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Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure.

Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun, while ignoring the crux of the matter: people don't leave jobs; they leave managers.

I had a terrible manager once who described my career as 'spiraling downward.'

There are always, of course, job losses of a cyclical nature in a recession.

Losing streaks are funny. If you lose at the beginning you got off to a bad start. If you lose in the middle of the season, you're in a slump. If you lose at the end, you're choking.

Success breeds success, and failure leads to a sort of fallow period.

Executives don't burn out and leave when they feel deep satisfaction. They don't create the human detritus that disgruntled managers do.

People leave their manager; they don't leave companies.

Indeed, eventually, random outcomes all revert to the mean, meaning that streaks eventually end. Understanding this is a key part of intelligent and rational investing.

In our business, things look like a failure until they're not. It's pretty binary transitions.