John Gutfreund Quotes

Basically, movies come down to economics, and they're always too expensive. From a producer's point of view, an actor is either going to make him money or save him money.

I have no complaints about losing money I put in high-risk investments. I did some of that when I had real money; my informed choice, my measured gamble.

There may be less of a chance of losing all the money you put into a mutual fund than there is of losing all the money you put into lottery tickets, but you're never going to win big in a mutual fund.

Investors need to get rewarded for their investment, especially in unstable countries.

I had some airline stock, but the airlines tanked. I didn't have a lot of money in them, though.

If someone doesn't believe enough in your product to put money in to it, then you should rethink how good the product is.

Any investment bought via credit always runs the risk of margin calls and, eventually, liquidation.

I invested in many companies, and I'm happy this one worked. This is capitalism. You invest in stock, it goes up, it goes down. You know, if you don't like capitalism, you don't like making money with stock, move to Cuba or China.

In any business opportunity, you'd be looking, probably, primarily at the risk and return. Some business can be very risky with a low return; what you want is the lowest risk with the biggest return.

If I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble, I will be hit and I will lose money, I will put a price on that.

The last thing you want to do, unless it's a very unusual situation, is to invest money.

Investing is a business where you can look very silly for a long period of time before you are proven right.

Different industries have different risks and growth rates and volatility.

Like everybody, I have invested in things that have gone bad, because there's never any guarantee of success or profit when it comes to money.

Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.

People are very reluctant to invest unless they know it's going to be a sure thing, and let's face it: film is never a sure thing.

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

There is always risk involved. You can't be a capitalist only when there are investment profits but then a socialist when you experience losses.

There's still a lot of investors wondering what to invest in. And, of course, I think entertainment looks attractive when you read the few films that make these insane amounts of money. What they don't know is they don't always do that.

We can still do a stop motion feature for about one-third of what it costs Pixar or DreamWorks or Blue Sky to make a feature. But nobody is interested in a film that cost $50 to 60 million with the potential to do $120 million. They want to risk big money to make huge money.

Speculation, in its broadest sense, is not an evil in itself, but the contrary, and relieves public distress far oftener than it creates it.

A wise person does not undertake any business with the risk of losing the capital money in search of making a profit.

I've learned that all investments have risk.

In some industries, we refer to risk taking as 'research and development.' At financial institutions, we often take risk by investing in securities.

You come out of drama school and do theatre and are interested in creative endeavour, then you drift into TV and movies and realise that artistic endeavour needs to balance with financial success. There's no point spending millions on a movie that doesn't make any money, because the people producing it won't make another one.