All Quotes

# identity48 quotes

IDENTITY

Snapchat is not social media. Social media is about performing for an audience. Snapchat is about talking to your friends.

identitysocial-mediaEvan Spiegel, Snap Inc. IPO roadshow 2017

We're not a social network. We're a discovery engine. People don't come to Pinterest to see what their friends are doing. They come to find what they want to do next.

discoveryidentityBen Silbermann, Pinterest keynote 2019

I studied Marxist philosophy under Habermas in Frankfurt. Now I build tools for the Pentagon. Life is full of plot twists.

humoridentityAlex Karp on his unusual background, 2021

We're not a therapy company. We're a business infrastructure company for therapists. The distinction matters because we're not competing with therapists — we're serving them.

business-modelidentityJake Cooper, company blog, 2024

People ask if I'm a CEO or a scientist. I say: what is a CEO of a science company if not a scientist? The lab coat is the leadership.

identityleadershipBBC Interview, 2021

I'm Austrian. Max is Austrian. We built N26 in Berlin. An Austrian neobank, headquartered in Germany, with a European banking license. Europe is one market if you build it that way.

europeidentityBloomberg Interview, 2020

I'm Chinese-born, educated at Stanford, building a company headquartered in Singapore that serves 700 million people across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and India. This is what globalization actually looks like.

globalidentityForbes Interview, 2021

I was born in China, grew up in Canada, worked in Japan, and built a company with no headquarters that operates everywhere. I am not from anywhere. I am from the internet. Binance is from the internet.

decentralizationglobalPodcast, 2022

We enrolled 1.3 billion people into Aadhaar. That means we gave a verifiable identity to hundreds of millions of Indians who had never been able to prove who they were. A bank account, a phone number, a government benefit — all of it starts with knowing who you are.

They call me the Elon Musk of China. I understand the comparison, but NIO is not Tesla China. We are building something distinctly Chinese — community-driven, service-obsessed, and user-first in a way Tesla has never been.

I came out as gay because I wanted a kid in Alabama or Mississippi who was struggling with their identity to know that a Fortune 500 CEO was too.

I'm not a businessman. I'm a business, man.

We are not a house-flipping company. We are a technology company that happens to buy and sell houses.

110 billion dollars in circulation. If we were a bank we would be one of the largest in the world. We are not a bank. That is the point.

They called me the Indiana Jones of investing. I prefer to think of myself as the Marco Polo.

We have a real banking license. We are not a fintech pretending to be a bank. We are a bank that happens to be tech-first.

Atlanta is not Silicon Valley. We do not need it to be. Rockets and jets get built where there is space and talent. Atlanta has both.

I'm not a gambler. I'm an investor who happens to own casinos.

Universal basic income needs universal identity. You can't distribute to everyone if you can't verify everyone.

Ten million humans verified in the first year. This is the fastest-growing identity network in history.

As AI gets better, proving you're a real human becomes more valuable. World ID solves that.

We're building proof of personhood for the AI era. If you can't prove you're human, you can't participate.

Coming out was the most important thing I ever did. I spent decades hiding who I was. The energy it took to hide could have been spent building.

courageidentityInterview, 2007

We're not a bank. We're a retailer's best friend.

I am not a businessman. I am a business, man.

Two Sigma is a technology company that happens to trade financial markets. We have more engineers than traders.

Swimming gave me everything — discipline, fame, medals. But it also took everything — my identity, my social skills, my mental health. The trade-off was not obvious at 15.

I am Japanese. I am Haitian. I am American. I am Black. I am all of those at once and none of them fully explains me. My investments reflect the same complexity.

diversityidentityInterview with Vogue Japan, 2021, 2021

The people who don't invest in their community don't deserve to call it their community.

communityidentityDominican Republic speech, 2018

This is our f***ing city. And nobody is going to dictate our freedom.

communityidentityFenway Park speech, 2013

You have to know who you are before you can build anything that matters.

entrepreneurshipidentityGQ interview, 2014

Houston raised me. That city is in everything I do. That's not marketing — it's real.

authenticitycommunityVogue interview, 2021

I wanted to earn my own way. That is why I worked under a different name.

The next generation of Chinese consumers does not want to copy the West. They want to define their own version of success.

chinaconsumerTIME 100 Profile, 2018

Syria gave me my values. Britain gave me the platform. The Middle East gave me the market. I needed all three.

businessidentityAsfari Foundation Annual Report, 2017

I am a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.

identityphilanthropyThe New Yorker, 2010

I left News Corp because I needed to prove to myself that I could build something independently. I needed to know that.

careeridentityVarious media interviews, 2015

Paris Saint-Germain is not just a football club. It represents the ambition of a generation. We are here to win.

identitypsgInterview with Le Parisien, 2016

Nerd values are the new normal — hard work, honesty, and giving back.

identityphilanthropyForbes Interview, 2018

I have never defined myself by a job title or a company name. I am a problem-solver. Companies just pay me to do that at scale.

careerentrepreneurshipFortune Most Powerful Women Summit, 2012

I am a poet of code who uses art and research as a call to action for an equitable and accountable AI.

advocacyartAlgorithmic Justice League website, 2016

What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language.

fashionidentityInterview, 1996

We built this brand from Baltimore. That is not a detail — that is the entire point.

baltimorebrandBaltimore Business Journal interview, 2017

We built Bet365 in Stoke because that is where we are from. I do not see any reason to be anywhere else.

entrepreneurshipidentityStoke-on-Trent Economic Forum, 2015

New York is the only city in the world. Everything else is just practice.

identitylifestyleNew York Observer, 2012

I am a Saudi investor who invests and believes in Ethiopia.

ethiopiaidentityEconomist African High-Growth Markets Summit, 2013

We didn't define ourselves by Southeast Asia.

emerging-marketsidentityFlexlife Media profile

I like to think of myself not as a second-generation entrepreneur — not a second. Why? Because we didn't just inherit the business.

identitylegacyMcKinsey interview, 2026