Callouts & quotes from 2,101+ activist slides

""There's good demand as you heard....We are planning to be 96% occupied by the end of this year...we're actually 73% complete with our 2018 leasing" — Bobby Taubman, Chairman & CEO of Taubman Centers; "If I look at the A-rated centers, which make up nearly 80% of our sales volume, sales were up 1.6%...excluding apparel, sales in the A centers were up 4.4%" — Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of GGP; "Digital commerce is our friend, it is a breeding ground for new businesses and these will be the businesses that will fuel the excitement in our portfolio going forward" — Arthur Coppola, Chairman & CEO of Macerich; "There is a lot of that new business out there that is exciting for us because we are bringing in the up and coming retailers or food operators that know how to connect directly through the consumer" — David Simon, Chairman & CEO of Simon Property Group"

""Being a part of LivePerson right now is like watching a plane crash in slow motion. The CEO is investing in the most random stuff like a health app to test for COVID despite no need for it anymore and a whole BANK? It's a chatbot company, we have no business being in those fields." — Anonymous Glassdoor Review (April 14, 2022); "Sometimes I have to just tell friends about how this company is run and the incredibly bizarre things that happen here to make sure I'm not going crazy." — Anonymous Glassdoor Review (August 11, 2021); "And then there is the CEO. Oh...man. Here's his deal...he is a very good salesman. Could sell bottled saltwater to native Hawaiians. Except the problem is, HE would have been the one who came up with the idea to actually bottle saltwater, which is a TERRIBLE business idea!" — Anonymous Glassdoor Review (September 27, 2021)"

""Yeah, we just can't go fast enough. So, we continue to build backlog, every quarter goes by we're confident that demand is more than there to get to where we want to be." — CEO Wilson, Q4 2020 Earnings Call; "I think we're solidly in the second quarter. And we also have really good pre-subscription demand for that product." — CEO Wilson, Q1 2021 Earnings Call; "In fact, in terms of our product launch, we've got pre-orders, we've got pre subscriptions, we go to market on six years subscriptions, but we've got pre-subscriptions for our Element AIM product that fill out our demand for 2021, and we're now well into filling out 2022." — CEO Wilson, Jefferies Conference June 2021; "So preorder trends, I think it's fair to say we have more preorders than we can manufacture at scale and deliver in the fourth quarter." — CEO Wilson, Q2 2021 Earnings Call"

""I think IDEXX is a brilliant company... I think we can out execute [them] going forward." — CEO Wilson at BAML conference in February 2021. "But I mean, honestly, it's hard to get out of IDEXX, and it's hard to steal an IDEXX customer. They just have done a really good job of locking customers in. They'll pay whatever money they need to keep a customer. They'll do a lot of things to keep this revenue going. So they're definitely not easy to break." — Former Sales and Ops Heska Employee. "IDEXX, which in my mind, has always been like the, for want of a better expression, like the white shoe player in the space, [with] the integration of all of the major elements and the ability to bundle them, the integration of the reference labs, of the in-office equipment and analyzers and the point-of-care rapid test." — Former Senior Vice President, Zoetis"

""The business in Europe, which is, let's say, the purest general Flexibles business that we have at scale, which is a $3 billion-plus business had good sales growth last year and picked up momentum in the second half. So if anything, that business you would say is winning in the market and that's the expectation and it's been the experience as well." — CEO Delia, FY 2018 Call, Aug 2018; "Simple answer to your first question, yes, volumes grew overall, both in North America and in Europe, which is really pleasing because those are our 2 engines in Flexibles, right? Those are 2 big businesses, neither of which are in dynamic growth markets, as you pointed out. So if we can get a little bit of growth through volume in those businesses, it's good to see. So absolute volume grew in both North America and Europe." — CEO Delia, H2 2020 Call, Feb 2020"

""Our vision for the future is simple. We are building Hims & Hers into the new front door to healthcare, a new front door that will span dozens of medical specialties, welcoming customers of all demographics into a unified consumer platform that looks and feels and talks to them in a way that gives them confidence they're in the right hands." — CEO Dudum (Q2 2021 Earnings Call); "...we feel confident in our abilities to lead in innovating, visualizing and ultimately creating the future of healthcare." — CEO Dudum (Q3 2021 Earnings Call); "Our vision is a world where being treated through Hims & Hers is equivalent to accessing the collective minds of the top specialists across the nation to review each customer's needs, and provide timely recommendations made possible through the power of machine learning." — CEO Dudum (Q4 2022 Earnings Call)"

""We have developed a great working relationship with VIP and have historically been one of their hosts of business customers." — McCord Christensen, CEO, PetIQ; "We're very, very different business in the sense that we're solely products-focused and their primary business is the services side." — McCord Christensen, CEO, PetIQ; "We were introduced to VIP a couple of years ago and had been doing business with VIP across the number of our harder-to-acquire items as they've had some distribution rights that allow them to do business with us." — McCord Christensen, CEO, PetIQ; "Intercompany sales eliminations were $111 million for full year 2017. As a reminder, PetIQ previously acted as a customer of VIP for certain distributed products. This was done at the direction of PetIQ's animal health manufacturer partners." — John Newland, CFO, PetIQ"

