Tahl Raz

“One of the first acts during the second coming of Steve Jobs as CEO in 1997 was a major board overhaul.”

“When designing your product, go beyond consumers' current knowledge base. Design, test, and dig deeper than almost any client would pay you to do.”

“Take information technology. We have winners implementing CRM (customer relationship management systems) and losers implementing CRM. What mattered in technology is that the technology actually drives either cost reduction or superior strategy execution.”

“Pure art is a noble pursuit. Applied art is a business. That's one reason design firms have been so eager of late to add consulting and manufacturing to their core aesthetic competencies.”

“There is constant talk about the intermarriage crisis: who is a Jew and how we define a Jew. That doesn't go over well with young Jews trying to figure out whether they want to be a part of this thing or not.”

“Slick marketing, high-tech production values, and a practical message have created a product that plays well to today's fickle churchgoer. Megachurches - defined as congregations with more than 2,000 members - number close to 600 in the United States.”

“Quality that significantly exceeds the customer's expectations doesn't seem to pay off. This 'delight the customer' stuff isn't rewarding. One has to be careful about delighting customers too often, because it sort of reshapes customer expectations.”

“Sell your intellectual property based on a track record of success and innovation.”

“Edible Arrangements will have to beat back some rivals, including a handful of mom-and-pop vendors and a company in Pennsylvania called Incredibly Edible Delites. And there's always the chance that a deep-pocketed national florist like FTD will decide that pretty produce is profitable and jump into the mix.”

“Schmoozers are brownnosers, sycophants more suited to middle management than to the Wild West of the entrepreneurial world.”

“Drilling is risky because finding oil is only half the job. The real challenge is finding the money to pump the oil.”

“Anyone can call himself a promoter. Anyone can call himself a promoter and stage a fight. Unlike other professional sports, whose owners collude out of mutual interest in their sport's image and general welfare, there are no real alliances or partnerships in boxing.”

“'Independents' - the industry term for companies that have more capital and know-how than the typical 'wildcatter' - can grow either by exploring and finding reserves or by buying a company that already has them.”

“Would it be a surprise if entrepreneurs recoil at the thought of consciously courting any person who has more power and money than they have?”

“The process of unleashing worms on organic waste such as food scraps and grass clippings is known as 'vermicomposting.' Amateur horticulturists and hippies have been doing it on a small scale for decades.”

“Oil wells never really run dry. A big company will drain maybe 40% of a field. Pulling out the rest of the oil, which requires an outlay of incrementally more cash per barrel, often proves uneconomical for big companies with big overheads.”