A wise man once told me, in a debate of ideas, when your opponent resorts to personal attacks, you’ve won the debate.
Messala: The Emperor is displeased. He wishes Judea made into a more obedient and disciplined province. He has ordered the new governor and me to restore order. I intend to carry out his wishes. Sextus: Yes, but how Messala? Oh you can break a man's skull, you can arrest him, you can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what's up here? How do you fight an idea? Especially a new idea? ... Messala: Sextus, you ask how to fight an idea. Well, I'll tell you how. With another idea.
I've heard that a single offensive word can render an entire book invisible!"
But the greatest companies aren't an idea, they’re an idea machine.
And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
You have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea.
No one trusts an idea till you embody it in a product and use that to grow a user base.
Ideas are somewhat like babies - they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, "This is a damn-fool idea." Instead they ask, "What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?"
Walt Mossberg: And are people willing to tell you that you are wrong? Steve Jobs: Uh, yeah. Walt Mossberg: I mean other than snarky journalists. I mean people that work for you? Steve Jobs: Oh Yeah! No we have wonderful arguments. Walt Mossberg: And do you win them all? Steve Jobs: Oh no. I wish I did. See you can't. If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to be run by ideas. Not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win. Otherwise good people don't stay.