"“Due to our unique product and trusted experience, we have deep loyalty within our customer base, which creates durability in revenue and gives us confidence in predicting the future of business. As we look at customer cohorts, past trends and take a prudent view, we expect a low to mid-20%s revenue growth rate for 2025.” — CEO Q3’2024 Earnings Call; “I'm hearing from consumers that they're getting ads from various companies with very similar messaging. For them then the question really becomes again, the pricing and then considerations on the product side. The payout speed and then the receive network like whomever I'm sending it to, unless it's myself, how easy is it for them to pick up? I feel like the gap on the paid marketing side is closing and I don't see that as a sustainable advantage.” — Former Employee, Regional Business Head"

"“...The turnaround would be astonishing in any industry, but especially in the beverage-marketing business, where short-lived brands are depressingly common...Snapple's durability raises a number of questions. How did Triarc restore most of that value in less than three years? What did Triarc do with such apparently effortless grace that Quaker, with all its resources, could not?...I posed those questions to Triarc's top executives: chairman and majority owner Nelson Peltz, CEO Mike Weinstein...Their answers led me to a conclusion that many marketing professionals are likely to resist: There is a vital interplay between the challenge a brand faces and the culture of the corporation that owns it. When brand and culture fall out of alignment, both brand and corporate owner are likely to suffer...” — John Deighton, Harvard Business Review"

""The Board of Directors sincerely appreciates the constructive perspectives Jeff has brought to our group...he has been a valuable contributor to the Board and provided a focus on the long-term best interests of the company and its shareholders. We thank him for his service and wish him continued success." — Nigel Travis, Chairman and CEO of Dunkin' Brands; "On behalf of our management and Board of Directors, I want to thank Jeff for his significant contributions to Office Depot and its shareholders. Jeff has been an integral part of our accomplishments and provided important perspectives that helped to define strategies that position the company for long-term growth and profitability. I have appreciated our time working together and wish Jeff well in his existing and future projects." — Roland Smith, Chairman and CEO of Office Depot"

"“The Board of Directors sincerely appreciates the constructive perspectives Jeff has brought to our group...he has been a valuable contributor to the Board and provided a focus on the long-term best interests of the company and its shareholders. We thank him for his service and wish him continued success.” — Nigel Travis, Chairman and CEO of Dunkin’ Brands; “On behalf of our management and Board of Directors, I want to thank Jeff for his significant contributions to Office Depot and its shareholders. Jeff has been an integral part of our accomplishments and provided important perspectives that helped to define strategies that position the company for long-term growth and profitability. I have appreciated our time working together and wish Jeff well in his existing and future projects.” — Roland Smith, Chairman and CEO of Office Depot"

""The strong leadership of President and CEO Yoshihiro Hasebe, and with the appropriate oversight and advice from the current Outside Directors" — Kao Corporation. "What we want to hear from the Company is why we should expect the next step to be different." — Foreign Buyside Analyst. "How do I rate the strategic competence of management? I would give them a zero. Actually, can I give them a negative? They failed to deliver on guidance and the board made no change to management. It’s horrible." — Foreign Buyside Analyst. "My sense is none of the management team are really what you would call ‘professionals’… they should bring in specialist personnel with knowledge of global business" — Domestic Buyside Analyst. "The management team's abilities are extremely low… Global skills are practically non-existent." — Domestic Buyside Analyst."

"“Great. And maybe just kind of very high level here, during the road show you had kind of guided to 7% to 11.5% EBITDA margins and CarMax probably your closest competitor is around 7.8% last year... So, without opening a capital finance company you are running your own auctions, how do you kind of think about getting to the midpoint or the higher end of your long-term EBITDA guidance?” — Mike Levin, Deutsche Bank; “So I think it's a reasonable question to ask kind of what's the gap there, that gap part of that is made up by pricing differences... We built a pretty unique finance platform that allows us to while not taking credit risk monetize finance originations across the entire credit spectrum, not just to the top end of the credit spectrum, while passing that credit risk on to third parties.” — Ernie Garcia III – CEO, Carvana"

"“There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into ‘the one genius with 1,000 helpers.’ It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. At a deeper level, we found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have an ego. It means that at each decision point—at each of the critical junctures when Choice A would favor their ego and Choice B would favor the company and the work—time and again the good-to-great leaders pick Choice B. Celebrity CEOs, at those same decision points, are more likely to favor self and ego over company and work.” — Jim Collins, Fast Company"

"It’s not so easy to change the process. If they have an established process and an established yield number of, let’s say, 19% or something, phasing in the new technology should improve the yield. So, everything needs to be fine-tuned to surpass the existing solution. And that’s not so easy with a new technology like actinic inspection. It’s going to take time, so they will have to run parallel inspections of the same masks, for example, every day, just to make sure that they get the same results... Yes. Just to make sure there are no defects that go through without detection. If that happens, the same defect will print on every single semiconductor. And if it’s a fatal defect, it can cost them billions. They cannot ship wafers anymore. — Longtime, senior semicap equipment executive in Japan who is friendly with Lasertec’s CEO"

