Quotes & Sayings About Risk In Business

We're in the business not so much of being contrarians deliberately, but rather we like to take perceived risk instead of actual risk. And what I mean by that is that you get paid for taking a risk that people think is risky, you particularly don't get paid for taking actual risk. — Wilbur Ross

If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on. — Sheryl Sandberg

In ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded through the streets, legend has it that he was sometimes trailed by a servant whose job it was to repeat to him, " Memento Mori": Remember you will die. A reminder of mortality would help the hero keep things in perspective, instill some humility. Job's memento mori had been delivered by his doctors, but it did not instill humility. Instead he roared back after his recovery with even more passion. The illness reminded him that he had nothing to lose, so he should forge ahead full speed. " He came back on a mission," said Cook. " Even though he was now running a large company, he kept making bold moves that I don't think anybody else would have done. — Walter Isaacson

The situation - having to choose between imposing higher retail prices and reducing investments and military spending - created a dilemma for the government: deciding between conflict with the public or with the Party economic elite. But not making a decision heightened the risk that, as the crisis developed, there would be conflict with both the public and the elite.18 The new generation of leaders clearly did not understand this. The traditional management of the economy was oriented on natural, rather than abstract, parameters. The development of cattle breeding was discussed at the highest level more frequently than the country's budget. Industry and business leaders regarded finances as necessary but dreary bookkeeping.19 In addition, information on the real state of the budget, hard currency reserves, foreign debt, and balance of payments was available only to an extremely narrow circle of people, many of whom understood nothing about it anyway. — Yegor Gaidar

For many of the most powerful people in the entertainment business, hostility to organized religion goes so deep and burns so intensely that they insist on expressing that hostility, even at the risk of financial disaster. — Michael Medved

In politics we face the choice between warmongering, nation-state loving, big-business agents on one hand; and risk-blind, top-down, epistemic arrogant big servants of large employers on the other. But we have a choice. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In a way, I realized, every woman risked her life when bringing a child into the world. Labor and delivery were serious business, and not for the faint of heart. Yet down through the centuries women took that risk, willing to trade life for life. — Mindy Starns Clark

Reduce risk, lower your required capital, and focus on what you're really good at - and hire others for what you are not.) This is something you should think about in any business: don't try to do everything. You aren't the best at everything. Find out where you have an advantage and stick to that. — Marc Ecko

I had Dell for four and a half years, and its sales are still phenomenal, but their operating margins started to contract, so I sold it in early 1999. There's nothing wrong with Dell! It's a fine company. It's just the business risk they took. — Louis Navellier

No business in the economy has the easy money that banks get to play with ... The existence of banks with single digit amounts of equity is a completely unhealthy existence
that is not only a risk for the banks, but for all of us. — Anat R. Admati

in business, being risk averse can result in stagnation. — Sheryl Sandberg

Our entire approach to the banking and financial services business is risk-adjusted returns. We believe that in most parts of the world, and including pockets in India, banking tends to mis-price risk. — Uday Kotak

There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to take a chance on a new business without putting their family's health at risk. Tort reform will make it easier to take prudent risks on new products in a number of sectors. — Eric Ries

If you've been in the software business for any time at all, you
know that there are certain common problems that plague one
project after another. Missed schedules and creeping requirements
are not things that just happen to you once and then go
away, never to appear again. Rather, they are part of the territory.
We all know that. What's odd is that we don't plan our projects
as if we knew it. Instead, we plan as if our past problems are
locked in the past and will never rear their ugly heads again. Of
course, you know that isn't a reasonable expectation. — Tom DeMarco

If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. — Gus Grissom

If you don't invest in risk management, it doesn't matter what business you're in, it's a risky business. — Gary Cohn

In the long run, though, the greatest IT risk facing most companies is more prosaic than a catastrophe. It is, simply, overspending. IT may be a commodity, and its costs may fall rapidly enough to ensure that any new capabilities are quickly shared, but the very fact that it is entwined with so many business functions means that it will continue to consume a large portion of corporate spending. — Nicholas G. Carr

Today the strategies of many companies in the real estate industry are premised on low interest rates, an assumption that has resulted in the rapid expansion of the real estate securitization business. This trend could be regarded as a risk factor, as it exposes the real estate sector to at least three potential problems: first, interest rate hikes; second, revisions to securitization business accounting standards; and third, overheating in the real estate market. — Akira Mori

