Quotes & Sayings About Company Failure

So long as TARP money is wrapped up in GM, the company will never shake its 'Government Motors' image. That label, as competitors and GM employees are keenly aware, is code for one thing: 'GM is a failure.' — Edward Whitacre Jr.

Companies don't succeed, people do.
Companies don't fail, people do. — Nabil N. Jamal

One does not need a faith in God. Sufficient is a faith in created things, that enables one to move among objects in the conviction that they exist, persuaded of the irrefutable reality of this chair, this umbrella, this cigarette, this friendship. He who doubts himself is lost, just as someone scared of failure in love-making fails indeed. We are happy in the company of people who make us feel the unquestionable presence of the world, just as the body of the beloved gives us the certainty of those shoulders, that bosom, that curve of the hips, the surge of these as incontestable as the sea. And one who is in despair, we are taught by Singer, can act as though he believed: faith will come afterwards. — Claudio Magris

Any business owner or entrepreneur knows that there is no luck or good fortune about keeping a company up and running. It's nothing but hard work, consistency, determination, courage, staying focused, accepting failure, making changes, and simply keeping on with the grind. — Enaka Yembe

When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality - a beginner's mind, open to everything because, well, what do they have to lose? (This is often something they later look back upon wistfully.) But when that company becomes successful, its leaders often cast off that startup mentality because, they tell themselves, they have figured out what to do. They don't want to be beginners anymore. That may be human nature, but I believe it is a part of our nature that should be resisted. By resisting the beginner's mind, you make yourself more prone to repeat yourself than to create something new. The attempt to avoid failure, in other words, makes failure more likely. — Ed Catmull

Healthy companies know that they have to allow people to fail without assessing blame. They have to do that or else no one will take on anything that's not a sure bet. Healthy companies know that, but Culture of Fear companies do not. In a Culture of Fear company, failure must be rewarded with punishment. ("What would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear?") A typical punishment is that you get fired. If the people above you are insufficiently powerful, some of them may get fired as well. This creates a powerful incentive to pass responsibility for failure on by blaming someone outside the organization. — Tom DeMarco

Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationships is. — Evan Williams

In most parts of the world, starting a company that goes bust is dubbed a 'failure.' In Silicon Valley, we call this 'gaining experience.' We are willing to take the risks that are inherent for innovation. — Sebastian Thrun

Yet above all this, she insists on vigilance. Gluten is hiding everywhere in everything, and even the tiniest crumb - the tiniest crumb of a crumb - could get me sick. It's more important than the mere stomach issues; failure to follow a gluten-free diet grossly increases one's chances of developing thyroid cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases. These, she taught me, are the real reasons to check and double-check. The reasons she uses separate pasta strainers and knives. I learned to read labels for hidden ingredients, to call the company and ask the source of the caramel color and the modified food starch. To avoid foods fried in the same oil that had fried breaded meat. To speak with chefs at restaurants and ask to use a clean part of the grill, a clean salad bowl, a flourless dressing. We were careful. We were the best. And at home I never, ever got sick. — Marina Keegan

The greatest way to ensure your company's failure is to appoint leaders who see a divide between themselves and the team; who are more fixated on their elevated role than on the act of leading. — Steve Maraboli

I think the company's [HP's] success will be my legacy. The company's failure will be my failure, with all the predictable consequences of that. — Carly Fiorina

Under [Tim] Cook, Apple has a new product line with the Apple Watch, but it hasn't generated the kind of excitement that the iPod, iPhone or iPad did. Still, Cook can't be called a failure. Under his leadership, the company released a larger version of the iPhone to record sales. — Laura Sydell

Every company needs to have a skunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you're not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you're not going to make progress. — Nolan Bushnell

I think it's important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I've never had any fear in my whole life when we've been near collapse and all of that. I've never been afraid. I've never had the feeling I couldn't walk out and get a job doing something. — Walt Disney Company

Wherever I'm going, I'll be there to apply the formula. I'll keep the secret intact.
It's simple arithmetic.
It's a story problem.
If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?
You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).
A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.
If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall. — Chuck Palahniuk

I liked the company of most of my colleagues, who were about equally divided among good men who were good teachers, awful men who were awful teachers, and the grotesques and misfits who drift into teaching and are so often the most educative influences a boy meets in school. If a boy can't have a good teacher, give him a psychological cripple or an exotic failure to cope with; don't just give him a bad, dull teacher. — Robertson Davies