""At the present time with the current forecast we have, our 2019 should be within 5% to 7% of our 2018 EBITDA..." — Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President & CEO; "When the price gets substantially higher than it is today, we'll make a decision to sell [Venator]....And I think it will gradually see improving fundamentals here, and we will judiciously look at our shares, and we'll sell them at a time that makes sense for us." — Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President & CEO; "Putting it all together, if Europe does improve as the Americas returns to plan, our full year EBITDA will be close to the lower end of our initial EBITDA guidance of down 5% to 7% from 2018. However, if the economic conditions within those region stays at current levels, our current year EBITDA maybe down 10% or so..." — Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President & CEO"

"Importantly, we'll have strong cash flow generation as a result of this transaction, about $1 billion in operating cash flow in the second year and accelerating, which means we can quickly de-lever from approximately 5 times to less than 3 times by the end of the second full year post-close... — CEO Jeff Simmons on Acquisition of Bayer by Elanco 8/20/2019; The global diversified strength of the combined business will generate enough cash flow for us to bring our leverage below 3 times adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2022. We realized the timing of our deleveraging is different than what we planned at the IPO by approximately two years. But we believe this delay is warranted by the compelling value proposition that our combined focused animal health company creates. — CFO Todd Young on Acquisition of Bayer by Elanco 8/20/2019"

""Without exception in across the board, we’ve either maintained or grown share throughout 2023, and we would expect that to continue...whether it’s in the lab or whether it’s in the production, I think we’ve had another year of good share gains in ’23." — CEO Michael Stubblefield, 2023 Analyst Day, 12/8/2023; "We’re confident we certainly have a leading [lab solutions] platform here and we remain focused on leveraging our capabilities to continue to grow share. And I think there’s certainly a lot of data points here to support our view here that we’ve got a nice share story." — CEO Michael Stubblefield, 3Q 2024 Earnings Call, 10/25/2024; "They have said for years [LSS] is not losing share, but do the math since 2018 when both were +/- $5bn of revenue. TMO is now $9bn and LSS is still <$5bn." — Sell-Side Analyst, May 2025"

"Iger told board members he didn't think Chapek needed to audition for the role... Iger told [Chapek] that instead of the one-on-one board interviews, Disney's lead independent director, Susan Arnold, would be in touch... She and Iger had both recommended Chapek for the job, and the board had approved. — CNBC. Mr. Iger, then still under contract as executive chairman, didn't move out of the office he kept at Disney's headquarters in Burbank, Calif. He called strategy meetings with Mr. Chapek's underlings without inviting the new CEO. — WSJ. The executive change came together quickly, blindsiding Chapek and his closest allies. Disney's board reached out to Iger on Friday [November 18, 2022], without any other serious candidates in mind to replace Chapek as CEO, CNBC's David Faber reported Monday, citing sources. — CNBC."

""[Bob] Iger had personally selected every member of the board, which is surprisingly lacking in media and entertainment experience. Iger is personally close with several of them, including Nike Executive Chairman Mark Parker and General Motors CEO Mary Barra [who is on Disney's Compensation Committee]. In addition, the wife of another director, Michael Froman, then vice chairman of Mastercard and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, had been housemates with Iger's wife..." — CNBC, September 2023; "[G]iven the many challenges [Disney faces], Parker will be spreading himself thin" as Chairman of both Disney and Nike, and "only a handful of executives", including Rupert Murdoch [who recently stepped down from serving as Chairman of Fox and News Corp.], chair two S&P 500 companies." — Reuters, January 2023"

"Second, our goal has been to diversify our revenue outside of the United States and this acquisition increases our international revenue for this business by a factor of 6 and expands customer penetration into 75 additional countries. At the consolidated level, the acquisition adds an additional three points of international revenue bringing our total for the company to approximately 13% international revenues. — CEO M&A Call Feb 2020; Sales to customers in international markets represented approximately 8% of total revenues for the three and nine months ended October 2, 2020. Our international customers include foreign governments and their agencies. Our international business increases our exposure to international markets and the associated international regulatory and geopolitical risks. — Oct 2, 2020 10-Q p. 33"

""For the fourth quarter, our flea and tick business performed well and outpaced category growth. According to Nielsen measured channel data through December 31, the flea and tick category was down 10.7%. PetIQ's results outpaced this result in the Nielsen measured channels over the same period. Our brands performed better than the overall market, non-measured channels were up meaningfully and our prescription drug flea and tick was up significantly and in-line with the macro trends in the broader veterinarian market. Keep in mind, for PetIQ only 28% of our Q4 sales were in Nielsen measured sales channels. The 72% of our sales that were in unmeasured sales channels dramatically outpaced the measured flea and tick sales channels, particularly in the e-commerce and RX sales channels." — McCord Christensen – CEO, PetIQ"

