"The necessity to be continuously on the verge of some great new idea sows an endemic hurriedness that can be seen on people’s faces and heard in their voices.
This struck me as unhealthy for decision making (and perhaps even unhealthy, period)."
"I think of highest quality companies as a class of their own: the 99th percentile is not 10% better than the 90th percentile but 10x better. Linear thinking and analysis—though important in building a full understanding—are insufficient for revealing superlative quality."
"I believe that alternative asset managers have outstanding potential, based on the overwhelming logic of being the most efficient mechanisms to match those who have capital in need of returns with those who need capital to accomplish business objectives."
"One kind of investment situation I’m fond of is when a company’s best decade won’t even begin for 5 years
or more: the endgame is clear, but there is an immediate murkiness as the pieces fall into place."
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Charlie Munger once sent a letter to Robert Cialdini with a single share of $BRKA
“Warren and I have read your books. We’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars. This is our way of saying thanks.”
Cialdini kept the share and is an avid reader of Buffett's shareholder letters.
"Every year, Warren establishes his credibility ... he mentioned something that went wrong that year. And then he says of course we learned from that, we will never do that again, and he moves on to of the strengths of the year all the things that went right"
"He establishes his truthfulness which makes me believe in what went right to truly process it deeply and believe it fully because he first was willing to tell me what went wrong. I now believe the next thing he said."
"My vision of the business is always to have a large one. When I had two stores, ten stores seemed like a lot. I'd like to believe that trees can grow to the sky. None have yet, but that doesn't mean it's impossible."
Lazard's Felix Rohatyn: "One of the most driven men I know."
Competitor: "Greatest merchandising talent in America."
Quit law school to join the family store in Columbus. Wanted to focus on bestselling merchandise - sportswear. Father: "You'll never be a merchant."
Opened first store in '63 with limited selection: Limited
1976: 100 stores
1985: 577
I love the moment when Soros told Druckenmiller to go for the jugular and lever up the short of the British pound. It’s unfortunate that it turned into meme because it’s easy to miss the “conviction stack” that this generational trade was built on.
“I've learned many things from [George Soros], but perhaps the most significant is that it's not whether you're right or wrong, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.” -Stanley Druckenmiller
“What is most interesting to me about the breaking of the pound was the combination of Druckenmiller’s gamesmanship – Stan really understands risk/rewards — and George’s ability to size trades.” Scott Bessent
Craig McCaw made a fortune by thinking like a ‘business anthropologist’ and having conviction on the value of new technology. Landline phones made humans “slaves to places” - cellular telephony was inevitable.
To turn his conviction into a billion-dollar fortune, he had to be fast, focused, and go all-in. He needed leverage a team that could make up for his dyslexia.
Craig’s father Elroy was a spy turned entrepreneur who bought radio and televisions stations, piling leverage on handshake deals. When he passed away in 1969, Craig was 19. The family’s fortune crumbled overnight.
"It’s counterintuitive but the value of information is determined by what’s discarded, or “exformation.” The quality of your consciousness, your entire waking life, will be determined by the quality of your information filters."
“Consciousness is not about information but about its opposite: order. Consciousness consists of information no more than a person who consumes food can be said to consist of food. Consciousness is nourished by information the same way the body is nourished by food."
"The small subset of the world that an animal is able to detect is its umwelt. The bigger reality, whatever that might mean, is called the umgebung.
The interesting part is that each organism presumably assumes its umwelt to be the entire objective reality “out there.”"
“It’s your job [as a businessperson] to think almost anthropologically about humanity and say, ‘What would be in their best interest?’ And then try to get there first, and know that eventually they’ll learn what you have is worth their while.” Craig McCaw
“You learn and you see an opportunity - a gap between what is and what should be. If one thinks in anthropological terms, if you go towards what should be, then eventually things will get there and you just have to work out the timing.
With cellular telephony, in particular, we saw an enormous gap between what was and what should be. [The fixed phone system] makes absolutely no sense. It is machines dominating human beings.