We have to change public perception of ex-convicts. Most Canadians don't realize that when you come out of prison, you're a complete pariah. You can't get a car loan or money from a bank to start a business. So most end up back in prison within 24 months. It's just so wrong. We need to fix this problem.
— Kevin O'Leary
Working 24 hours a day isn't enough anymore. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to be successful, including your personal life, your family life, maybe more. If people think it's any less, they're wrong, and they will fail.
So much of life is a negotiation - so even if you're not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.
Know everything about the companies and people you are going to be negotiating with. Insist on getting the names of everyone participating in the negotiations. Leave no stone unturned; find out as much as you can.
A lot of people have said a lot of great things about Steve Jobs. And for good reason: he built the world's second-most valuable company, with billions in profits and products that have improved every aspect of our lives. But Steve didn't get there by being a soft, fluffy, Kumbaya-type leader.
In his first term, President Barack Obama played a cautious manager navigating the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and cleaning up the messes left by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All businesses require capital, management and labor, and business executives, wanting to grow and maintain profitable enterprises, have a strong incentive to keep costs, including labor, as low as possible.
There's something very visceral about watching people beg for money. It's powerful.
Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.
Money has no grey areas. You either make it or you lose it.
As far as I'm concerned, Twitter has wiped out Facebook. I'm done with Facebook.
Filming 'The Road to Riches' was surprisingly difficult for me. I learned that going back to career successes and failures can be emotionally exhausting as you are forced to revisit the euphoric highs and painful lows in high speed.
I'm not trying to make friends, I'm just trying to make money.
My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.
I like gold because it is a stabilizer; it is an insurance policy.
The practical reality of managing cars in the family - I do 36-month leases. I think they're horrible investments. And you want to give them back after their warranty is over.
When I turned 50, something clicked in my head and I said, 'I'm not going to live to 100. I'm half-cooked already.' I set the family down and I said, 'Listen everybody, we're now entering the decade of Daddy. We're going to start doing things that I want to do.'
Building fast-growing, globally competitive companies is tough.
I look at Twitter as brand building.
Once in a while, I see my fellow TV investors praise a business just because they like the entrepreneur behind it. That kind of thinking might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside - but let's get back to reality.
I have met many entrepreneurs who have the passion and even the work ethic to succeed - but who are so obsessed with an idea that they don't see its obvious flaws. Think about that. If you can't even acknowledge your failures, how can you cut the rope and move on?
Protecting Americans from harm goes beyond police and national defense. It's imperative that we not destroy the commons, the physical environment on which we rely.
Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues.
Once Michigan stood proud. In addition to GM, Ford and Chrysler, it was home base for the United Auto Workers, a powerful escalator transporting hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers into America's middle class.
I keep anywhere between 5-10 percent of my net worth in venture ideas.
I do not own a single security anywhere that doesn't pay a dividend, and I formed a mutual-fund company with that very simple philosophy.
The only reason to do business is to make money; that's the only reason for doing business.
When you're travelling, your day is jam-packed. I just don't have time to whip out a PC all the time. But I can whip out a BlackBerry and tweet. I keep a constant diary of where I'm at and why I'm there.
I have had some great successes and great failures. I think every entrepreneur has. I try to learn from all of them.
Don't cry for money. It never cries for you.
If I were the president of the United States, I would make unions illegal. They no longer serve a functional purpose in democracy, in my view.
You'd rather own gold; never own the miner.
There are a lot of impractical things about owning a Porsche. But they're all offset by the driving experience. It really is unique. Lamborghinis and Ferraris come close. And they are more powerful, but they don't handle like a Porsche.
If you put a woman in prison for four years when she's young and make her pay her time in a horrible place and she wants to come out and work, and become a mother and be a contributor to society and pay taxes and you never give her that chance. There is something un-Canadian about that.
Television is the most interesting hobby I've ever had.
I'd rather invest in an entrepreneur who has failed before than one who assumes success from day one.
Imagine how foolish you'd look if, like one clever salesman who once pitched to me, you tried to license your product to a big industry player without knowing they just launched a competing product. With the right background research, he could have avoided that and other landmines - and so can you.
Steve Jobs had his critics. Some saw him as an egomaniac, and others, as a control freak.
Having won re-election convincingly and against the economic odds, President Obama quickly made good on his promise of maintaining taxes as they are for the middle class while raising them on the wealthiest Americans.
Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.
When you're an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there's a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.
There are a lot of idiot fund managers out there who add no value to the process at all.
I think every entrepreneur in Canada owes the next generation a road map of how to do it again.
For whatever reason somebody can be convinced to buy a PC, it opens up a whole new market for all of us in the software business.
Software is becoming no different than a videotape or a record album or a paperback book, and not all of us are ready for that change.
I don't mind rude people. I want people that I can make money with, so if their executional abilities are good, and they're arrogant and rude, I don't care.
Nobody forces you to work at Wal-Mart. Start your own business! Sell something to Wal-Mart!
Until Americans feel that their core asset - their homes - are stabilized, they are not going to have the animal spirits and they will continue to have less buying power.
If a manager can't control his costs, fire them.
I'm starting to think about things that I want to do, things that are fun. One of them is driving a car like a Porsche. I've driven a lot of cars - sedans, trucks and big family vehicles all year long. But there's nothing like a four-wheel-drive Porsche.
