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.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Every investment is valued by taking a number from today and multiplying it by a story about tomorrow. Sometimes an asset is mostly numbers, sometimes it’s all story.
A further advantage of the value investor’s approach-first the assets, then the current earnings power, and finally and rarely the value of the potential growth-is that it gives the most authority to the elements of valuation that are most credible.
– Value Investing: From Graham To Buffett And Beyond
It has always appalled me that really bright scientists almost all work in the most competitive fields, the ones in which they are making the least difference. In other words, if they were hit by a truck, the same discovery would be made by somebody else about 10 minutes later.
The one thing I am sure of is that by the time the knife has stopped falling, the dust has settled and the uncertainly has been resolved, there will be no great bargains left. When buying something has become comfortable again, its price will no longer be so low that it’s a great bargain. And the high volumes that accompany a sharp sell-off will also likely be over. Not only will prices be on the rebound, but buying a sizeable position will be much harder.
– Howard Marks