The key thing for all businesses, and especially of course technology businesses or businesses that employ technology as a key kind of strategic advantage, is you always have to be investing in the future.
If you look at America, one of the great strengths of America is its university towns and the way a lot of their businesses and a lot of their innovation and enormous economic growth have come from reducing that gap, getting those universities directly involved in start-up businesses, green field businesses, new development businesses.
Then by the springtime, you'll see us moving an effort to cut taxes for working families, small businesses and family farms to reform our business taxes in this country so that American businesses can compete more effectively with businesses around the world.
You can say on one hand the market is crazy but it's not 1999. People have had their medicine from overexuberance. I find it really interesting that those two businesses, Yahoo! and Google, which are just online advertising businesses, are valued at more than the media behemoths in America.
Businesses once grew by one of two ways; grass roots up, or by acquisition... Today businesses grow through alliances - all kinds of dangerous alliances. Joint ventures and customer partnerings which, by the way, very few people understand.
I think if you look at the commonalities between eBay, PayPal and OpenTable, all three are businesses that built a network in a vertical. Network effect businesses are very attractive businesses.
At the end of the day local authorities are responsible for economic growth in their area. They don't buy and sell businesses, they don't build businesses, what they do is work to attract businesses their area, through a combination of things.
I don't have a lot of time for managing [my businesses], so I put a lot of trust in people I hire to manage my businesses. I can't necessarily attend to [the businesses] while I'm in season. We swap ideas on how we can improve and deliver a better product.
There's no way you can predict what is going to happen in six months or two years in most businesses, and certainly not for businesses that are growing at the rate that we have grown.
Because I work with entrepreneurs who own businesses, I have found Doug Tatum's No Man's Land to be a really helpful body of working knowledge. It's very applicable to most businesses that have the usual problems of growing businesses - managing people, capital, markets, etc.
As I examine progressive revenue options, I want to make sure wealthy individuals and businesses pay their fair share, that we reduce the burden on low-income and middle-class families, and not drive businesses from Chicago or create a disincentive for businesses to invest in our city.
And what's interesting, and I don't think a lot of Americans understand this fact, is that, one, most new jobs are created by small businesses; two, most small businesses pay tax at the individual income tax, or many small businesses pay tax there.
Retail businesses have narrow margins. If you cut off a flow of young consumers, it's only a matter of time before the businesses struggle and fail.
I might add, the whites who came here only say 50 years ago as immigrants have come into this country, they have set up businesses. They've developed these businesses into an industry.
I have a wealth of experience, not only as a senior executive in different departments in the city, but I've also, in my private practice life, helped small businesses, middle-market businesses really try to navigate the sometimes difficult world of city government.
We may well have a competitive advantage buying decent businesses at decent prices. But they won't be fabulous businesses and fabulous prices. There's too much competition and money out there, with many buyout specialists.