Many entrepreneurs have shifted their focus to pursuing VC funding as a primary strategic priority instead of concentrating on generating value for their users. This is worrisome because raising capital alone is misleading as a benchmark for success.

Jon Oringer

If the American government can't stand behind the dollar, the world's benchmark currency, then the global financial system will very likely enter a new era in which there is much less trade and much less economic growth. It would be, by most accounts, the largest self-imposed financial disaster in history.

Adam Davidson

It's very hard to reflect properly when you're still playing but the hundreds one - when I got my 23rd in Kolkata - felt the most special because it broke a benchmark that had stood for a very long time. It felt good to do something no Englishman has done before.

Alastair Cook

Benchmarking is an ongoing exercise in any company that aspires for leadership.

Anand Mahindra

No perfectionist has ever met his own benchmarks, and no one so famished for admiration has ever received enough of it.

Andrew Solomon

I've been very lucky to put women that I sincerely admire on the cover of 'Vogue:' the then First Lady and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, more recently, First Lady Michelle Obama. Those were benchmarks for the magazine, and certainly covers that I've been very, very proud of.

Anna Wintour

I try to learn from Falcao, and Manu Riviere as well - his movement is excellent - it's really good for me. I need to work on my movement and my finishing, but seeing these guys on a regular basis gives me a benchmark.

Anthony Martial

My parents' generation's benchmark was simple: Fat Equals Bad.

Arabella Weir

Being in the consumer business helps us groom talent in areas like marketing, finance and logistics. We can benchmark our outsourcing business to our consumer business and its best practices.

Azim Premji

The emphasis on innovation and technology in our companies has resulted in a few of them establishing global benchmarks in product design and development, manufacturing practices and human resource capabilities. However, there is no room for complacency.

Baba Kalyani

Learning to cook in the 1990s, I thought 'proper olives' meant black. The benchmark was Kalamata from Greece: purple-black with an almost mushroomy depth of flavour. Other fine examples were tiny Coquilles from Nice and plump round Tanches from Nyons.

Bee Wilson

It's a challenging task for every artist to come up with new ideas. Your last video would have made a benchmark, so the next one should ideally be better than your previous work, so there's always a competition with myself to be better.

Bhuvan Bam

The cacao content is a wrapper's most important datum, and the acceptable benchmark is seventy per cent. The figure is a measure of 'cocoa mass.'

Bill Buford

I never imagined myself in films. My benchmarks were performances I saw in the theater.

Bill Pullman

By saying that leaders - male or female - have to look or act a certain way to be respected as role models, we are not only hurting those individuals but also reinforcing rigid benchmarks for the next generation of passionate, aspiring leaders, who are watching.

Caroline Ghosn

We don't really want to work for a corporation; however, we do aspire to one day make a barbecue sauce that doubles as a cologne, and we would like to promote that ourselves. We would like to create a cologne barbecue sauce benchmark of success.

Charles Lincoln Neal

We still haven't played Madison Square Garden. That's a benchmark. Something will have gone seriously wrong if we don't play Madison Square Garden for this album.

Dan Hawkins

You can muck around with different guitars for certain bits, but you have to have your own sound. That's your benchmark, that's your sound. I also play a Black Beauty. It sounds amazing.

Dan Hawkins

To make sense of a world in which rapid change and globalisation create genuine insecurity, we need benchmarks by which we can judge our actions and their long-term impact.

David Blunkett

Virginia Woolf's literature really transformed my own ideas about how to formally represent the passage of time and how time affects us. Specifically, the benchmarks are 'Mrs. Dalloway,' 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Orlando,' all of which have time as a central conceit.

David Lowery

Working with some outside consultants or people that really can bring you an external perspective or a benchmarking to identify opportunities is a really good way to work.

Denise Morrison