough few days.
— Jane Lynch, Emmy Award-winning star of the Fox show “Glee” and acting CEO of News Corp.
When I saw the first video iPod, I thought this could have the same impact VHS/home video had on the movie business.
The Flip made people happy. You know what else makes people happy? Grilled cheese.
— Flip creator Jon Kaplan on his new venture The Melt
Our obligation is to handle creepiness ethically and responsibly.
— DARPA director Regina Dugan on data-mining and other projects that make the public uncomfortable
The Wire.
— Reed Hastings on the one show he’d most like to add to Netflix right now
I havent gotten my teeth cleaned in six years, but if it was a Sunday afternoon and I could do that impulsively, I would do it.
— Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on Groupon Now–location-based offers that consumers use instantly
Symbian was crufty.
We have a singular mission: The prevention and creation of strategic surprise.
That’s totally the most awesome mission statement you could have.
— Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on DARPA’s mission statement
The argument’s over from our point of view.
— Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen on the company’s spat with Apple over Flash
In the arts they call it plagiarism, in business they call it competition.
— Groupon CEO and former music major Andrew Mason on Groupon clones
There’s absolutely no discussion. The rumors are baseless. It is as clear as that.
— Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on rumors that Microsoft wants to buy part or all of Nokia
The good news is we had this idea of cloud computing. The bad news is we were 10 years too early.
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen on LoudCloud
Globally local commerce is a $12 to $14 trillion market. If we get 10 percent of that, we’ll be very happy.
You could also use a Mac instead of a PC.
— Google Chairman Eric Schmidt on security
We are clearly betting on tablets being both content consumption and production devices.
— Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says tablets will become content creation devices
You think we get it more than Friendster got it? Wait, that’s a terrible example.
— Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on the “you’re going to fail” talk that the company sometimes attracts
You’re like the James Franco of the Internet.
— Kara Swisher to Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter
I’m not in the camp that believes that Netflix is going to take over the world…technology makes it impossible to have a monopoly.
We will not release a product that isn’t perfect.
— Hewlett-Packard CEO Léo Apotheker on why the company’s TouchPad tablet will be different from RIM’s PlayBook
The transformation of Apple is probably the biggest tech story of the last 15 years.
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen
We’ll have 130 million phone devices that have Flash by the end of the year.
And I have yet to test a single one on which it works well.
— Walt Mossberg to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen
Start-ups should be based on radical ideas. There should be a high failure rate for start-ups, because if there isn’t their ideas aren’t bold enough.
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen
The self driving car is not self-aware. It’s just driving; it’s not thinking.
— Google Chairman Eric Schmidt
Like most drivers.
–Walt Mossberg to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.
I don’t believe Windows will fade into irrelevance.
— Hewlett-Packard CEO Léo Apotheker
Here’s my prediction: Almost every dotcom idea from 10 years ago that failed will succeed.
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen
Nothing called the “Gang Of Four” ends well.
— Windows President Steven Sinofsky on Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s “Gang of Four” technology companies, which does not include Microsoft
I would love to if someone would lend me the money.
— Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma on whether he might buy Yahoo
You usually look like an unmade bed.
— Kara Swisher jokes with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason about showing up onstage in a suit
Our check’s not big enough yet.
— Netlix CEO Reed Hastings on the biggest barrier to a content deal with HBO
If I had to guess, one of the reasons they couldn’t sell it is that a lot of that technology is being used in other products that Cisco needs to create.
— Flip founder Jon Kaplan on why Cisco killed the Flip instead of selling it
We go out for coffee and they’re like, ‘Now what did Netscape do again?’
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen on the new crop of entrepreneurs
You sit down and you pick up one remote or the other. Those are the moments of truth in our business. Do you turn on cable or do you turn on Netflix?
Skype has a great engineering team, which I like to describe as ‘all of Estonia.’
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen
It’s a Twitter native photo-sharing experience. I just named it that now….I’m a branding genius.
— In a moment of profound creativity, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo names the company’s new photo product in mid-interview
Something will eventually replace the Internet. But it’s hard to know what and when it will happen.
One thing where I think they’ve got us: the Buzz integration is just seamless.
— Groupon CEO Andrew Mason skewers Google Offers
Our social strategy does not require the acquisition of any company.
— Google Chairman Eric Schmidt
I hope to someday live in a world where there are lots more Silicon Valleys.
— Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen
Which one?
— Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and product chief at Twitter, answers the question “Do you want to tell us about your IPO?”
Failure isn’t a problem. It’s the fear of failure that’s the limiting factor. You can’t lose your nerve for the big failure, because it’s the exact same nerve you need for the big success.
The beauty of Twitter is that more and more people are flocking to it because it’s shrinking their world.
I’m very concerned that we will end up with an Internet per country.
— Google Chairman Eric Schmidt
Only two people have been on the cover of Time Magazine in bare feet. I’m one, the other is Gandhi.
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen on his Netscape-era Time cover
Twitter is the world.
— Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey
We’re improving and taking our levels of customer satisfaction higher and higher….Our customers are happier than they were before.
— AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph De La Vega
My mom cares that I tweeted a picture of my breakfast. She’s knows I’m eating and I’m safe.
— Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey names the one person who cares about “what I had for breakfast” tweets
As much as I personally hate it and want to kill them, I think competition is great for consumers.
— Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on would-be Groupon killers
This seems to me to be the biggest change in Windows that I can ever remember.
This is no longer a battle of devices, it is a war of ecosystems.
— Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on the mobile market
A mouse has the precision that your finger can’t approach.
— Windows President Steven Sinofsky
Could you please tell us exactly what the new iPhone will look like?
— Walt Mossberg to AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph De LaVega
The customer is number one, the employee is number two and the shareholder is number three. If the customer is happy, the business is happy, and the shareholders are happy.
— Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma’s three rules of business
My friend’s three-year-old walked up to the TV and swiped and nothing happened and he said, ‘Dad, what’s wrong with the TV?’
— Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen on the tablet generation
