Ross Perot just died.
An amazing man, Perot created not just one multi billion dollar company, but two.
Think about how hard that is.
Not only that, he ran twice for U.S President as an Independent, a truly radical thing to do in the Nineties.
And amazingly, the first time he ran he got a massive 19% of the votes!
He also was the major financier of Steve Job’s new company when he left Apple in the Eighties and formed Next.
A true legend, a brilliant entrepreneur and well worth us all studying.
To introduce you to how Ross Perot thought about business and life, here are some quotes from Ross that give you a sense of the man:
‘If you see a snake, just kill it – don’t appoint a committee on snakes.’
‘The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river’.
‘Eagles don’t flock, you have to find them one at a time.’
‘Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.’
‘Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.’
‘Most new jobs won’t come from our biggest employers. They will come from our smallest. We’ve got to do everything we can to make entrepreneurial dreams a reality.’
‘Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial’.
‘Life is like a cobweb, not an organization chart’.
‘If you can’t stand a little sacrifice and you can’t stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we’re never going to straighten this country out’.
‘If someone is blessed as I am is not willing to clean out the barn, who will?’
‘Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown’.
‘You don’t have to be the biggest to beat the biggest.’
RIP Ross.
