Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we're going to win.
Kevin O'Leary
Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.
Working 24 hours a day isn't enough anymore. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to be successful, including your personal life, your family life, maybe more. If people think it's any less, they're wrong, and they will fail.
Here's how I think of my money - as soldiers - I send them out to war everyday. I want them to take prisoners and come home, so there's more of them.
Don't cry about money, it never cries for you.
Don't call me, I'll call you... I'm out.
Money equals freedom.
So much of life is a negotiation - so even if you're not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.
I'm not trying to make friends, I'm trying to make money.
When you're an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there's a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.
I'm not a tough guy. I'm just delivering the truth and only the truth and if you can't deal with it, too bad.
I want to go to bed richer than when I woke up. The pursuit of wealth is a wonderful thing, but the thing is you have to be honest about it, you have to tell the truth.
I do not own a single security anywhere that doesn't pay a dividend, and I formed a mutual-fund company with that very simple philosophy.
I'd rather invest in an entrepreneur who has failed before than one who assumes success from day one.
There's only one side with me. You get the right side. You get the correct version of the facts.
Know everything about the companies and people you are going to be negotiating with. Insist on getting the names of everyone participating in the negotiations. Leave no stone unturned; find out as much as you can.
You'd rather own gold; never own the miner.
I don't mind rude people. I want people that I can make money with, so if their executional abilities are good, and they're arrogant and rude, I don't care.
In his first term, President Barack Obama played a cautious manager navigating the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and cleaning up the messes left by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Being an employee is a bad outcome. You want to avoid that. Being an employee is never a good outcome. That's just an opinion.
For whatever reason somebody can be convinced to buy a PC, it opens up a whole new market for all of us in the software business.
I like gold because it is a stabilizer; it is an insurance policy.
When you come to 'Shark Tank,' the only person you should listen to is me, because you know you're getting the truth. I'll decide if it's worth it, and after I'm finished, the rest of the people can look into it.
Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.
We have to change public perception of ex-convicts. Most Canadians don't realize that when you come out of prison, you're a complete pariah. You can't get a car loan or money from a bank to start a business. So most end up back in prison within 24 months. It's just so wrong. We need to fix this problem.
Once Michigan stood proud. In addition to GM, Ford and Chrysler, it was home base for the United Auto Workers, a powerful escalator transporting hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers into America's middle class.
If you put a woman in prison for four years when she's young and make her pay her time in a horrible place and she wants to come out and work, and become a mother and be a contributor to society and pay taxes and you never give her that chance. There is something un-Canadian about that.
Software is becoming no different than a videotape or a record album or a paperback book, and not all of us are ready for that change.
My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.
Building fast-growing, globally competitive companies is tough.
Television is the most interesting hobby I've ever had.
Filming 'The Road to Riches' was surprisingly difficult for me. I learned that going back to career successes and failures can be emotionally exhausting as you are forced to revisit the euphoric highs and painful lows in high speed.
People are aware of what I stand for through television. Nobody gets rich on TV but you build brand. That's what I'm attempting to do.
Nobody forces you to work at Wal-Mart. Start your own business! Sell something to Wal-Mart!
You may lose your wife, you may lose your dog, your mother may hate you. None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like.
If you want a friend, buy a dog.
I think every entrepreneur in Canada owes the next generation a road map of how to do it again.
I could have easily gone down the wrong path and dropped out of school, but I was given a second chance.
I'm not trying to make friends, I'm just trying to make money.
When you're travelling, your day is jam-packed. I just don't have time to whip out a PC all the time. But I can whip out a BlackBerry and tweet. I keep a constant diary of where I'm at and why I'm there.
As far as I'm concerned, Twitter has wiped out Facebook. I'm done with Facebook.
There's something very visceral about watching people beg for money. It's powerful.
A lot of people have said a lot of great things about Steve Jobs. And for good reason: he built the world's second-most valuable company, with billions in profits and products that have improved every aspect of our lives. But Steve didn't get there by being a soft, fluffy, Kumbaya-type leader.
I'm starting to think about things that I want to do, things that are fun. One of them is driving a car like a Porsche. I've driven a lot of cars - sedans, trucks and big family vehicles all year long. But there's nothing like a four-wheel-drive Porsche.
I think a book is your calling card, your business card.
I have met many entrepreneurs who have the passion and even the work ethic to succeed - but who are so obsessed with an idea that they don't see its obvious flaws. Think about that. If you can't even acknowledge your failures, how can you cut the rope and move on?
There are a lot of impractical things about owning a Porsche. But they're all offset by the driving experience. It really is unique. Lamborghinis and Ferraris come close. And they are more powerful, but they don't handle like a Porsche.
I have had some great successes and great failures. I think every entrepreneur has. I try to learn from all of them.
There are a lot of idiot fund managers out there who add no value to the process at all.
The only reason to do business is to make money; that's the only reason for doing business.
