20 Quotes by Jim McKelvey

I don't run any of my companies. I always partner with somebody who wants to operate.

Glass really rewards risk. A lot of times with glass, you're just waiting for the piece to cool down or for some temperature to adjust, and there's split seconds where you've got a fraction of a second where you get to make a move a particular way, and you don't get to repeat it if you do it wrong.

When my son was born, I decided I wasn't really into working 12 hours a day. That slowed me down a little bit.

At Square, we got our tech up and running in three weeks, but it took us 18 months to get licenses, banking relationships and everything else we needed to be able to move money. We had to partner up with major companies to do it.

I've been totally replaced by people who are superior. I was doing, like, 15 different things. It's very gratifying to watch your job done better.

Personally, I don't want to do a lot of angel deals in a year. I get approached a lot. I'm becoming less and less polite, which doesn't seem to be helping. A lot of the things I get pitched on are from people who just want to make money.

This entrepreneurial energy that we have in the Midwest doesn't have to go out to the coasts to get fed and watered.

It's obvious that St. Louis has certain advantages compared to other cities: namely, a concentration of financial services.

It's hard to shape glass. It took me years of practice, and as a result, I've never gotten bored with it. It's difficult. Every time I come into the studio, I've got some sort of new challenge. And something that I would like to learn how to do better, and the material never disappoints me.