Tim O'Reilly Quotes

The lean startup method is not about cost, it is about speed.

Not only is it possible to do lean startup in federal government, but it's the most effective way to drive change in the federal government.

The virtue of small-to-midsize companies is that they tend to be more flexible and it is easier to experiment with new ways of working. So just try to tackle one problem you're really struggling with, together with your team. Get started and see what happens. Chances are you will be happy with the outcome.

I'm pretty confident the why works now. When it first began, somebody said to me: "Will this work in big business?" I said, "I don't know. Let's try." Somebody said will this work in entrepreneurs, relationships or government and military. I said, "I don't know. Let's try." I kept applying the scientific method. I had a theory. I kept applying that theory, looking for opportunities to fail and it kept working.

There is no single way to train, or do anything well. You have to keep thinking, keep doing things.

An open-minded person running a business might catch a problem faster than a closed-minded person. And when they identify a problem, they can fix it much faster.

I just find things that work and embellish them.

Part of being innovative in government is sometimes not trying to plot out the last chapter of the book, but to be open and see what comes back.

As soon as you know what you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

I would say, as an entrepreneur everything you do - every action you take in product development, in marketing, every conversation you have, everything you do - is an experiment. If you can conceptualize your work not as building features, not as launching campaigns, but as running experiments, you can get radically more done with less effort.

That's the way it is with entrepreneurial people. You try one thing, it doesn't work, you try another.

Entrepreneurs don't write a 100-page business plan and execute it one time; they're always experimenting and adapting based on what they learn.

There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Disrupt yourself before others do. Continually motivate employees so that they never get too complacent - see Yahoo, AOL and many other Internet companies for evidence of what happens when they do.

Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.

The reality is the Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Lean startups waste less money, because they use a disciplined approach to testing new products and ideas.

'Humans of New York' did not result from a flash on inspiration. It grew from five years of experimenting, tinkering, and messing up.

An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Entrepreneurship requires an unvanquished spirit of curiosity, an openness to learning, a letting go of OldCo so you're free to create NewCo.

I can't say enough about the guts and the talents of Amazon. They're so agile, they're so nimble; they picked us up two weeks after we premiered, and their whole attitude is, 'Go, go, go, go,' so I'm very, very impressed.

You have to think that the answer - and the right answer - for you and your organization might not be something that's been done before. And it's up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do successfully.

I'm always learning, always trying new things, because you have to to stay fresh.

Sometimes, when you're building a company, out of necessity there's just a gazillion things you have to learn and figure out.

It's important for anyone working at a hyper growth company such as Airbnb to embrace learning and be open in order to keep pace with the changing environment.