Scott Cook

“Our first product was Quicken, which is personal financial management on a PC. It had a tough start, and we ran some tracking surveys to understand who was using it. Half the users claimed to use it in some sort of office environment. We ignored that. I thought it was meaningless.”

“So I think instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer.”

“Thirty to 40 years ago, most financial decisions were fairly simple.”

“QuickBooks - the very fact that we could even dream to make something in the business arena, and that it would then succeed - was a total revolution to me.”

“Before 1980, it was basically illegal for U.S. banks to invent new products.”

“Dig for feedback on yourself. You need to have the courage to ask for feedback. You need to learn how you can learn how to grow. It is important that you are going to be a lifelong learner.”

“Today more people believe in UFOs than believe that Social Security will take care of their retirement.”

“When you love someone deeply, you give strength, and when you are loved deeply, you gain courage.”

“Be dramatically willing to focus on the customer at all costs, even at the cost of obsoleting your own stuff.”

“The current institutionally provided retirement plans will not cover people's needs upon retirement.”

“If following your passion to a place where there's no pain probably isn't the business, I don't think an entrepreneur can sustain in a place where you don't have passion.”

“The most important skill you need is the ability to learn how to change and grow.”

“A whole generation of Americans will retire in poverty instead of prosperity, because they simply are not preparing for retirement now.”

“A lot of companies have teams, but they are not really independent. They still have to get stuff approved by the boss. You have to change how and where decisions are made. If the hierarchy makes the decision, it will be based on politics.”

“Fifty years ago wealth was stored and transmitted physically through gold bars, stock certificates, bank notes, and coins.”

“Subsequent to the original Quicken, the whole idea that we, as a consumer products company, could actually make business products, that was a whole revolution in our thinking.”

“The changing nature of money is only one facet of the financial services revolution.”

“You're kind of taught that the role of a business person is the decision making.”

“What I teach our people is that, as a leader, you have four key roles apart from people management. First is to champion the grand vision. Two, install systems and a culture to run experiments. The third thing is to savour surprises. The fourth thing is that even a leader's ideas need to be subjected to tests.”

“Behind every successful enterprise, there is a supporting wife and surprised in-laws.”