It doesn't matter whether the Dow is 5000 or 50,000. If you're an entrepreneur, there is no bad time to start a company.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We like companies that can get big and powerful on $50 million or less and not two, three, four or five billion.
Many follow a rule of thumb - no more than 5% in one stock. But that's not the entrepreneurial road to riches.
And our size: The company this year is going to be close to $50 billion, so if that's the case and you can continue to grow that fast, I would rather put my energies to solving customer problems and growing our business than worrying about integrating and laying people off.
There's a number of companies clearly that we wish we had invested in either at the early or at the moderate stage.
Most Fortune 500 companies began as small start-ups whose entrepreneurial founders slowly developed the infrastructure, hired the staff, sourced manufacturers or built their own factory, and created distribution, sales, and marketing plans.
There would really be no reason to get up in the morning if Founders Fund was not willing to invest in companies that were doing important things, great businesses that very few people believe in.
Relatively few people should start companies.
Our criteria is that it's okay to invest in companies so long as they stop lobbying in Washington, stop exploring for new hydrocarbons, and sit down with every one else to plan to keep 80 percent of the reserves in the ground.
If you rank the top 50 one-day moves in the S&P 500, a fair number of those happened within the last five or 10 years. That tells you that we're in a different, riskier market now.
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.