The Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary > T-words > Table stakes

Table stakes [n.]

A businessman sits at a poker table. Chips that appear to be made of beef as well as steaks sit on the table.

1) The minimum resources needed to compete in a market. 2) The bare minimum necessary to participate or be taken seriously in a given situation. “In this office, responding to emails within 2 hours is table stakes.” Occasionally misspelled as “table steaks”, causing confusion and hunger.

With trusted data and trusted AI rapidly becoming table stakes, our technology is in a sweet spot of opportunity.

Steve McMillan, President, CEO & Director
Teradata Corp.
Q2 2024 earnings call

The historical table stakes, however, program continuity, consultative engagement, quality and consistency, operational excellence, and ultimately, results, have not changed.

Michael Combs, President & CEO
CorVel Corp.
Q3 2024 earnings call

… reliability, scalability, security, global reach, standards compliance, depth and breadth of integration, and their robust feature set are table stakes.

Vladimir G. Shmunis, Founder, Chairman, and CEO
RingCentral, Inc.
Q2 2024 earnings call

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