Something in her was changing as she read the books. Life after life flashed before her eyes, yet she stayed safe from misery. And the urge to act things out onstage could be satisfied cheaply, and at home, and without the annoyance of other members of an acting company. Her ambition to leave faded and a kind of contentment set in. She hadn't exactly feared the word contentment, but had always associated it with a vague sense of failure. To be discontented had always seemed much richer a thing. To be restless, striving. That view was romantic. In truth, she was finding out, life was better lived in a tranquil pattern. As long as she could read, she never tired of the design of her days. — Louise Erdrich

In a healthy organization, a certain amount of failure is okay. At Microsoft, for example, there has long been an almost official policy of "sink, then swim." People are loaded down with so much responsibility that they sink (fail). Then they have a chance to rest up, to analyze and modify their own performance. Finally, they are loaded again with a comparable amount of responsibility, but this time they succeed. If they don't sink the first time, that just shows they weren't challenged enough. They can be sure that the next time out they will be challenged a lot more aggressively. To the extent that this policy is applied company-wide, Microsoft seems to be run as an Outward Bound adventure. Finding your weaknesses by failing is not just incidental; it is designed into the corporate philosophy. — Tom DeMarco

Forcing everyone into the office every day is an organizational SPoF (Single Point of Failure). If the office loses power or Internet or air conditioning, it's no longer functional as a place to do work. If a company doesn't have any training or infrastructure to work around that, it means it's going to be unavailable to its customers. — David Heinemeier Hansson

it is not an exaggeration to state that any company designed for success in the twentieth century is doomed to failure in the twenty-first. — David S. Rose

For Quoyle was a failure at loneliness, yearned to be gregarious, to know his company was a pleasure to others. — Annie Proulx

Any company designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st. — David S. Rose

The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company ... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever. — Sam Altman

Conflict manipulation is the favored strategy of people who incessantly worry about failure, of managers who excel at motivational chats that point out the highly unpleasant consequences if the company's goals are not achieved, and of social movements that attempt to mobilize people through fear. — Peter M. Senge

Now I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips - whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I'm sure he was worried that he'd run out of pink slips. There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business and I happen to think that's indefensible. If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing, it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it. — Rick Perry

Nothing helps make a leader more approachable than admitting your struggles, screw-ups and behind-the-scenes thinking on hard calls. If the leader makes this a priority, the whole company will be more open and methodical learning from failure. — Scott Weiss

If we [Microsoft Corporation] weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear should guide you, but it should be latent. I have some latent fear. I consider failure on a regular basis. — Bill Gates

The average time for karma to produce results is five years. I mean, five years for a company to prove itself or end, but also for a person to achieve success or failure. Now, if you really persist in doing something truly good for five years of your life, you must conquer the results you envisioned, if you did so. And the same applies for the ignorant. If you ignore the potential of those around you, if you ignore your life partner, if you ignore the needs of others, if you are ignorant about yourself and waste your time for five years, then expect to get karma back after that period as well. Life is wonderful, even for the stupid, but you shouldn't need negative consequences to learn something useful from it. — Robin Sacredfire

This is important stuff, so it's crucial not to get too serious, to realize that this is all fun and games. The attitude 'business is serious, it's not fun and games' leads to financial failure, and I won't tolerate it in my company. — Martha N. Beck

Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure. — Roland Gift

Most companies' culture just happens; no one plans it. That can work, but it means leaving a critical component of your success to chance. Elsewhere in this book we preach the value of experimentation and the virtues of failure, but culture is perhaps the one important aspect of a company where failed experiments hurt. — Eric Schmidt

In business, poor performance leads to bankruptcy or, at a minimum, a restructuring of the company. In American education, failure entitles the bankrupt system to even more taxpayer dollars. — Cal Thomas

Take care of yourself: When you don't sleep, eat crap, don't exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers. Love those close to you: Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationship is. — Evan Williams

And obviously, with hindsight now, now knowing what went on in the company, it would have been absolutely appropriate back then for us to have the chief executive of the company, most senior person in the United Kingdom, come and answer for the policy they were pursuing. And we ducked that, and frankly that's a failure of Parliament. — Tom A. Watson

When trying to explain the violent path of some Islamists, Western commentators sometimes blame harsh economic conditions, dysfunctional family circumstances, confused identity, the generic alienation of young males, a failure to integrate into the larger society, mental illness, and so on. Some on the Left insist that the real fault lies with the mistakes of American foreign policy.
None of this is convincing. Jihad in the twenty-first century is not a problem of poverty, insufficient education, or any other social precondition. (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was earning more than $90,000 a year working for a drilling company in British Columbia, where he also reportedly proclaimed his support of the Taliban and joked about suicide bombing vests, with no repercussions.) We must move beyond such facile explanations. The imperative for jihad is embedded in Islam itself. It is a religious obligation. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali