Other men have created FTSE 100 companies. But I believe no man has done this in his lifetime without acquisition or borrowing. My one regret is handing over the reigns.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Any company has got to reinvent itself again and again.
Because of the love affair between the American public and the stock market, it is possible for entrepreneurs, technological visionaries and inventors of every sort to get financing.
All the biggest companies are based on a founder who had a need, hacked it together, and said, 'Hey, other people might want this.'
You cannot have companies where many of the largest ones lose money indefinitely without someone finally waving the white flag, and IBM is the most recent example of that.
I don't invest in companies where my mental model is that they need to get themselves acquired in the next few years - or ever.
We all love people who give credit to others for their success. Companies would probably do better with CEOs who didn't blow their own horn and ask for ridiculous salaries and new yachts every year.
We like companies that can get big and powerful on $50 million or less and not two, three, four or five billion.
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.
Many companies don't exist after 25 years. It's a rarity. Or if they do exist, they're like IBM, with a totally changing personality.
Successful enterprises are built from the ground up. You can't assemble them with a bunch of acquisitions.