"I don't know the CEO at all. I don't know him personally. Have I actually seen him, met him? Yes, but I don't have any personal connection. I honestly don't have any personal connection to anyone at this company. I've never had an email from TransMedics...honestly... there's no conflict of interest...I don't know what their stock is doing....I am not by any means an insider to that circle...I do not have any involvement...if I was someone that TransMedics in any way engaged with and I was involved with activities that they in any way sponsor...which I absolutely never have...I literally have never received as much as an email or communication from TransMedics other than updates on the data that they have or anything like that. — Transplant hepatologist and director of the liver program at a Midwest academic center"

""We anticipate JCAR017's first approval in 2019 and for that therapy to achieve global peak sales of approximately $3 billion" — Peter Kellogg, EVP, CFO, CAO, January 2018. "So the approval for JCAR017 liso-cel is 2019, that's still the plan." — Nadim Ahmed, Pres. of Hematology & Oncology, June 2018. "Just the expected launches of fedratinib and JCAR017 in 2019 will enable us to absorb the financial impact caused by the delay in the expected launch of ozanimod" — Mark Alles, Chairman & CEO, May 2018. "Well, for JCAR017...Investors should not expect new data... ASH will not be updated data for 17 on lymphoma." — Mark Alles, Chairman & CEO, September 2018. "Now turning to our CAR-T programs. Both liso-cel and bb2121 remain on target for expected 2020 approvals." — Jay Backstrom, Chief Medical Officer, January 2019."

"“Federal and state governments annually spend about $75 billion on individuals with SMI, with around $50 billion currently carved into managed care. For long-term care, the annual Medicaid spending is over $150 billion, with less than 10% currently being managed. And for the developmentally disabled population, another $50 billion in spending with less than 5% managed. ...Offering special population health management for high cost areas is a natural extension of our existing Behavioral Health services. We have been talking with several existing as well as potential new health plan customers to see if we could assist them in managing these populations. We've used this as an inflection point to further refine how we will achieve our MCC special population growth strategy.” — CEO Barry Smith – Q3 2015 Earnings Call"

""We anticipate JCAR017's first approval in 2019 and for that therapy to achieve global peak sales of approximately $3 billion" — Peter Kellogg, EVP, CFO, CAO, January 2018; "So the approval for JCAR017 liso-cel is 2019, that's still the plan." — Nadim Ahmed, Pres. of Hematology & Oncology, June 2018; "Just the expected launches of fedratinib and JCAR017 in 2019 will enable us to absorb the financial impact caused by the delay in the expected launch of ozanimod" — Mark Alles, Chairman & CEO, May 2018; "Well, for JCAR017...Investors should not expect new data... ASH will not be updated data for 17 on lymphoma." — Mark Alles, Chairman & CEO, September 2018; "Now turning to our CAR-T programs. Both liso-cel and bb2121 remain on target for expected 2020 approvals." — Jay Backstrom, Chief Medical Officer, January 2019"

"We believe that the main issue driving this softer cycle in cosmetics is that the newness and innovation that have been the focus of most brands this year has just not driven the kind of incremental growth we've enjoyed for some period of time. Over the past several years, we've seen strong growth in cosmetics driven by new rituals and application techniques, like contouring and brow styling, and innovative new product formats like liquid lip, palettes and minis. This innovation resulted in new makeup routines requiring new products which drove strong incremental growth. The most recent cycle of innovation has just not driven those behaviors resulting in a soft cycle for the cosmetics category in the U.S. as innovation and newness price the market has not driven the expected growth. — ULTA CEO Q2 2019 Conf Call"

""And then you have ozanimod, GED-0301. Both of those - as I mentioned before, ozanimod is a we think $4bn to $6bn asset; -0301 for Crohn's disease could be transformational as well. In our opinion, it's probably a multi-billion dollar asset, as well." — Corporate VP - Investor Relations Patrick Flanigan, March 2017; "We aggressively advanced the development of two potential future blockbuster products, ozanimod and GED-0301. Several important data readouts will follow throughout the year." — President & COO Scott Smith, April 2017; "So beginning with GED-0301...we've had some great Phase II data for the products. It's in Phase III now for Crohn's disease. We think that's an enormous opportunity, and we'll wait to see what the data says and then we have high hopes for it commercially" — CEO Mark Alles, May 2017"

""In November, we announced Bob Iger's return to the role of Chief Executive Officer. While remaining focused on the ongoing evolution of our core operating model, the Board gave Bob a dual mandate for his two-year term to rebalance investment with return opportunity while retaining the focus on the creative talent that defines Disney and to assist the Board in ongoing leadership succession planning." — Disney's 2023 Proxy Statement; "Success and succession are fundamentally different objectives for CEOs. Someone in Mr. Iger's seat has too many competing interests and conflicting incentives to handle both... the guy who gets you lost in the woods isn't the right guy to find your way out." — Charles Elson, Founding Director of the University of Delaware's Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, December 2022"

