The fast-food industry is in very good company with the lead industry and the tobacco industry in how it tries to mislead the public, and how aggressively it goes after anybody who criticizes its business practices. Eric Schlosser
If business doesn’t pick up, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman 2006 starring Xavarian Dramatic Society, Warren Able Theatre starring Daniel Valez & Amanda Magnavita & Michael Longo & Michael Maldonado et al, Willy to Linda
The trouble with the French is they don’t have a word for entrepreneur. George W Bush, alleged comment to Tony Blair at G8 summit July 2002
What happens when the love of your life becomes your business partner? More and more people in the UK are ditching the day job and realising their dream of running their own business with their partner. But can a successful relationship really translate into a successful business? Modern Times: For Richer, For Poorer BBC 2015
Every year some sixty thousand new businesses are started up by companies. 20% of all start-ups fail in the first two years. ibid.
Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs – we entrepreneurs – have set up these outsourcing companies that virtually run America. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p4
To break the law of his land – to turn bad news into good news – is the entrepreneur’s prerogative. ibid. p38
In nature there’s something call the food chain. It’s where the shark eats the little shark, and the little shark eats the littler shark, and so on and so on and so on until you get down to the single-celled shark. So now you replace sharks with paper companies. And that is all you need to know about business. The Office US s5e13: Prince Family Paper, Michael, NBC 2008
The Fundamentals of Business by Michael Scott. Over one billion sold. More than the Bible. I’m not surprised. Chapter One ... The Businessman … The Office US s6e6: Mafia, Michael’s book
The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest ... The American beauty rose can be produced in the splendour and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. John D Rockefeller, 1839-1937
The Bible runs as little as $49.95. And we have three plans on it. Maysles Brothers & Zwerin, Salesman, Paul Brennan, 1968
Money is being made in the Bible business. ibid. sales pep talk to salesmen
Tomorrow, no matter what they do, it’ll be business as usual. The Iron Lady 2011 starring Meryl Streep & Alexandra Roach & Jim Broadbent & Harry Lloyd & Anthony Head & Richard E Grant & Iain Glen & Olivia Colman & Nicholas Farrell & Susan Brown & Martin Wimbush et al, director Phyllida Lloyd, Margaret’s dad
You’d better get those books sorted, Susan, before the tax man gets here; sees them and he’ll think Christmas come early. Ian Bleasdale, Play for Today: The Muscle Market ***** starring Bernard Hill & Pete Postlethwaite et al, Danny Duggan to secretary, BBC 1981
Times are hard all right. Same again? ibid. golfers at bar
I’ve worked hard for all this. This [car] and me business and me house. And everything. And for you. And what happens when I get here? Country’s falling apart. Me arse is hanging out the building game. Kids couldn’t wait to leave home. I’ve got no real friends. Me wife’s a sex maniac, and me mistress gets headaches. ibid. Danny to secretary in car
What sort of a world do you think it is eh outside your rules and regulations? Listen, bollocks, I’ll tell ya. Everyone in this business starts off on the rob. Every big firm in this country started out by some grabbing bastard hustling and lying and thieving. ’Cause that’s the only way to get up there. But it doesn’t matter. And do you know why? ’Cause when you get up there there’s more robbin’ goes on in Park Land and priggin’ Mayfair and tax havens and computers and the like that in site huts and wellies and farting little offices like this. ibid. Danny to taxmen
Businesses willingly handed over 10-30 per cent of their turnover to local thugs, who would ensure in exchange that they could continue trading, free from the violence of gruppirovki working on behalf of their competitors. ‘We are prepared to work with the racket because it charges ten per cent,’ a businessman from Omsk noted at the time. ‘The state takes ninety per cent in taxes and even more in fines.’ Misha Glenny, McMafia
Almost all major oligarchs and business empires started to employ former KGB men to advise them on security. ibid.
We’re not forcing people … you can support and be a supporter, but if you go beyond that and become a member, if you’re a businessman, you business will multiply … Everything you touch will multiply. I’ve always said that a wise businessperson will support the ANC … because supporting the ANC means you’re investing very well in your business. Jacob Zuma, Durban 12 January 2013
It’s the question that everyone wants an answer to: what is the secret to extraordinary success? Is it grit? Is it determination? Luck? Or is it who you know? The Secret to Extraordinary Success, BBC 2015
Success in business is not a fine science … Not all of my ventures have succeeded. ibid.
Certain factors that can give us all a fighting chance … Have the confidence to change what you don’t like … Self-trust … ‘You’re really only investing in the person’ … It’s that self-doubt that drives her … We don’t readily take no for an answer … ibid.
All I want to do is open up a few semi-legit businesses to make money. Trailer Park Boys s3e1: The Kiss of Freedom, Julian
Frank: So let me get this straight. I pay you to take a business seminar and you learn how to peel a banana?
Torgeir: The banana is a metaphor. Lilyhammer s2e2: Out of Africa, Netflix 2013
The business that you helped Finn build, the people that invested in it, they want you keep running it. They don’t want Sean anywhere near it. They want him gone. He’s too noisy and unpredictable. They [investors] killed Finn. And they killed him because he was trying to leave. Gangs of London s1e6, Ed, Sky Atlantic 2020
Coronavirus has changed the way we live putting us under pressure like never before. Since the crisis started we’ve been following people whose lives have been turned upside down. Those fighting to save their livelihoods. The workers facing new dangers. And those at the sharpest end dealing with the human cost of the virus. Panorama: Lockdown: How Business is Coping, BBC 2020
But these companies lose money hand over first even during the best of times. They’re designed that way, and executives are rewarded that way, and investors want it that way. They disrupt existing industries by not having to stick to the principle that a business has to be a self-sustaining enterprise. Wolfstreet online, cited Keiser Report
Getting back to work, but are there jobs to go to? The businesses hoping to bounce back. But is more help needed? And how to build high streets for the future. Tonight: Back in Business: The Road to Recovery, ITV 2020
After the unprecedented double-hit of Coronavirus and lockdown, for our high streets and for local businesses things have arguably have never been more challenging. ibid.
In the 1950s Britain was dominated by a small group of men – the captains of industry. They were eminent industrialists and bankers who met together at the court of the Bank of England. Men like these were powerful because of the vast industrial empire they controlled. They worked in partnership with the politicians to shape the future of the nation. What these men did not realise was that within fifteen years their whole world would be destroyed. Their power would be taken away from them and their factories torn down and sold off. And the man who began their destruction was a suburban accountant called Jim Slater. To do it Slater awoke a force that had been dormant since before the war: the Stock Market. And as he grew powerful, Slater became an ally of politicians, but what neither he nor they realised was that the force he had awoken would overwhelm all of them. Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set II: Entrepreneur Spelt S.P.I.V ***** BBC 1999
The stock market was something that frightened both the politicians and industrialists because it was unpredictable and threatened their control over the economy. Both lived with the terrible memory of the crash of 1929 and the unemployment it had caused. And as the boom continued to grow and excite the public interest, the Bank of England became worried. ibid.
He [Jim Slater] decided to try and work out a way of predicting which shares would go up and which would go down. ibid.
In 1964 Slater formed a company with a young Tory MP called Peter Walker. Slater-Walker was an investment company, and as the market continued to boom, Slater became rich managing other people’s money. ibid.
Jim Slater had discovered that the Coote family no longer had a majority shareholding [Cork Manufacturing]. And he decided to try and take the company over. He [Slater] made a hostile takeover. ibid.
He [Slater] immediately sold off large parts of the land the factories: they were demolished for property development. Slater had invented a formula which he now repeated. The sales of assets from each takeaway were then used to fund the next and bigger one. ibid.