"The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don?t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations - they don?t, but those things are easy enough to learn - but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren?t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more"
About this Quote
The intent is corrective and, frankly, slightly scolding. Gerber is writing against the romantic small-business myth that grit and passion are enough, and also against the MBA-counter-myth that success is mainly a toolbox of competencies. He reframes competence as something downstream of posture: curiosity beats credentials. In that move, he elevates learning from a periodic task to a temperament.
The subtext is that many entrepreneurs dont want information; they want confirmation. Meetings become theater, strategy becomes a shield, and feedback becomes an attack to parry. That defensive stance is expensive: it blocks iteration, it makes bad systems feel personal, and it turns a changing market into an argument you keep losing.
Contextually, this lands in a late-20th-century business culture obsessed with technique and optimization. Gerber counters with a more durable edge: the founders who win arent the ones who have arrived intellectually, but the ones who stay hungry. Insatiability, here, isnt ambition for status; its an appetite for being wrong quickly and productively.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Gerber, Michael. (2026, February 5). The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don?t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations - they don?t, but those things are easy enough to learn - but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren?t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-problem-with-most-failing-businesses-is-not-184946/
Chicago Style
Gerber, Michael. "The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don?t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations - they don?t, but those things are easy enough to learn - but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren?t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more." FixQuotes. February 5, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-problem-with-most-failing-businesses-is-not-184946/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don?t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations - they don?t, but those things are easy enough to learn - but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren?t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more." FixQuotes, 5 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-problem-with-most-failing-businesses-is-not-184946/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
