Home > Work > The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America QUOTES

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America QUOTES

1 " Managers who want to expand their domain at the expense of owners might better consider a career in government. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

2 " We are suspicious of those CEOs who regularly claim they do know the future—and we become downright incredulous if they consistently reach their declared targets. Managers that always promise to “make the numbers” will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

3 " In our book, alignment means being a partner in both directions, not just on the upside. Many “alignment” plans flunk this basic test, being artful forms of “heads I win, tails you lose. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

4 " It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

5 " A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

6 " calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor “is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

7 " So smile when you read a headline that says “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to “Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”) "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

8 " Having firstrate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

9 " (Thomas J. Watson Sr. of IBM followed the same rule: “I’m no genius,” he said. “I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”) "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

10 " I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

11 " as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

12 " ABCs of business decay, which are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

13 " thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play. For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

14 " If you can't tell whose side someone is on, they are not on yours. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

15 " If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

16 " It is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

17 " For Buffett, managers are stewards of shareholder capital. The best managers think like owners in making business decisions. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

18 " For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

19 " A good business is not always a good purchase - although it's a good place to look for one. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

20 " A small chance of distress or disgrace cannot, in our view, be offset by a large chance of extra returns. "

― Warren Buffett , The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America