Masayoshi Son Quotes

Each time I invent something and have it manufactured, it's so incredibly exciting that I can't imagine ever wanting to stop. Envisioning new products is easy for me. I just don't have enough time in the day to design them all.

One of my top tips for aspiring entrepreneurs: Tell everyone you know about your idea. This runs contrary to the instinct that most people have, because they're afraid someone is going to 'steal my ideal.' Ideas alone are worth very little; it's in the execution and market feedback that companies are made.

I had to learn everything about manufacturing, patents and how to run a business, and eventually I came up with an prototype that worked.

How many times have you been out for a beer or dinner and people are coming up with business ideas? Everybody wants to think they've got that great business idea.

You need to invent things and you need to get them to people. You need to commercialize those inventions. Obviously, the best way we've come up with doing that is through companies.

I want to create an environment where I can create technology, get it into the hands of someone to market it, and move on to other technologies so I can keep innovating. I want to be a serial entrepreneur: Incubate an idea, get it to a good state, and make that an enabler to get to the next state. It's every researcher's fantasy.

Inventors often don't know how to pitch their ideas. So many people in Silicon Valley want to hear you say 'disruptive,' and tote a 'platform.' They repeat buzzwords over and over, and I think it intimidates a real inventor.

There is a premium on innovation and commercializing new ideas.

I consider myself an inventor first and an entrepreneur second. In real life, my hero is Thomas Edison. He was a great inventor, but also an outstanding entrepreneur who was able to sell his inventions to the masses. He didn't just develop the light bulb; he invented the entire electric grid and power distribution system.

What interests me is starting businesses on our own, finding ideas that we can support, and simply investing in invention.

I spent much of my life dying for somebody to help me even file for a patent or make a prototype. I understand that.

Fact is, inventing an innovative business model is often mostly a matter of serendipity.

The Technion didn't teach students how to open a start-up.

If every effect of any new products or methods were required to be known before they could be produced and marketed, they would not be true innovations - and thus not represent new knowledge of what people would like, if offered.

In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.

From the time I was a kid, I was always interested in any and all kinds of new business ideas.

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that. I have to have the wheel.

My company invents all kinds of new technology in lots of different areas. And we do that for a couple of reasons. We invent for fun - invention is a lot of fun to do - and we also invent for profit. The two are related because the profit actually takes long enough that if it isn't fun, you wouldn't have the time to do it.

Definitely, starting my own brand would be really exciting.

One of the rookie mistakes first-time entrepreneurs often make is to be too guarded about their idea - in fact, many will actually spend their first $25,000 on patent lawyers without ever fully vetting their product.

Patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents

When you're starting a new business, you don't need to know much about it. A lot of the work is blocking and tackling - it's the same type of stuff no matter what sector you're in.

I don't invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

If you're doing business, not that simple to only buy. You have to create something. You have to create something that never exist for the future.

The inventors we remember didn't invent anything. They're the people who took somebody else's invention and made it commercially viable.