[D]ivision of labor, in my mind, is one of the dangers of work-based technology. Modern IT infrastructure allows us to break projects into very small, discrete parts and assign each person to do only one of the many parts. In so doing, companies run the risk of taking away employees' sense of the big picture, purpose, and sense of completion. — Dan Ariely

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility. — Neil Postman

New product and new types of service are generated, not by asking the consumer, but by knowledge, imagination, innovation, risk, trial and error on the part of the producer, backed by enough capital to develop the product or service and to stay in business during the learn months of introduction. — W. Edwards Deming

In 'Power Play', Finder uses the thriller structure to make pointed observations about gender in the workplace, the corporate caste system, and the true nature of risk in the global business environment. — M.J. Rose

Fairchild Parent rewarded Fairchild Child's success the way all East Coast companies of the era did: it kept a sizable chunk of the profits to fund other company operations, and it promoted the people at the top of the division to a fancier position and a better salary for a job well done. Back in New Jersey, it didn't cross anyone's mind that this was exactly the wrong response to an egalitarian company that shared both risk and reward among all of its employees, whose executives had moved to California precisely to get away from the Old World of business, and which needed to plow most of its profits back into product development to stay ahead of the competition in a fast-moving take-no-prisoners industry. — Michael S. Malone

Impingement, in other words, is all around, and this freedom business is much messier than it looks at first blush. — Garth Risk Hallberg

I think the people who've been the most overconfident in our business in the last decade have been the people that called themselves risk managers. — Richard Thaler

One sticking point was that Jobs wanted his payout to be in cash. Amelio insisted that he needed to "have skin in the game" and take the payout in stock that he would agree to hold for at least a year." Jobs resisted. Finally, they compromised: Jobs would take $120 million in cash and $37 million in stock, and he pledged to hold the stock for at least six months. — Walter Isaacson

Entrepreneurialism, to me, means being able to fail. And I believe that kind of leadership is not necessary only in business, but it's necessary for running countries, too. You've got to be able to believe in something strongly enough that you want to do it even if there's a risk of failure. — Bernard L. Schwartz

Creating a close connection to those you do business with has its many risks, rewards and consequences.
There are few things in business I have encountered that are more difficult than firing someone, particularly if that someone has always been, or has become a friend.
On the flip side, I have been rewarded with many friends. — Mark Cuban

My philosophy, one of the biggest enemies of future success is past success, because you become complacent, you become risk averse, and that's one of the things we try to drive here, and this is fundamental to this philosophy, and that's in this component change, and also in value creation. That we need to drive creative destruction, not just incremental innovations, but innovations that will change the whole nature of the business. — Charles Koch

People everywhere, including the United States, are still prone to accept stereotypes, eager to believe what we want to believe (for example, on global warming) and anxious to await while others take the lead
seeking in vain to avoid both responsibility and risk. When trouble arises among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but left in the closet when clouds threaten. — Madeleine K. Albright

Wrecks are going to happen in this business, that's just a risk of the sport. If you can't keep from worrying about it, then you're in the wrong line of work. — Coo Coo Marlin

If every sector of business and society will be driven by software - how does that get enabled? By highly-paid computer scientists funded by risk capital in Silicon Valley? Or by lots of engineers who can build it themselves? — Satya Nadella

A study of project and risk management in software projects in the public sector found that an informal partnership between the project's business owner and the project manager was seen by the latter as providing more effective project proprietorship and governance than the project steering committee [1]. This suggests that the application of governance may be more important than its form. This paper, however, focuses only on formal and explicit governance — Anonymous

THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE PROGRESS IN BUSINESS IS THROUGH CHANGE. AND CHANGE, BY DEFINITION, HAS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF RISK ATTACHED TO IT. BUT IF YOU PICK YOUR SHOTS, USE YOUR HEAD, AND APPLY GOOD MANAGEMENT, THOSE ROLLS OF THE DICE CAN TURN OUT PRETTY — Phil Rosenzweig

The labels are in a jam. For a company to do well in music now, it's got to be in all aspects of the business. And Live Nation is the risk-taker. It's leading the charge. — Guy Oseary

I want the definition of startup back. To be used by anybody who is willing to take the risk to quit their corporate job and go out and try and build an innovative, disruptive, tech-enabled business that tries to change the way things work in the world. — Mark Suster

The problem, as Randolph has realized, is that the best way for a young person to build character is for him to attempt something where there is a real and serious possibility of failure. In a high-risk endeavor, whether it's in business or athletics or the arts, you are more likely to experience colossal defeat than in a low-risk one - but you're also more likely to achieve real and original success. "The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure," Randolph explained. — Paul Tough

