Top 10 CEO Quotes of 2008
CEOs say the darndest things. It's always fun to look back on those notable words of wisdom ... or not. Enjoy.
Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin:
"The pending merger with XM will offer unprecedented choice for consumers and create tremendous value for stockholders."
The stock is down 96 percent since Mel said that.
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang:
"I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo!" "We are willing to sell the company."
This months after Yang essentially sabotaged the merger at $31 a share, costing shareholders billions.
Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM:
"We have to build cars and trucks that people want to buy."
This piece of brilliance in response to why GM didn't begin offering hybrid cars earlier. I guess the concept of developing product in advance of market demand, as Toyota and Honda did, hasn't arrived in Detroit yet.
Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang:
"We're going to open a can of whoop ass on Intel."
I developed a bit of reverence competing with Intel back in the 90s, at Cyrix. AMD probably gets that too. Also Nvidia's had an abysmal year.
Carl Icahn (not a CEO, but still):
"Until now I naively believed that self-destructive doomsday machines were fictional devices found only in James Bond movies. I never believed that anyone would actually create and activate one in real life. I guess I never knew about Yang and the Yahoo Board."
"It's no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft's offer isn't around. How can Yahoo keep saying they're willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they're completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone."
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison:
"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
John Allison, CEO of Home BancShares:
"Under Sarbanes-Oxley, they have to puke it all out this year or someone's going to jail." An eloquent quote on the problem loans that publicly traded banks would have to own up to in 2008.
Scott Ford, CEO of Alltel:
"Get over it."Speaking to those shareholders against Alltel's merger with Verizon.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz:
"I am optimistic we are well positioned to weather this challenging economic environment."
I, for one, believe Schultz will eventually regret his unbridled optimism of late.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO:
"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google."
An employee testified to this quote - about Google's Eric Schmidt, formerly of Sun and Novell - in court, although Ballmer called it an exaggeration. It wasn't 2008, but it is a good one. Happy New Year to all!Steve Tobak