Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we’ve rolled almost everything back into the company.
Bill Gates
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From the category archives:
Money Moguls
I don’t have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don’t do that though. I don’t use very many of those claim checks. There’s nothing material I want very much. And I’m going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.
Warren Buffett
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Russell Simmons: If you can’t focus on your craft and love what you are doing, what are you doing it for?
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You know things are good when you can’t find anything else to do with your money but to give it all away lol. With Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pledging to give their fortunes away, website bookies are betting which billionaire will jump in with the growing billionaire give away; check it out:
Bookmaker.com is inviting punters to place a bet on which wealthy individuals will join Gates, Buffett and other Forbes 400 billionaires in pledging half their fortune to charitable causes. According to a spokesperson for the gambling website, the bookies “calculated these odds by analyzing media reports and expert opinions being published lately on the topic.”
You can see the odds here if you fancy trying your luck. As of August 16th, hedge funder John Paulson, financier Carl Icahn and philanthropist George Soros are listed as the most likely billionaires to join Gates and co. Among the least likely, according to Bookmaker.com’s calculations: trader Paul Tudor Jones II, investor David Tepper and hedge fund head Bruce Kovner.
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When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
Warren Buffett
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I’m sure many of you have heard his name before but how many of you know Andre Carnegie’s relevance in America’s history. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend of mine put a book in my hands called “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, inspired by Andrew Carnegie. In reading the book I was wowed at Carnegie’s philosophies and business accomplishments. In your journey to become wealthy I suggest you learn about this guy. Here, Investopedia gives you a little summary of who Carnegie was and his significance in America’s history.
There is a very good chance that Andrew Carnegie’s name is decorating at least one building in your city. At least, that’s the case for most major towns in the U.S. Although far better known as a philanthropist now, Carnegie built a fortune from the ground up - a fortune that he gave away later in life.
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Richard Branson gives words of wisdom on lessons he learned in business.
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He was called many things but one thing he sure wasn’t called was broke. John D. Rockefeller story is definitely one to learn about for anyone who desires to be an entrepreneur. Here Investopedia highlights a few of his revolutionary business moves, check it out:
John D. Rockefeller still ranks as one of the richest men in modern times. According to Forbes Magazine’s “Most Wealthy Historical Figures 2008″, his adjusted fortune of more than $300 billion rivals the relative wealth controlled by the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt or the Roman emperors. Rockefeller remains one of the great figures of Wall Street – reviled as a villain, applauded as an innovator and universally recognized as one of the most powerful men in history. Read on for a look at his life and achievements.
Son of a Peddler
Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839. His father led a nomadic life selling goods across the country while his mother raised the children. Rockefeller received an unusually good education for his time and found work as a clerk at a commission house at the age of 16. He left the commission house to form a partnership at the age of 24.
Oil Refiner
The first thing that distinguished Rockefeller from others was his understanding of risk. He knew that speculators in oil had the potential for huge profits if they hit a deposit, but they were also losing money when they didn’t. Instead of getting into the speculation business, Rockefeller chose the refining business, where the profits were smaller but more stable.
Putting all of his money into his first refining business, Rockefeller transformed it by emphasizing what we now call research and development (R&D). He hated that all by-products were discarded during the refining process. In seeking to make the process more efficient, his company created various lubricants, common grease and the forerunners to Vaseline, paint and many other useful products.
The Road to Monopoly
Rockefeller saw the cutthroat competition in the oil industry as a ruinous influence and began to methodically stamp it out. Under his firm hand, and due to his seemingly super-human abilities to choose excellent managers, by 1890 Rockefeller’s company, Standard Oil of Ohio, was well ahead of the industry and enjoying a high profit margin. These profits were used to buy out competitors. If a competitor did not want to be bought out, Rockefeller had his means of persuasion.
- Sometimes the technique was as simple as buying up all the oil barrels and causing a shortage that crippled smaller companies.
- Another technique was to orchestrate price wars between wholly-owned subsidiaries, thus forcing holdouts to sell at a loss to compete.
- A more complex technique involved limiting the number of trains available for shipment by using his close relationship with the railroad companies.
- Yet another option was purchasing all the equipment and equipment suppliers and refusing to sell replacement parts to holdouts.
More often than not, however, Rockefeller simply had to make an offer and the competitors took the deal rather than try to fight against the tide. Standard Oil of Ohio became simply Standard Oil and continued to grow.
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Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Oprah Winfrey
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