"“In terms of how patients are actually being treated, we expected this to take a little bit of time. Given the certainty we had that the early adoption of Omnia would be among our existing customers and our existing customers skew to those customers who have a heavy belief in high frequency as a standalone therapy. So we knew that over time the use of paired waveforms, the use of lower frequencies standalone or combined would increase over time. But I think as we sit here today we look out over our very early patient population, I think it's something in the range of 10% to 15% of our patients are already using particularly paired waveforms with high frequency and other lower frequencies. And I think that's probably right about where we thought it would be at this point in time.” — Keith Grossman, Nevro CEO"

"Correct. But the second tool—before Lasertec came out with their actinic tool, they needed to establish some way of inspecting the EUV masks. What they did was use an optical tool from KLA – the Teron product line. And this is an optical tool with a 193-nanometer light source. So, there's a limitation to what defects it can detect. Very small defects, it cannot clearly distinguish. For something that looks like a defect, they record the coordinates, and then these coordinates are transferred to an electron beam inspection tool, which is only looking at these suspicious-looking defect locations. Is the defect on print or not? So, they need a combination of optical DUV and electron beam inspection to inspect the mask. — Longtime, senior semicap equipment executive in Japan who is friendly with Lasertec's CEO"

""I'm going to just give you the highlight -- we will achieve profitability in 2012, and we have a clear path to get there." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "When I step back and look at it all, I'm more bullish than ever that Plug Power is in the early stages of a very rapid growth market. I'm also bullish that we will make our goal of EBITDA breakeven in 2014." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "This is something that, as we grow the top line, as we expand the margin side, we are going to grow into that and look to turn profitable in 2016." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "This year-to-date performance, the growing contract backlog and the continued momentum of driving cost down are a strong indication that we're on track to build a profitable long-term enterprise." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power"

""[Dr.] Klaus Kleinfeld serves as both the CEO and chairman. The combined role is increasingly discouraged by investors believing instead that the separation of these roles provides more effective board oversight. As an enhanced safeguard, the company has individual designated Patricia Russo as the Lead Director. However, Ms. Russo is overboarded, serving as Lead Director of GM, chairman of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and is a director at Merck & Co. This calls into question the time she has available to lead the independent directors. Another issue is the fact that Chairman and CEO [Dr.] Klaus-Christian Kleinfeld, who is also overboarded, serves on the board of HPE with Ms. Russo. This can make it difficult for the lead director to act independently." — MSCI ESG Research, Inc., December 19, 2016"

"“On the other part of the question Q3, Q4, traditionally, seasonality, Q3 is always larger than Q4, and that’s how the plan rolls out in the back half of this year. Q3 is again our seasonally highest quarter, traditionally our highest quarter, and it is higher this year as it has been in all the past years.” — CEO Bemis, Q2 2018, July 2018; “Typically, our cash flow is much stronger in the second half, and we’ll -- we typically have higher earnings in the second half, so there’s some seasonality there. We expect there’ll be some working capital improvements, as we’ve seen in the first half, that will continue to flow in the second. So look, generally speaking, that’s the normal trend we see. And that’s what we expect for the second half, more around seasonality.” — Amcor CFO, H1 Earnings, Feb 11, 2020"

"If you listen to the kinds of comments that I had, then I’m pretty sure many employees who I think are reasonable people would agree with my comments. In other words, I would imagine that they have some concerns. I can speak about myself. One of the main concerns is that the CEO of the company doesn’t understand quantum, and he is driving the company in some strange direction, and he says strange things, and he overpromises. Simultaneously with that, the technical leaders who are Jungsang Kim and Chris Monroe, they have their professor tenures at Duke University that is located in Durham, North Carolina, whereas IonQ is located in Maryland. So, it’s an hour’s flight away. The intellectual leadership is not even in the same location as the company. — Former employee, senior member of technical staff"

""Invesco's size, scale and global focus results in few natural peers on the London Stock Exchange. A US listing will improve visibility and direct comparability with a more appropriate peer group of large, global investment management companies." — Invesco CEO; "The Proposal will align the place of listing with the majority of the Group's business activities. Currently over 70% of the Group's sales, operating profit and net assets are in the US. The Board considers there to be a potentially larger pool of investors in the US than in the UK who are more familiar with the Group's business model....In addition, the Board expects that the new parent company would benefit from its primary listing being amongst a more appropriate public company peer group." — Signet Group Press Release (July 10, 2008)"

""We have the solutions the market is looking for. We have the IP. It’s just a matter of the execution to bring down admin to industry normal levels, not more, not better than the industry, but just the normal levels in the industry and also bringing cost of goods sold both in Pharmacy and MLR on the medical side to industry norms will yield enormous upside for us in the company." — CEO Barry Smith, 2019 Guidance Call; "In summary, while we’re not pleased with our results this year, I’m confident that our growth strategy is sound. After transforming our business and achieving strong top line growth over the past few years, we have significant earnings power in our current portfolio as we work to increase our margins to industry competitive levels." — CFO Jonathan Rubin, Q3 2018 Earnings Call"

