The business of business is people.

Herb Kelleher

Entrepreneurs

Herb Kelleher

Born in 1931 in New Jersey, Herb Kelleher was a lawyer-turned-aviation-executive who co-founded Southwest Airlines in 1967. He established the foundational model of the low-cost carrier — low fares, short-haul point-to-point routes, high aircraft utilization, and a single fleet type. His employees-first management philosophy and humor-infused corporate culture sustained more than forty consecutive years of profitability in an industry notorious for losses. He died in 2019 at eighty-seven.

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Source: ケレハーの経営信条として社史・インタビューで繰り返し引用Unverified

Herb Kelleher's Other Quotes

We will hire someone with less experience, less education, and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude.

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

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Customers first, employees second, shareholders third.

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Talent is the single most important ingredient in our business.

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Competition is a sin.

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The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest.

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Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

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Vision is perhaps our greatest strength... it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought.

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