Dan Schulman

I've come to recognize that social purpose must be embedded into the core DNA of a company. The questions 'Why do we exist as a company?' and 'How do we make a difference?' need to have the same answer. ”

We all have people who are literally one life shock away from going into a crisis. For many of us, we have a buffer in one way or another. We have a savings account, or we have credit that we can go to. The underserved don't have that luxury. ”

In addition to my job at American Express, I'm also chairman of the board of Symantec, one of the leading players in anti-virus and cyber-crime prevention software, so I know firsthand just how sophisticated many of these attacks can be. ”

If you want to have the best employees, there really needs to be a vision and a mission. Talent looks for a mission. And if you have the best talent, that's the single biggest competitive advantage any company can have. ”

When you focus solely on valuation and market share, you win some and you lose some. When you focus on the needs of your customers and help them achieve their dreams, you win every time. ”

I'm also the chairman of the board of Symantec, which is the world's largest cybersecurity - software cybersecurity company. ”

Payments is a hard business. It's a messy business, with not necessarily the largest of margins. ”

Too many people go into existing organizations and define success as recreating what is there. To be successful as a startup organization within a large, established culture, you really need to think about how you leverage the assets that are there. ”

A lot of people say that I'm an activist CEO. I just think I'm a responsible leader of a business. ”

I think that sometimes people talk about disruption, and I've seen tons of startups come in as disruptors and then disappear. And I think what we need to do as an industry is think about a world that is dominated by mobile and software and not extrapolate from what was. And I think a lot of big companies tend to want to do that. ”