America has its roots in a tradition of risk-taking pioneers. In more conservative Europe, if you fail in business or actually end up going to jail for it, you're finished as a businessman for good. — Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Most Christians are more than content to live out their lives surrounded by the trappings of our world, rather than to risk losing them in becoming a radical Christian. A radical Christian (by my definition) is one who will put God first in all decisions, even when putting God first is costly. In the business world, this means putting God first even when doing so costs money. That is true freedom - spiritual freedom - as opposed to business bondage. — Larry Burkett

Henry Ford gave that idea popular currency when he brought out the famous Model T car and announced in 1914 that he would pay his workers the then unheard-of wage of $ 5 a day. Not only was it a matter of social justice, Ford later wrote, but it was smart business. When wages are low, Ford argued, business and the economy are at risk. But when pay is high and steady, Ford reasoned, business is more secure because workers earn enough to be good customers and eventually to be able to afford to buy Model Ts. — Hedrick Smith

What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so. — Alan Greenspan

In all the focus on political instability in the region, less examined is that many countries have adopted restrictive internet access and privacy laws. This includes business-friendly Dubai and lean-forward tech center Jordan. Often described as necessary steps in areas like press-and-publications law in order to protect libel concerns, these restrictions are usually vaguely worded and subject to wide and opportunistic interpretation. On the ground, entrepreneurs and investors alike view these as moves that risk chilling business development in their promising ecosystems. Jordan's — Christopher M. Schroeder

A risk-taking environment starts at the top of a corporation. If the CEO doesn't have this spirit, chances are you won't find it anywhere else in the organization. — Mary Kay Ash

Dreams, in their essence, include risk. This risk could be physical danger (often true in climbing big mountains like Everest), or it could be financial (leaving a comfortable job and pouring your life savings into a business venture), or it could be emotional (like the feelings of loss and questioning that comes with losing friends and coworkers to climbing accidents). — Adrian Ballinger

A business that doesn't implement a strategy of automation in the client acquisition process is doomed to have slow growth, even puts itself at risk of declining — Bob Mangat

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency. — Wayne White

Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you've been passed by. — Clayton Christensen

Investment is crucial. Because the truth is, you only get jobs and growth in the economy when people invest money, at their own risk, in setting up a business or expanding an existing business. — John Key

Now take a look at the cemetery. It is quite difficult to do so because people who fail do not seem to write memoirs, and, if they did, those business publishers I know would not even consider giving them the courtesy of a returned phone call (as to returned e-mail, fuhgedit). Readers would not pay $26.95 for a story of failure, even if you convinced them that it had more useful tricks than a story of success.* The entire notion of biography is grounded in the arbitrary ascription of a causal relation between specified traits and subsequent events. Now consider the cemetery. The graveyard of failed persons will be full of people who shared the following traits: courage, risk taking, optimism, et cetera. Just like the population of millionaires. There may be some differences in skills, but what truly separates the two is for the most part a single factor: luck. Plain luck. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

As value investors, our business is to buy bargains that financial market theory says do not exist. We've delivered great returns to our clients for a quarter century-a dollar invested at inception in our largest fund is now worth over 94 dollars, a 20% net compound return. We have achieved this not by incurring high risk as financial theory would suggest, but by deliberately avoiding or hedging the risks that we identified. — Seth Klarman

They will therefore not be in a hurry to risk their entire business by expanding too rapidly, but they are the major indicator of whether the manufacturing industry accepts there is a sustainable business in RFID production. — Mike Marsh

When you sell options, you get paid for assuming risk. That can be a profitable business, but it does not mix well with the risks inherent in a leveraged portfolio. — George Soros

The sooner we associate long hours and multitasking with incompetence and carelessness the better. The next time you hear boasts of executives pulling an all-nighter or holding conference calls in their cars, be sure to offer your condolences; it's grim being stuck in sweatshops run by managers too ignorant to understand productivity and risk. Working people like this is as smart as running your factory without maintenance. In manufacturing and engineering businesses, everyone learns that the top priority is asset integrity: protecting the machinery on which the business depends. In knowledge-based economies, that machinery is the mind. — Margaret Heffernan

They will have difficulties to overcome,' I admitted. 'Including the differences in their religions. However, marriage is always a chancy business, Katherine. I have known individuals who appeared perfectly suited, by family background, religion, and nationality, who were thoroughly miserable.'
'So you believe in taking the chance?'
'Certainly. What is life without some risk? — Elizabeth Peters