"“These eight CEOs were not charismatic visionaries, nor were they drawn to grandiose strategic pronouncements. They were practical and agnostic in temperament, and they systematically tuned out the noise of conventional wisdom by fostering a certain simplicity of focus, a certain asperity in their cultures and their communications. Each ran a highly decentralized organization; made at least one very large acquisition; developed unusual, cash flow-based metrics; and bought back a significant amount of stock. None paid meaningful dividends... All received the same combination of derision, wonder, and skepticism from their peers and the business press. All also enjoyed eye-popping, credulity-straining performance over very long tenures...” — William N. Thorndike, Jr., The Outsiders"

"“One CEO whose board includes Mr. Peltz has publicly disclosed what it’s like to deal with activists such as Mr. Peltz: ‘I think the single biggest disconnect that I found is that many activists simply sit in conference rooms and do calculations and analysis, independent of the reality of the fact that we are dealing with human beings and people’s lives.’” — P&G Shareholder Letter, September 20th, 2017; “My quote was taken out of context. My statement was referring to the many activists who have not run businesses or are not close enough to the realities of operating a business. I was not referring to Nelson Peltz, who is a knowledgeable director, an experienced operator and, as a member of our board, is fully informed about our business.” — Irene Rosenfeld, September 20th, 2017"

"“This is my take-home message to you - that this is just a matter of time. Back in the '90s Blackberry dominated. Now it's history. TransMedics is going to be like Blackberry. TransMedics is going to die because people are so pissed off with the company and this predatory behavior. People are just going to quit using it. They're very upset, and it's going to be, “Screw you, I don't want to use this product anymore.” People are not happy with the management of the company. Everybody hates the CEO, the CFO, and all the people in the upper level...it's run by the wrong people...doctors are going to run from this company.” — Transplant surgeon in a leadership role at Vanderbilt, one of the top centers in the US, which has already wiped out TransMedics usage in heart, lung, and liver"

""We were like middle-aged people. We needed to slim down....This is long overdue at Time Inc...." — Ann Moore, Publishing's Chairman and CEO. "We are big, and we need big bets. I think that as we have become more layered, the culture here has become more risk averse." — Ann Moore. "No company can deliver on its commitments or adapt well to change unless its leaders practice the discipline of execution at all levels. Execution has to be a part of a company's strategy and its goals. It is the missing link between aspirations and results. As such, it is a major - indeed, the major - job of a business leader. If you don't know how to execute, the whole of your effort as a leader will always be less than the sum of its parts." — Larry Bossidy (former Chairman & CEO of Honeywell)."

"We ended the first quarter with cash and marketable securities of $4 billion and generated approximately $591 million of cash from operations in the quarter. This is ahead of our internal targets and significantly more than in Q1 2019. This reflects increased earnings and a reduction in working capital, primarily driven by accounts receivable during the quarter. As I noted in January, we did not repurchase any shares in Q1, nor do we plan to do so during the remainder of the year. In addition to the discretionary spending controls I previously outlined, we have also taken steps to conserve cash, including reductions in planned capital expenditures and project spending, focusing on opportunities and accounts payable and slowing M&A activities. — CEO Lobo, Q1 2020 Conf Call"

""Amcor’s financial profile will be enhanced, and our existing capital allocation framework, or shareholder value creation model, will be maintained and strengthened with this transaction." — CEO ACMR; "Sales to PepsiCo, and its subsidiaries, accounted for approximately 11.1%, 11.0% and 11.7% of our sales in fiscal years 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively." — Amcor 10-K; "So the (specialty) cartons business is a little less than 10% of sales now. It’s a global business. It’s predominantly selling tobacco cartons." — Amcor CEO Citi Conf Dec 2019; "Sales to the Kraft Heinz Company, and its subsidiaries, accounted for approximately 11 percent in 2018 and 10 percent in 2017 and 2016. The Company primarily sells to Kraft Heinz Company in the U.S. Packaging segment." — Bemis 10-K"

""it has been slow...companies like TSMC were holding back...Intel was delaying their orders for more than a year." — Longtime, senior semicap equipment executive in Japan who is friendly with Lasertec's CEO; "TSMC is pushing out and delaying orders. The Arizona original plan is now on hold. That's what they are telling their suppliers." — One of Intel's most senior and longtime engineers with leadership responsibility for EUV; "There are just the three machines in San Jose. It didn't sound like they had plans of implementing any more in that location. Some of my ex-coworkers, they relocated some to Oregon... first, they moved some guys to Arizona, and then they moved the Arizona guys to Portland." — Former Lasertec field service engineer who worked in the Intel mask shop"

