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Who really said it

There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results

Spoken by Jim Collins b. 1958 · business researcher, author of Good to Great
Verified source. The popular wording is slightly tidied. In copyright

Collins said it in “Good Questions, Great Answers,” a Web-exclusive Fast Company interview with Alan M. Webber (2001). The published sentence reads “There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results.” The popular “a direct relationship” wording is a slight tidy-up, also found in Wikiquote’s transcription.

Last verified 1 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results” Jim Collins, interview by Alan M. Webber, “Good Questions, Great Answers,” Fast Company (Web exclusive), 2001. · Verbatim: “There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Jim Collins and/or Fast Company (publisher)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

Where Collins said it

Title
Good Questions, Great Answers
Format
Web-exclusive interview, Fast Company (fastcompany.com)
Interviewer
Alan M. Webber, Fast Company founding editor
Published
2001, tied to Collins’s October 2001 Fast Company cover story

I believe it’s more a matter of cause and effect than an accident. There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into “the one genius with 1,000 helpers.” It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. Collins’s answer, as published

Collins is answering a question about why the CEOs of the good-to-great companies were “largely anonymous.” Wikiquote’s version of this passage starts “There is a direct relationship…” and leaves out a sentence that follows in the published text (“And that leads to all sorts of problems…”).

Good Questions, Great Answers (Fast Company, archived copy)

How the line traveled

  • 2001: In a Web-exclusive Fast Company interview with Alan M. Webber, Collins says “There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results” (archived article ↗).
  • 2013 capture: The earliest Wayback copy of the page has the same “something directly related” wording (2013 snapshot ↗).
  • Wikiquote: Quotes the passage as “There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results,” citing Fast Company online magazine, October 2001 (Wikiquote ↗).
  • Quote sites: Aggregators repeat the “direct relationship” version without naming a source (example ↗).
In copyright

The line comes from a Fast Company interview first published in 2001. That is well after the 1931 cutoff, so the text is protected by copyright. A short quotation with credit is ordinary fair use.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Right person, slightly different words

The attribution is correct: Jim Collins said this. What circulates is a small rewording of the sentence Fast Company published.

“There is a direct relationship…” Tidied

The archived Fast Company text reads “There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results” (Fast Company, archived ↗). The smoother “direct relationship” version is the one Wikiquote gives (Wikiquote ↗). No copy of the page from before 2013 was checked, so it cannot be ruled out that the 2001 original read differently.

“The Misguided Mix-up of Celebrity and Leadership” (Collins essay, 2001) Not the source

Collins makes the same anti-celebrity-CEO argument in this essay for the Conference Board, but the essay does not contain the “absence of celebrity” sentence (jimcollins.com ↗).

Genuine Jim Collins, from his 2001 Fast Company interview “Good Questions, Great Answers.” The exact published words are “something directly related,” not “a direct relationship” (archived article ↗).

Context

Why Collins said it

The interview came out alongside Good to Great (2001), Collins’s study of companies that moved from average results to lasting excellent ones. A central finding was what he called Level 5 leadership. The CEOs behind these turnarounds were not the larger-than-life figures that business magazines celebrated. Collins’s own summary of the concept says “The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes” (jimcollins.com ↗).

In the interview he argues the link is cause and effect, not chance. A celebrity CEO turns the company into “the one genius with 1,000 helpers,” and great results need leaders whose ambition is for the company rather than for themselves.

“The one genius with 1,000 helpers.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Humility Leadership Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Good Questions, Great Answers (archived)web.archive.org

The full 2001 Fast Company interview with Collins, with the original sentence
James C. Collins on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotes, including the popular “direct relationship” transcription
Level 5 Leadershipjimcollins.com

Collins’s own summary of the humble-leader finding behind the quote
The Misguided Mix-up of Celebrity and Leadershipjimcollins.com

Collins’s 2001 essay making the same argument about celebrity CEOs
James C. Collinsen.wikipedia.org

Biography: Stanford background, Built to Last, Good to Great

The author

About Jim Collins

Jim Collins

b. 1958 · American business researcher & author

James C. “Jim” Collins is an American researcher, author and speaker on how companies grow and last. He taught on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-wrote Built to Last (1994) with Jerry I. Porras. His Good to Great (2001) introduced the idea of Level 5 leadership: humble, low-profile leaders who put the company ahead of their own fame.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Interview

Collins, Jim. “Good Questions, Great Answers.” Interview by Alan M. Webber. Fast Company, 2001 (Web exclusive). https://www.fastcompany.com/64604/good-questions-great-answers.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is a direct relationship between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results’?” Last verified 1 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-a-direct-relationship-between-the-absence-of/

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