Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers is an American entrepreneur best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians. A professional musiciansince 1987, Sivers started CD Baby by accident in 1997 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby went on to become the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth22 September 1969
CountryUnited States of America
When you make a business you're making a little world.
It's only a little difficult to say no. You've got to believe that the work you're doing is ultimately more useful to the world.
When you make a company, you make a utopia. It's where you design your perfect world.
I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions that we didn't even know we had and realize that the opposite may also be true.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
You're free to do anything you want with your company. It's more like art. You don't have to follow any norms. It's an expression of how you feel the world should be. When you make a company, that's your little place to make your own little utopia.
I'm so into music that I just stop and listen, whenever there's music on. That's the problem with being a musician for so long. I can get lost in the bassline, fascinated with the arrangement, curious about the production. I can't shut it out.
Never forget why you're really doing what you're doing.
I'm not interested until I see their execution.
Programming languages are like girlfriends: The new one is better because *you* are better.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
If you're not saying 'Hell Yeah' about something, say 'No'.
There is no movement without the first follower. See, we are told that we all need to be leaders but that would be ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn't that enough?