This opportunity - to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life - it isn't bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business. — Marco Rubio

While big business gain subsidies and political access, small businesses drown in red tape, and individuals now risk being classified as terrorists for complaining about it. Economic globalisation is about homogenising differences in the worlds' markets, cultures, tastes and traditions. It's about giving big business access to a global market. — Zac Goldsmith

Like it or not - and often we don't - power is a pervasive phenomenon. From midnight decisions in the Oval Office that risk the lives of young Americans to quarrels over the kitchen table, power is part of every human equation. Yes, it can be - and often is - abused, in business as in all arenas of endeavor. But it can also be used to do great good for great numbers. And as a career-building tool, the slow and steady (and subtle) amassing of power is the surest road to success. — Tom Peters

In an ideal world, one populated by vegetarians and Esperanto speakers, derivatives would be used for one thing only: reducing levels of risk. The list of individual traders who have lost more than a billion dollars at a time betting on derivatives is not short. — John Lanchester

Business schools are failing to teach the students about the risks of market failures. We need to include some material on market failures in the core of curriculum. — Pankaj Ghemawat

It is way less certain to be a wonderful business in the future. The threat is alternative mediums of information. Every newspaper is scrambling to parlay their existing advantage into dominance on the Internet. But it is way less sure [that this will occur] than the certainty 20 years ago that the basic business would grow steadily, so there's more downside risk. The perfectly fabulous economics of this business could become grievously impaired. — Charlie Munger

It is true [the risk for travel is greater] for we now operate in a global market. Business travelers are conducting business all over the world as if they are conducting business in their own backyards. — Mark Hall

Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it's starting a new business, whether it's leaving home, whether it's getting married, or whether it's flying in space. — Chris Hadfield

Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run. — Peter Drucker

The secret of the creative life is how to feel at ease with your own embarrassment. We're all in the dirty laundry business and we're being paid to take risks and look silly. Race car drivers get paid to risk their lives in a more concrete way; we get paid to risk our lives in an emotional way. — Paul Schrader

A big Wall Street bank's biggest advantage was its access to vast amounts of cheap risk capital and, with that, its ability to survive the ups and downs of a risky business. That meant little when the business wasn't risky and didn't require much capital. High-frequency traders went home every night with no position in the stock market. They traded in the market the way card counters in a casino played blackjack: They played only — Michael Lewis

In business, you try to minimise risk. — Baba Kalyani

I had come to expect that Chinese friends would make financial decisions that I found uncomfortably risky: launching businesses with their savings, moving across the country without the assurance of a job. One explanation, which Weber and Hsee call "the cushion hypothesis," is that traditionally large Chinese family networks afford people confidence that they can turn to others for help if their risk-taking does not succeed. Another theory is more specific to the boom years. "The economic reforms undertaken by Deng Xiaoping were a gamble in themselves," Ricardo Siu, a business professor at the University of Macau, told me. "So people got the idea that taking a risk is not just okay; it has utility." For those who have come from poverty to the middle class, he added, "the thinking may be, If I lose half my money, well, I've lived through that. I won't be poor again. And in several years I can earn it back. But if I win? I'm a millionaire! — Evan Osnos

In a British University, a final exam question on Business was:
"Define what risk is".
The shortest answer ever at one word was :
"This."
The student handed the essay in and got 100%. — Anonymous

Nowadays ... deals are transactional rather than personal. Instead of placing your faith in a person, you get lawyers to write safeguards into the contract. This is an historic shift from a trust economy to a risk economy. But trust is not a dispensable luxury. It is the very basis of our social life. Many scholars believe that capitalism had religious roots because people could trust other people who, feeling that they were answerable to God, could be relied on to be honest in business. A world without trust is a lonely and dangerous place. — Jonathan Sacks

Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business. — Thomas Watson

My parents grew that small business from one 18-year-old guarding a bingo to more than 125 employees in three states. And sure, there was help along the way. But my parents took the risk. They stood up. And you better believe they built it. — Susana Martinez

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself. — Theodore Roosevelt

God pays all bills He authorizes." When we take chances on our own, in ministry or business or finances, we take a risk. But if God directs us to do something, He will provide the desire, the means, the tools, and the wherewithal - and perhaps an angel - to help us. — Betty Malz

In any business opportunity, you'd be looking, probably, primarily at the risk and return. Some business can be very risky with a low return; what you want is the lowest risk with the biggest return. — John Caudwell

