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A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

I've seen small businesses turn into terrible midsize or big ones because they let their desire to achieve some arbitrary metric get the best of them. Whatever is compromised as a result doesn't matter anymore, as long as the company is growing.

In the absence of sound oversight, responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system.

Personal shoppers in big department stores are seriously under-used.

For small businesses trying to figure out how to get big, I would say you are going to have to take some risks. And I think that is what shuts off most people. They are not willing take the risk.

Big businesses aren't the only ones in the economic ecosystem. Nobody should fall behind because of an unfair structure.

Among our responsibilities is to make sure that 23 percent of all government contracts go to small businesses. That's about $150 billion annually, from all the government agencies.

I do believe that any successful business starts from the top and works its way down.