Anna Wintour

“Anna has been running Vogue for 11 years. Revenues are up to one hundred and forty-nine million.”

“Comfort breeds complacency, and discomfort breeds decision.”

“When you maintain exceptional standards, you don't need to attack mediocrity. It exposes itself.”

“Standards were standards, and Anna's standards to nearly everyone appeared unreasonable. And also, just like Steve Jobs, that made everyone work harder, and be better, and pulled out the best version of themselves.”

“Vogue.com traffic grew from one million to ten million monthly visitors.”

“While Mirabella finished her final two weeks, Anna summoned all 120 Vogue staff to her HG office. One by one. Brief interviews. Three days later, 90 people remained.”

“Most people prepare for interviews by thinking about answers. Outliers show up with solutions. It's the same with cold emails today. Don't tell someone how you would solve their problems. If you want to get noticed, just solve their problem.”

“Second, she learned that in creative industries, speed beats perfection because perfection without deadlines is just procrastination with better excuses.”

“In fashion, your appearance is your argument.”

“The magazine had its biggest March issue since 1990, with ad pages up 5.9%. The September issue that year weighed 4.3 pounds and was packed with 734 pages. Mostly advertisements. It was the biggest issue in nine years and represented complete market dominance …”

“A large part of her success is due to the fact that she's decisive and clear, and I think it gets rid of the wrong people very quickly, and the right people love it.”

“When you believe in yourself completely, rejection is data, not a verdict.”

“The insight she had was that aspiration without accessibility is just snobbery. Accessibility without aspiration is just a commodity. The magic lives in the tension between the two.”

“When you finally get power, use it immediately. Hesitation invites resistance.”

“Years later, every decor magazine would copy what Anna tried at HG. Boyeristic glimpses into celebrity homes instead of furniture catalogs.”

“The first rule of transformation, you can't renovate a house with people still living in it.”

“She helped designer John Galliano get his career back on track. She gave countless people who didn't have a name at the time, photographers and assistants a shot.”

“In a visual culture, perception beats reality. Control the image, and you control the narrative.”

“Revenue plus relevance equals irreplaceable.”

“Her grandparents' trust fund paid out a 120,000 dollars in today's money over six years, exactly what her siblings spent on university.”

“Anna puts a 10,000 dollar Christian Lacroix jacket with 50 dollar guest jeans on her first Vogue cover.”

“The lesson, getting fired for your standards is different than getting fired for your performance. One is failure. The other is reconnaissance.”

“Accepting good enough in small things trains you to accept it in big things.”

“Anna would reflect on this years later and say everyone should get sacked at least once in their career because perfection doesn't exist.”

“Anna, she runs every magazine at Condé Nast, including Vogue at age 75.”

“She might come across as cold as some, but despite what you think from the double wears Prada, my sources tell me she was never insulting. She valued clarity, speed, and directness.”

“Having the higher standards doesn't guarantee recognition, it only guarantees you'll deserve it.”

“Standards aren't what you accept from others. They're what you demand from yourself when no one's watching.”

“Don't fight the system. Architect situations where the system has to choose you.”

“Subscription cancellations require a dedicated phone line.”

“Pattern recognition can't be taught. It can only be earned through obsessive accumulation of high quality inputs.”

“First principle of real power is don't join other people's networks. Create your own and be the one everything flows through.”

“Don't play fair games. Build the game itself, and then charge admission.”

“Anna negotiated a deal where Condé Nast got a cut of all clothing purchases driven by the Vogue website, essentially inventing fashion e-commerce affiliate marketing.”

“When you explain every decision, people just learn to argue. When you just decide, they learn to anticipate.”

“Most people organize their entire lives around being liked by nearly everyone. They don't want to offend anyone. Outliers have the courage to be disliked.”

“The irony is that Anna's unserious pursuit required more discipline than any degree. She wasn't avoiding rigor, but applying it differently. Fashion was cultural anthropology, business strategy, and visual communication. Full stop.”