You know, my goal, once I leave the music business, is like, 'Man, Lupe didn't lead us astray.' It comes directly from Islam: leading people astray is the worst thing you could do. Especially in perpetuity; like, your music continues to go on and live without you. That risk is too great for me; I'm gonna keep it positive. — Lupe Fiasco

Intuition, if you are fashion designer is really the key to everything. I just really have a feeling it's the right moment in time to create a new business model. Obviously I have facts and figures that could back that up. It isn't a gamble; it's a calculated risk. — Monita Rajpal

Frequent risk-takers have had their fair shares of failures and successes, hence, being confident in reaching their goals, they will usually seem insensitive to whether or not they look foolish or cool to other people. — Criss Jami

When He was challenged by Jesus to accept a life of voluntary poverty, the rich young man knew he was faced with the simple alternative of obedience or disobedience. When Levi was called from the receipt of custom and Peter from his nets, there was no doubt that Jesus meant business. Both of them were to leave everything and follow. Again, when Peter was called to walk on the rolling sea, he had to get up and risk his life. Only one thing was required in each case-to rely on Christ's word, and cling to it as offering greater security than all the securities in the world. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Trusting in Something Other Than God Another way you Edge God Out is when you trust in something other than the character and unconditional love of God as your source of security and self-worth. When you put your sense of security and self-worth in your intellect, your position, your performance, your possessions, or your business and personal contacts, you're counting on things that are at-risk and temporary. Instead, you must place your trust in that which is sure and eternal: God's care for you and the wisdom He provides about living in harmony with the rest of His creation. — Kenneth H. Blanchard

Our combination of great research universities, a pro-risk business culture, deep pools of innovation-seeking equity capital and reliable business and contract law is unprecedented and unparalleled in the world. — Marc Andreessen

If I wasn't doing this kind of exploration, I'd like to be doing some other kind of exploration. It might be more risky, or less risky, but, in the business of exploration, risk is part of the territory. — John L. Phillips

One way to mitigate our risk is to invest in companies with understandable business models. — Andrew Tan

Money, while clearly helpful in solving myriad problems, can often conceal a business's real flaws. It can also risk rigidifying a company's business model at the very moment it should be in 'customer discovery' mode or iterating around market opportunities. — Maelle Gavet

A person who is walking around with the belief I am safe in my body is going to
approach the world from a very different place than someone who doesn't believe
that. That person will be more confident in approaching others, as Sonia was in
sharing her business at the women's event. They're going to be much more willing to put themselves out in the world, to be vulnerable in relationships, and to be willing to risk and dare, because they're operating from a place of safety. Page 60 — Nick Ortner

While Washington pays lip service to the challenges facing small businesses, it repeatedly chooses its own expansion over results. In effect, government has become a huge silent partner in all businesses, often taking a majority of the profits and forcing many unprofitable business decisions without the risk that it will be fired. — David Malpass

Never favour those who flatter you most, but hold rather to those who risk your displeasure for your own good. Never neglect business for pleasure, organise your life so that there is time in it for relaxation and entertainment. Give the business of government your full attention. Inform yourself as much as you can before taking any decision. Make every effort to get to know men of distinction, so that you may call on them when you need them. Be courteous to all, speak hurtfully to no man. — E.H. Gombrich

China is a political beast, with the Party at its heart, and the importance of political and regulatory due diligence cannot be overstated. — Jeremy Gordon

In the financial markets, however, the connection between a marketable security and the underlying business is not as clear-cut. For investors in a marketable security the gain or loss associated with the various outcomes is not totally inherent in the underlying business; it also depends on the price paid, which is established by the marketplace. The view that risk is dependent on both the nature of investments and on their market price is very different from that described by beta. — Seth Klarman

It's plain and simple. You're one person in a sea of individuals hoping to make their mark on the gatekeepers of the business. However, only those who dare, risk and accomplish uncommon things will stand out from the crowd and make noise. — The Ibanker

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride. — Hunter S. Thompson

When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would've had a chance. Because that's where my real heart was. — Steve Martin

I really like the way that Jack Nicholson [acts] in particular works. I like the fact that he takes enormous risks. He's an enormously disciplined actor who seems to be totally capable of dealing with the business as a business and yet drop it totally when he's working. — Tim Curry

But at the same time, the film industry just got torched. The risk tolerance for the types of movies we're talking about is lower, and the reason for that is that the captains of the industry were asleep at the switch when their core business was being disrupted. And they're never getting it back. In a way, it makes it all the more exciting when the good ones get through. — Edward Norton