Ted Turner

“I really think the most important, most prominent instinct, natural instinct and founder and entrepreneurial types is the control and conquer instinct. I think What we think we want money or prestige or status, but I really think what we actually want is contr…”

“This is really important, actually, because I think genius has the fewest moving parts. And I think the biggest weakness that I see in this book and one I'd want to avoid for myself is like, never get into deals that are too complicated.”

“If you're a dictator, you want to listen to James Dyson when he said one of the most important things is retention of total control. Ted is a dictator, but then sells his company and then loses control. And it's very frustrated when he watches other people tak…”

“We're going to extend a program through the end of the hour and start the following one at seven oh five. I envisioned that people watching our competition would start flipping around at the end of their shows. And while the other channels would all be running…”

“I could run the black and white version of that movie. And then I can invest 200,000. Then now, now I have the color version and I'd run that exact same movie. One is a black and white. One is in color. The color one would get six times the amount of viewers.”

“And so they're like, okay, we want a ten million dollars for the team. Could you imagine buying a professional sports team for ten million dollars, by the way? And so he, this is where he has to get creative. He's like, okay, I can give you a million dollars d…”

“The only show that aired live from our studios, which was a religious program hosted by a young couple named Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Well, before they went on to national fame, they got started with this local show. And before long, they were bringing in mor…”

“Will you finance 75% of the purchase price over seven years at a very high interest rate? He says yes. Then he goes to a bank that's actually looking to expand their investments in the south, and they lent Ted the rest of the money in return For equity in the …”

“He has this local TV station in Charlotte that eight years before he had bought for a million dollars. Remember, he's always early. And now that business is valued at twenty million. So he sells that for twenty million dollars, takes a nineteen million dollar …”

“He's going to sell the company to Time Warner for eight billion dollars. And then a few years later, Time Warner is going to merge with AOL. Ted Turner stock goes up to a value of ten billion dollars, and then he winds up losing over the next 30 months, eight …”

“It would be 13 years before we faced another 24 hour news channel.”

“Of the 35 people who were on the payroll when we took over, only two were still there a year later. The custodian and the receptionist.”

“You be sure to set your goals so high that you can't possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way, you'll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low, and now I'm having a hard time coming up with new ones.”