"So cost of the truck. So, one, our OEM and partners are going to decide that. But the way to think about it is there's minimal kind of new hardware components in there, right? And the driver parts, the things that you would think of as the expensive parts, are part of that Hardware as a Service. So, they're on the Aurora side of this, and our customers will pay us for that over time on a per mile basis. So, the base truck, we expect to be roughly in line with what it costs to buy a truck today. And I would expect that our partners, again over time, as this becomes more broadly adopted, there's an opportunity to depopulate some of the content in the truck and create an even better offering from our OEM partners to their customers. — Chris Urmson, Aurora Innovation CEO"

""Mr. Rasulo’s perspective is stale given he left Disney in 2015 and has not held any executive positions in the industry since." — Disney Letter to Shareholders, 02/01/24; "... Mr. Rasulo’s close relationship with Mr. Perlmutter, coupled with Mr. Rasulo’s having been passed over in the 2015 COO process despite Mr. Perlmutter’s sponsorship of him as a CEO successor, would likely inhibit Mr. Rasulo’s ability to work constructively with Mr. Iger and other executives at the Company with whom Mr. Perlmutter had clashed." — Disney 2024 Proxy Statement, 02/01/24; "[Jay] has been a valued colleague and friend, as well as a vital contributor to Disney’s success, particularly in his roles as chief financial officer and chairman of our Parks and Resorts division." — Bob Iger"

"Capital allocation is the most fundamental responsibility of a senior management team of a public corporation. Successful capital allocation means converting inputs, including money, things, ideas and people, into something more valuable than they would be otherwise... A company that is allocating its resources wisely will ultimately prevail over a competitor that is allocating its resources foolishly. — Credit Suisse, October 19, 2016; The lack of skill that many CEOs have at capital allocation is no small matter: After ten years on the job, a CEO whose company annually retains earnings equal to 10% of net worth will have been responsible for the deployment of more than 60% of all the capital at work in the business. — Warren Buffett, 1987 Letter to Shareholders"

""Yes, remember, we -- you could arguably say we had 10 to 15 key patents burn off at the last -- last part of last year and I call those CAD/CAM patents which means you could design something on a computer screen and then 3D print it and that's what choked most companies from getting into the marketplace because you really couldn't scale." — Joseph Hogan, CEO, Align Technology. "In the future, we are going to see a change where a company is going to develop software that is so easy to use where I will pay a monthly fee and then I will be able to print the aligners in my office. We are not that far away from that. It is coming." — Orthodontist, Diamond Plus Align Tier. "Better software and alternative workflows are what will take over Invisalign." — Orthodontist."

""So Premier Agent revenue is our core media business where we monetize this 2 billion visits a month we get on our apps and sites. And it's mainly buyer monetization that we do, and we basically sell leads to estate agents. We have monetized that historically by collecting credit cards from agents upfront, getting them to buy on a subscription basis and then sending them leads." — CEO Rich Barton, 11/20/2019; "So Premier Agent overall, which is our revenue workforce, has always been focused on the buyer side of the transaction, the buyer leads that we're sending to real estate agents." — Fmr. CFO Kathleen Phillips, 2/16/2017; "Historically, the Premier Agent product has -- been mostly about acquiring buyer leads." — Fmr. CEO Spencer Rascoff, 11/01/2016"

""Our business historically has been built on increasing our recurring revenue. Almost 80% of the revenue we recognize each month is for scheduled services that are on the books as of the first of the month. I'd like to think of this as the gift that keeps on giving. In a sense, we're much like the phone company or cable TV business." — CEO Rollins Q1 2014; "Yes, one thing I might add, we also implemented a new pay plan for our commercial sales, people that much more greatly incentivize them to pursue recurring revenue. We kind of got hooked on that bed bug revenue for a period of time. And while that's great to get, it's not recurring and as you guys know, we really prefer that recurring revenue to build." — Fmr COO / Vice-Chairman Wilson On Bed Bugs"

""And then thinking about Spine, we expect to continue to post growth in that space. And we think some of the enabling technology investments we’ve made will continue to pay dividends and on top of, obviously, the K2M acquisition, which has opened up more of the portfolio for new product developments, we do think that we have good confidence in our performance in the quarters to come and well into '22 and beyond." — Spencer Stiles, Group President Ortho and Spine, BofA Conf, May 11, 2021; "So in terms of underlying growth, I mean, we don’t break out guidance in terms of as we think about spine. But we do expect that market and that business to continue to accelerate as the recovery happens in the back half of the year" — CEO Lobo, Q2 2021 Conf Call."

