John Doerr Quotes

“Your biggest challenge will be building a great team.”

“No conflict, no interest.”

“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. It takes a team to win.”

“Act now. Act with speed.”

“Set ambitious goals. If they don't scare you, they're not ambitious enough.”

“Focus on the critical few, not the many trivial things.”

“Nothing moves us forward like a deadline.”

“To win in the global marketplace, organizations need to be more nimble than ever before.”

“I think of these guys as velociraptors.”

“People criticize me for being too grandiose, and it's probably true. But why not think big? Maybe you get a big belly flop. Or maybe you get the next Netscape.”

“We invested a billion dollars in a hundred different cleantech companies, and most of them failed. Failures come with the territory in the innovation business. But we stood by these entrepreneurs, and that billion dollars today is worth three billion.”

“Mercenaries are driven by paranoia; missionaries are driven by passion. Mercenaries think opportunistically; missionaries think strategically. Mercenaries go for the sprint; missionaries go for the marathon.”

“John, it almost doesn't matter what you know. It's execution that's everything.”

“If we'd thought all this was purely about money, we'd have gone with another firm. But Kleiner and John are the gravitational center of a huge piece of the Internet world. Being with them is like being on prime real estate.”

“There is no sacrifice too great to bring technology to a needy world.”

“The Valley is full of money right now, and John's is no better than anyone else's. There's smart money, dumb money, corporate money, Japanese money, pension-fund money. If you have a decent idea, getting funded isn't that hard. What makes Doerr so successful is his acumen in attracting superstar engineers and executives.”