It can sometimes feel that all the exciting things have already happened, that the frontier is closed, that we’re at the end of technological history and there’s nothing left to do but maintain what already exists. This is just a failure of imagination. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re surrounding by rotting incumbents that will all need to be replaced by new technologies. Let’s get on it.
Success in gambling doesn’t go to those who pick winners, but to those with the ability to identify superior propositions. The goal is to find situations where the odds are generous to one side or the other, whether favorite or underdog. In other words, a mispricing. It’s exactly the same in investing. People often say to me, ‘XYZ is a great company with a bright future, so I bought the stock.’
They’re picking a favorite but ignoring the proposition. The former alone isn’t enough; they should consider the latter as well…. While in investing we generally aren’t offered explicit odds, the attractiveness of the proposition is established by the price of the asset, the ratio of the potential payoff to the amount risked, and what we perceive to be the chance of winning versus losing.
Alfred Sloan summed up decades of experience at General Motors by saying, “Good management rests on a reconciliation of centralization and decentralization.” Or, we might say, on a balancing act to get the best combination of responsiveness and leverage.
– Andy Grove, High Output Management
People don’t realize I’ve put a lot of my life into what I’m doing right now. I didn’t just have a hit record and get lucky. I put a lot of my life into it so the things that come out of it is not due to bravado and arrogance. I have confidence because of the work that I’ve put in, and I’ve put in so much work.