I’LL HAVE MY PEOPLE NOT TALK TO YOUR PEOPLE

“I know Rupert Murdoch, but I’m not going to approach him about Fox. Though they would be great. I know Bob Iger and I’m not going to approach him about ESPN. But that’s what we want.”

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, negotiating through the press for America’s Cup TV rights, Fortune, 22 March 2010

SOME DICTATORS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHER

“Our objection is to those forces of totalitarianism.”

Google cofounder Sergey Brin, on moving his Chinese search engine from the mainland to Hong Kong, while continuing to maintain an iron grip on the online identities of users worldwide, Bits, 22 March 2010

AGREEING TO DISAGREEABLE

“People say some disgusting, vile things, but just because we are hosting it doesn’t mean we agree with it.”

4chan founder Christopher “Moot” Poole, on maintaining distance from the Internet’s most vicious virtual burn book, Bits, 19 March 2010 from Sugar Land TX.

SHOULD WE MAKE A JOKE ABOUT A NICE CHIANTI, OR IS IT TOO SOON?

“There were not enough livers in California to go around. I was advised by my Stanford doctors to enroll on a list at a Memphis hospital, because it was more favorable to get a liver there.”

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, on his efforts to make it easier to get a transplant without a private jet and your own team of doctors on call, San Jose Mercury News, 19 March 2010

DON’T BE HOWEVER EVIL

“Concentrate all of our efforts in building up numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.”

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen in 2006, on how he inflated YouTube to a $1.65 billion sale to Google, in an email revealed in a Viacom court filing, MediaMemo, 18 March 2010