Ranked #1 in the World
Queen Rania of Jordan (and member of YGL Foundation board): “The saddest thing is not death. It’s when your dreams die when you are alive.”
Muhammad Yunnus, Nobel Peace Prize winner: There are two paths for an entrepreneur, one of profits, one of social change. You need to pick one or the other.
Georg Kell, United Nations Global Compact director: The world needs business leaders committed to creating real sustainable value.
Bill Gates to Young Global Leaders: Frame your cause in terms of solutions, not hopeless problems, if you want to recruit the support of others.
Bill Gates to Young Global Leaders: Economic development needs not only more and better entrepreneurs, but also more and better scientists and bureaucrats. In fact, if you ask me, in some of the poorest parts of the world, the latter would be the priority.
Bill Gates to Young Global Leaders: The crisis was the result of excesses by the rich. Let’s not now reduce budget deficits on the backs of the poor.
Bill Clinton to Young Global Leaders: Take criticism seriously, but not personally.
Bill Clinton to young global leaders: The world is suffering; the world does not trust the elites.
Larry Summers: Prosperity in the developing world does not come at the expense of the US. The world economy is not a zero-sum game.
Larry Summers: We are in a statistical recovery but a human recession.
Larry Summers: Banks should not be allowed to use federally insured funds to make proprietary speculative bets that do not serve any customer.
Eric Schmidt of Google: We don’t want to be part of Chinese censorship, but we don’t want to leave China.
Spain’s premier Zapatero: The fatalist claims about the euro have always gotten it wrong. Nobody will leave the euro zone. If anything, new nations will join.
Zapatero: Spain will take action to balance its budget and come out of the crisis, but never at the expense of social cohesion.
Zapatero: The cost of combating climate change will be compensated by advances in innovation and technology.
Javier García Martínez (Spain), in reference to Zapatero´s comment: Then why are we reducing the national R&D budget?
Mexican president Calderón: If your plane was about to crash because the pilot had a heart attack, would you try to negotiate a solution by consensus? That’s exactly what we did in Copenhaguen … the passengers from business class and coach are still blaming one another while the plane is going down.
Calderón: If you don’t like politicians, become one.
Matthew Bishop, editor of The Economist and author of The Road from Ruin: At first I as skeptical about the idea of a “Hippocratic Oath” for business leaders. I now think it could be part of the solution.
Richard Edelman: Most people in the developed world don’t trust banks will do what is right.
Efrat Peled (Israel) to Richard Edelman: To regain trust, let’s commit to human values, to personal responsibility, and endorse the Global Business Oath.
France’s President Sarkozy: Markets should be at the service of man, not the other way around. Capitalism is the means not the end.
World Economic Forum President Klaus Schwab: I’m not optimistic about the sate of the world … Davos will be a difficult meeting.
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