Building companies involves creating great wealth. If that means I am an oligarch, OK, it's fine. But if being an oligarch is about buying football clubs, it is not for me.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am not an oligarch. I am a servant and I try to align my interests and those of my investors.
I've never been an oligarch. The definition of an oligarch is someone who has co-operated with the government, and I never did.
It is not so much that I am a blue-blooded oligarch: I just don't feel like an oligarch.
Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.
Building a company isn't that different from climbing a big mountain. You need people helping you traverse treacherous paths and to lift you up when you fall.
As far as oligarchs who acquire sports team abroad, and invest money abroad, I wouldn't treat this phenomenon as something bad.
I'm a strong believer that you can build great companies in time of both greed and fear. But you have to be paying attention and operating under the right assumptions. You don't have to believe history repeats itself, but you should accept that history rhymes.
I'm suspicious of the idea of architects acting like business executives, brand managers, or purveyors of luxury goods.
The part of capitalism that doesn't work for me is when capitalists make decisions in the way that Adam Smith suggested, which is that as long as you do everything in the interest of the investor, you're going to actually make the best decisions for all other stakeholders. I don't happen to agree with that.
The overwhelming majority of my rated wealth consists of investments in companies that produce goods and services.
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