When you're talking about capital and financial things, which I certainly pay a lot of attention to, I base those decisions on one question that I typically ask myself, which is 'Does it help us to build a better company?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
From the business point of view, always encouraging the people in our company to own stock in the company, and if we're going to build something great, to have a lot of people share in the benefits of that greatness.
When deciding whether to fund and build a company, we start from basic principles and because many of the businesses and products that our companies create are a complete novelty to us, them and the market, we have to do the math.
For businesses to be successful, they need to constantly ask the question: 'How can we provide value to our customers?' At the end of the day, that is what matters.
Whenever you look at any potential merger or acquisition, you look at the potential to create value for your shareholders.
What we are doing is increasing our focus on cash flow, return on investment, and value creation.
But we have to ask ourselves, what's the purpose of the stock market? It's supposed to be a source of capital for growing business. It's lost that purpose.
You have to ask what is going to happen to a lot of companies when there is not a lot more money to be gotten. That changes everybody's perspective, I think.
You have more independent eyes scrutinizing the decision-making and financial statements of companies.
You will always need more capital than you think, because it will always take you longer to reach profitability than you can imagine.
Investors have to ask themselves two questions. How much can we grow our investments? And, can we afford our mistakes?