"I'm a catalyst for change. You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place"
About this Quote
The subtext is a defense brief in two moves. First, “outsider” claims the romance of insurgency, even when the speaker is one of the most powerful media owners on earth. Outsider status becomes a style choice: the posture of the disrupter who isn’t bound by old rules, old elites, old pieties. Second, “successful over 30 years” insists that persistence validates method. If the market kept rewarding him, the reasoning goes, the moral accounting is optional.
Context matters because Murdoch’s career is a case study in influence that rarely looks gentle: tabloidization, hard-edged labor battles, consolidation, and news outlets that reshape public reality as much as they report it. “Change” here is not the civic, kumbaya version; it’s leverage. The quote’s rhetorical trick is to normalize collateral damage as the unavoidable friction of progress, then to place the speaker just outside the blast radius, proudly unrepentant, still calling it chemistry rather than choice.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Murdoch, Rupert. (2026, January 18). I'm a catalyst for change. You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-catalyst-for-change-you-cant-be-an-outsider-8912/
Chicago Style
Murdoch, Rupert. "I'm a catalyst for change. You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-catalyst-for-change-you-cant-be-an-outsider-8912/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm a catalyst for change. You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-catalyst-for-change-you-cant-be-an-outsider-8912/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.










