Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Neil Blumenthal

If faced with two competitive candidates, every company will hire the person who evinces more enthusiasm.

When you look at the reasons people leave companies, it's usually because their boss is a jerk or because they aren't learning and growing.

Venture capital is an inherently optimistic form of investment - which is both its primary strength and its primary weakness.

A startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed.

I wanted to open up a stand to sell dried fruit and beef jerky where we lived in Greenwich Village. I was 8 years old. I had been flipping through TV channels and got mesmerized by this infomercial for a food dehydrator.

A good collaboration pushes the boundaries of both partners.

Self-aware employees make a self-aware company.

When we were creating Warby Parker, for us it was about having a positive impact on the world and having a strong social mission.

Hackathons are an amazing way to engage the team, foster collaboration, and knock out great work.

The word 'hackathon' was born out of 'marathon' for a reason. It's exhausting.

Theoretically, an open-plan office is a great format for a changeable work environment, a place where employees have a say over how they work and a place that can adapt to their needs and to the needs of the business.

Every moment contains an opportunity to create feelings of satisfaction and excitement in a customer. It's up to retailers to make it happen.

From the beginning, we believed that it was possible to develop direct relationships with customers at a relatively cheap cost, and our plan was to build a lifestyle brand that was also an Internet company - a rarity for eyewear.

One of the core values of the startup world is that you must have a list of core values. Like all abstract ideas, they're easy to dream up and tricky to implement.

One of my favorite products at Warby Parker also happens to be our worst-selling item: the monocle.

All companies - and not just startups - face the same eternal challenge: resource allocation.

Building a consistent experience and firm identity was instrumental in our ability to swiftly build our online presence, open four stores as well as a mobile store in a converted yellow school bus, and launch six shops-in-shops.

All those articles that scold Millennials for their supposed entitlement? Forget them. Millennials are great employees.

Often, companies are trying to chase growth and get into other categories or go international too quickly, and they can get in trouble doing that.

Regardless of what you plan to use it for, the goal should always be to raise money right before you need it. You don't want to get into a situation where you need cash and you're unable to raise it - or you're unable to raise it on favorable terms. As with any negotiation, you want to raise from a position of strength.

There are two elements to nailing a job interview: form and substance. 'Form' describes the outer layer of your character - your manners, your demeanor, your social skills. 'Substance' describes the inner core of your character - your intellect, your empathy, your creativity.

The rules of optical dispensing vary from state to state. Dispensing eyeglasses is not that complicated, and even if it were complicated, there should be uniform rules.

Every generation trash-talks younger generations. Baby boomers labeled Generation X a group of tattooed slackers and materialists; Generation Xers have branded millennials as iPhone-addicted brats.

A workplace that encourages self-awareness is an environment where the most productive, curious, and innovative people thrive.

When it comes to marketing, creative resources are often worth far more than dollars.

Creativity flows when curiosity is stoked.

Share your personality with interviewers, but keep a professional filter safely adhered to it.

I was captain of the soccer and basketball teams in high school, and I was the equivalent of class president.

The basic idea of a hackathon is to erase all routine obligations for the day so that employees can clear a mental space for creativity.

If you think about what are glasses, they are the best example of form and function.

If you're entitled, you likely think you know more than you do.

Walking in the morning improves my whole day. I think more clearly, my points of view are sharper, and I'm more decisive.

Young people entering the job market seek employment at companies with values that match theirs.

At Warby Parker, we say that we're customer focused but medium agnostic.

I want to go at least 11 hours without food. I sat next to Hugh Jackman at a conference, and he told me he fasted 12 to 14 hours when he was training for the Wolverine movies. I've deluded myself into thinking I can effortlessly achieve the same body type as Hugh Jackman if I keep up this eating schedule.

What happens when kids don't have glasses - they get bored in class. They disengage and they may be disruptive. They may be misdiagnosed for A.D.D. or put in special needs classes.

Be personable to everyone you interact with.

Giving employees agency over their workspace encourages them to think carefully about the conditions in which they work best, and it gives them the tools to forge that environment.

Millennials in particular get a lot of flack for their supposed entitlement and narcissism, but these evaluations have never matched my experience with hiring young people at Warby Parker.

The trick to maximizing your team's productivity is to create a workspace that's flexible, so it can be altered according to the ever-changing needs of the company and its team members.

Creativity is a business imperative.

Brands are only powerful if they're real and authentic.

Just as a company needs a strategy to capture market share, a company needs a strategy to encourage actions that reflect their core values.

Self-awareness is a trait - or maybe 'practice' is the more accurate way to put it - that everyone can always improve at. It is part emotional intelligence, part perceptiveness, part critical thinking. It means knowing your weaknesses, of course, but it also means knowing your strengths and what motivates you.

For any collaboration to work, each partner must have a strong sense of identity. If one overpowers the other, it's like mixing lemonade with water - you wind up diluting the brew.

We've built our own technology platform in-house, which operates our website and powers our retail stores.

We have been very focused on eyeglasses in particular because it's a massive industry.

Millennials are eager to make an impact, which makes them ideal for start-ups.

We've built a company that distributes a pair of eyeglasses to someone in need for every pair sold; that purchases carbon offsets; and that hosts mentoring programs at the office.

We all have a personal recipe for productivity. One person may need six cups of autonomy and just a pinch of collaboration. Another person may require heaps of sociability and noise, with just a teaspoon of occasional privacy.

When another editorial pops up denouncing millennials for some perceived generational flaw, I take it with a Miley Cyrus-sized grain of salt.

When my three co-founders and I started Warby Parker in 2010, our primary intention was to sell good-looking, affordable eyewear online.

The key to an ideal workplace, in one hyphenated word, is this: self-awareness.

My goal is to get in bed by 11. That rarely happens. But I celebrate when it does happen.

I believe that the concept of 'design' encompasses every aspect of customers's exposure to a brand, from the moment they hear about us to the first time they visit our store to the process of ordering and anticipating the arrival of their glasses.

Details matter. They create depth, and depth creates authenticity.

People who are passionate about Warby Parker are passionate about creating a company that can scale, be profitable, and do good in the world - without charging a premium for it.

Warby Parker designs experiences, not products.

My grandfathers on both sides were entrepreneurs.

In general, obsolete technology is obsolete for a reason. Monocles are no exception.