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.Collection: Family
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.Collection: Home
Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.Collection: Power
Here's how I think of my money - as soldiers - I send them out to war everyday. I want them to take prisoners and come home, so there's more of them.Collection: Money
Money equals freedom.Collection: Money
Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we're going to win.Collection: Business
I'm not trying to make friends, I'm trying to make money.Collection: Money
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.Collection: Money
So much of life is a negotiation - so even if you're not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.Collection: Business
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.Collection: Car
I could have easily gone down the wrong path and dropped out of school, but I was given a second chance.Collection: Chance
There are a lot of idiot fund managers out there who add no value to the process at all.
I keep anywhere between 5-10 percent of my net worth in venture ideas.
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.
Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 look at Twitter as brand building.
Television is the most interesting hobby I've ever had.
Building fast-growing, globally competitive companies is tough.
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.
Money has no grey areas. You either make it or you lose it.
Don't cry about money, it never cries for you.
Don't call me, I'll call you... I'm out.
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.
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.
I like gold because it is a stabilizer; it is an insurance policy.
All we do is bring the debate from both sides, and let you as a viewer decide where you want to end up on the issue. That's very important. That's exactly what happens in 'Redemption Inc.'
The only reason to do business is to make money; that's the only reason for doing business.
There's something very visceral about watching people beg for money. It's powerful.
I'm not trying to make friends, I'm just trying to make money.
My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.
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.
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.
I'd rather invest in an entrepreneur who has failed before than one who assumes success from day one.
I want to go to bed richer than when I woke up. The pursuit of wealth is a wonderful thing, but the thing is you have to be honest about it, you have to tell the truth.
Steve Jobs had his critics. Some saw him as an egomaniac, and others, as a control freak.
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.
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.
You may lose your wife, you may lose your dog, your mother may hate you. None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like.
I think a book is your calling card, your business card.
When you bring an idea that has no merit to me, and you ask me to comment on it, I'm going to tell you it has no merit.
I'm not a tough guy. I'm just delivering the truth and only the truth and if you can't deal with it, too bad.
When you come to 'Shark Tank,' the only person you should listen to is me, because you know you're getting the truth. I'll decide if it's worth it, and after I'm finished, the rest of the people can look into it.
My worst fashion faux pas: probably orange shoes with white pants. I thought I looked spectacular.
If you want a friend, buy a dog.
I'm proud to be on the CBC and to see the management here represents both sides of every story. This is what's unique about the new CBC: you get a Kevin O'Leary on it when five years ago you wouldn't.