We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets.
The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.
In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.
I mean, Hank Paulson is in there [ Treasury] at the wrong time, probably shouldn't have taken the job. He's a friend of mine. But he knows markets, he knows corporations' work, he knows money, and he's got the interests of the country at heart.
I always say that in investing you want to buy stock in a company that has a business that's so good that an idiot can run it, because sooner or later one will. We have a country like that.
When you build a bridge, you insist that it can carry 30,000 pounds, but you only drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. And that same principle works in investing.
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.