A Quote by Frans van Houten

I've always flagged that it will take some time to gradually sell down our interest in lighting and basically pivot to be a medtech company focused entirely on health technology.
Health is God's great gift, and we must spend it entirely for Him. Our eyes should see only for God, our feet walk only for Him, our hands labor for Him alone; in short, our entire body should serve God while we still have the time. Then, when He shall take our health and we shall near our last day, our conscience will not reproach us for having misused it.
There are multiple ways to be externally focused that are very successful. You can be customer-focused or competitor-focused. Some people are internally focused, and if they reach critical mass, they can tip the whole company.
We've got some real greedy hogs who own no interest in the company they're running, whose sole interest is in whatever it takes to be able to get to the point to fly out on their golden parachute and milk the shareholder and take risks that they shouldn't take.
We have transformed Philips into a focused leader in health technology, delivering innovation to help people manage their health.
I am pleased with the response of investors towards Philips Lighting and the successful pricing of the I.P.O. This strategic milestone will allow Royal Philips to focus on the fast-growing health technology market.
Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it.
When I became CEO, I was really worried that we were in commoditized segments that were mature and no longer growing. So we made a radical pivot into health technology because that is one of the world's unmet needs.
I think people underestimate the importance of lighting - layers of lighting, not just one light. I do a lighting seminar where I take a $300-a-yard fabric and a $3-a-yard fabric. I show what lighting can do to either one.
Entrepreneurs don't really make mistakes, though. We just make decisions that seem right at the time, but which sometimes turn out to have been the wrong path to take. For example, we allowed a buyer to place a huge opening order and later had to take some product back. We didn't have our sell-through programs in place, so in hindsight, it would have been wiser to sell in less product at the outset. The scary thing is you are always making decisions without knowing the future.
I am not a technophobe and I am using the latest technology today, some 30-odd years later, and I am really enjoying what some of the new technologies can offer. But at the same time I am always aware that one can get bogged down in that technology and that it can become more than just a method. That's something that you have to be slightly careful of.
In the restaurant business, there's the concept of pivot. Pivot to the stove, pivot to the refrigerator.
What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny'. All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?
Where folks like Google have fallen down is in just putting a little review box up, then closing their eyes and letting the algorithm take care of itself. Yelp is a technology company, but also a company that understands how people want to connect with one another.
It's appropriate for the Fed to gradually and cautiously increase our overnight interest rate over time.
We're always doing a lot of user studies on health and safety. We take it super seriously. But if you look back at the history of most new big technology breakthroughs, there is some element of controversy around what impact is it going to have.
While my trips are most often focused on business, I always try to take some time to experience the local culture.
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