Success Quote by David Ogilvy

Control freaks don’t build great agencies; they build bottlenecks. Ogilvy’s line lands like a managerial dare because it flatters your ambition while quietly insulting your insecurity. “Hire people who are better than you are” isn’t just a talent strategy, it’s an ego test: if you need to be the smartest person in the room, you’re already designing an organization capped at your own limits. The second clause - “then leave them to get on with it” - is the real provocation. It rejects the comforting theater of leadership (constant check-ins, approvals, “alignment”) in favor of something rarer: trust with consequences.

The subtext is that creativity and excellence are fragile under supervision. Ogilvy came up in an era when advertising was trying to professionalize without becoming bureaucratic, when “the routine” was always waiting to swallow bold work: safe copy, safe layouts, safe decisions made by committee. His directive is a structural antidote. By hiring up and stepping back, the leader creates a culture where the remarkable isn’t a lucky accident; it’s the default expectation, protected from managerial noise.

There’s also a sly reframing of power. The boss’s job isn’t to be the genius; it’s to curate conditions where geniuses can take risks and ship. “Aim for the remarkable” reads like a creative brief, but it’s also a moral stance: don’t optimize for comfort, optimize for impact. In Ogilvy’s world, routine isn’t neutral - it’s the silent competitor.