Ted Waitt

“The entertainment industry always chooses to fight things out through the courts and legislation. Technology people always think there's a business solution.”

“I definitely don't welcome takeover interests.”

“But - there's no point in aiming to be Number Two. You've got to have a plan-to-win attitude.”

“So many people got caught up in the excitement and the promise of the Internet that they kind of lost sight of their senses.”

“Being a smaller, nimbler company is better for our customers, employees and shareholders.”

“When I look back through the 1980s and 1990s, those were some of the funniest experiences I had and, sometimes, some of the most difficult.”

“Customers don't care about rivalries between corporations, they care about getting the best value for their money.”

“We compete with Dell and HP. Now, we are going to compete with Sony and Best Buy. Are we going to be like Best Buy? No. Are we going to be a small Dell? No. We are going to be uniquely Gateway.”

“There's a large risk to our society if a group of people doesn't have access to technology or even the desire to get on the Net and see what opportunities are out there. Technology can be a great equalizer.”

“We were unknown before, and that was an advantage. Nobody knew who we were, so we snuck up on the competition.”

“From our perspective, there's been a price war in the PC industry since we opened for business in 1985.”

“When you fall short of your internal forecast, two things happen: Costs go up as a percentage of sales, and margins go down.”