""Then just the last question -- the Dealer margin is obviously doing terrific now that you've lapped the Kerridge. Can you give us a sense, as you look out over the next few years, what's sort of the margin potential of this business? Does it remain substantially above the levels you've been reporting in the last couple of quarters?" — Gary Bisbee, Lehman Brothers; "Yes. Again, the business model there is no different than Employer Services. Again, sans acquisitions or significant investments, we would expect the core Dealer business to improve its margins 0.5 point a year as a way to think about it. So there are clearly 2 or 3 more points of margin improvement available in the Dealer market over a planning horizon." — Gary Butler, ADP, Former CEO"

"“No, that's their income. So then you're looking at now our retail sales, because the single biggest opportunity for those supervisors is their 50% off list discount. That's the biggest component of their income. They get a small piece on their royalties, because they really haven't started building a sales organization yet to get rewards down below. Whereas someone up in the very top, they're $2+ million, they're probably working on very little retail margin, because they're not really retailers.” — Rich Goudis, CFO; “They're recruiters.” — Michael Johnson, CEO, Chairman; “They're building their sales organization, so more of their compensation or income is based on the commission structuring in their multiple level marketing.” — Rich Goudis, CFO"

"So we're really getting much more effective in our utilization of our manufacturing facilities. The other aspect is inventory management. And again, Glenn touched upon it, If you look at the several years up to maybe 2018, 2019, you can see that our inventory was on the upswing in terms of the -- not just the value, but also days of inventory. Over the last 3 years or so, we have really looked at each of our product lines end to end and really put in place a variety of inventory optimization plans and strategies. And you'll see that our days of inventory have actually not just flattened, but its come down nicely, and we see further progress in the horizon as we continue to proliferate these methods. — CEO Kevin Lobo, 2021 Analyst Call, Nov 18 2021"

""We want a Hall of Fame guy. I think the specs are pretty obvious...you want someone who's an absolute proven leader, somebody who's run a major business, somebody who in the past has not only demonstrated their ability to control thoughts and innovate, but someone that can build revenue. You'd like to find somebody that has both retail, and what I'll call, BSD experience. And our expectations are...we're going to find a superior CEO to come in and take the company to the next level." — Neil Austrian. "We find the hire to be very surprising and we believe the market will as well. In recent meetings with Mr. Austrian, we came away believing he was not interested and not a candidate for the full time position." — Deutsche Bank report, May 23, 2011"

""The most investment we did was tag or connect all those assets into our intelligent hub. That's the secret sauce." — CEO Needham Conf, May 17, 2023; "Growth #5 and the one that I think is making the most impact on our business is our iHUB." — Q1 2023, May 3, 2022; "From our perspective, our iHub sits in the center of the supply and the demand side of the market. This is an innovative model that no one else in the industry has." — Q2 2022, Aug 3, 2022; "In its first year, iHub contributes 40% of our year-over-year EBITDA growth..." — Q3 2022, Nov 9, 2022; "We are very proud. We are very proud of our iHub, the intelligent hub. It's AI-driven technology that 2022 is going to be the first year, which is fully in operation." — Q4 2021, Feb 9, 2022."

""Finally, our emerging pipeline across all therapeutic areas is one of the most promising in our history... The significant opportunities ahead of us requires us to ensure the right level of investment behind R&D and certain commercial capabilities, and we are doing just that." — Giovanni Caforio, Chairman & CEO, February 2018; "I'm also excited by the progress with our diversified pipeline and the work we are doing in cardiovascular disease, immunoscience and fibrosis... we are executing very well, and I believe we are focused on the right strategic opportunities for the future. We're investing commercially and in our pipeline to drive growth, and I feel very good about the progress we're making." — Giovanni Caforio, Chairman & CEO, July 2018"

""Harvey Golub is everything that you would want in a director. And one of the things that I appreciate most about him is that he has always respected the space between the Non-Executive Chairman and the CEO roles. He challenged me. He held me accountable. But he did not try to do my job for me… And he has challenged us to sharpen our strategy, and better execute that strategy by holding us to high performance standards. He often tells us, ‘This is what you said you would do. Are you delivering and, if not, why not?’" — Douglas Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup Co, September 2009; "Harvey Golub has done an absolutely sensational job, and we're probably $4 billion better because of it." — Warren Buffet, 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting"

"Clarify is bringing to the table a customer base that is very wide and very important. . . From the employees' point of view, they bring a lot of excellence and experience in the overall customer relationship and management. Now talking about the functionality [Clarify is] very strong in the area of sales force automation, for example, for [sic] navigate the calls to the right module. . . — CEO Avi Naor (quoted in Bloomberg, Oct 2, 2001). The acquisition strengthens Amdocs' ability to effectively address all segments of the IP market. With blue-chip customers like the IP units at AT&T Canada, BT, GTE, SNET and Swiss Online... Select is the vendor of choice for IP leaders and emerging new entrants. — CEO Avi Naor (Feb 29, 2000 press release)."

"[The CEO's dendrites claim] is a bunch of bullshit because even if you did have a ceramic separator, the kind of synthesis that you would have to do on it just to make sure—here is the deal. You want lithium-ions to flow through it from cathode to anode and vice-versa, but then you're not allowing the dendrites, which is essentially lithium metal again, to pass through the ceramic separator.. That's definitely bullshit. If it's a tiny one-inch diameter coin cell, then yeah, it's entirely possible, and it has to be single-layer as well but it's not going to be representative of what you will see in an actual cell, especially when it comes to a dual-electrode multi-layer cell, this is just not going to hold good at all. — Former R&D employee"