Henry Paulson Quotes

Don’t ignore planning for unlikely events. Over long periods of time the highly improbable gets more probable to occur at least once.

We're hoping for the best, but we need to prepare for the worst.

Could we have prevented in 100% certainty? I don't think anything is that certain. However, we would have had a very, very good chance for preventing it.

There is no elimination of all risks.

There is nothing we can do to assure that this will never happen, but there is a lot we can do to assure that it happens more rarely.

You can’t prepare for the best case; you have to prepare for the worst case.

We respond to the unknown by trying to retreat from it, or trying to comprehend it, or trying to control it. The first approach is evident in longings for return to a simpler "risk-free" life that never was. The second is reflected in the fantasy of synoptic risk assessment: Measure the requisite probabilities and trade-offs, calculate the social risk-benefit function, and the common good will have been defined. The third approach is in the tradition of professional engineering. It serves us well but, as engineers have been among the first to point out, has met its match and more in the complex social problems it increasingly is called upon to address.

There is no sure solution to some dangers.

We necessarily operate in an environment in which there's a great deal of uncertainty. In such an environment, it makes sense to use a risk-management approach to identify and avoid the big mistakes. That's one reason I favor a cautious approach.

It's only a risk if you think there's a chance of failure.

Managing risk is a key variable, frankly, all aspects of life, business is just one of them, and one of the things that most people do in terms of managing risk, that's actually bad thinking, is they think they can manage risk to zero. Everything has some risk to it. You know, you drive your car down the street, a drunk driver may hit you. So what you're doing is you're actually trying to get to an acceptable level of risk.

It would be wonderful if we could avoid the setbacks with timely exits, but nobody has figured out how to predict them.

Relying on luck … does not constitute a policy.

The expert is out to point out all the difficulties and dangers.

All market response results from a reduction of uncertainty.

Valdez was a devastating experience for our corporation. What emerged from that was a commitment to develop a systematic approach to managing risk in advance.

None of us live in a zero-risk world.

Back to Microsoft days, I'm always looking for, 'OK, that's great, but what can go wrong?'

People need to take a little bit more risk.

Because of the nature of this industry, it's a bit dangerous to think far ahead.

The success of a particular policy prescription is always a gamble.

I will take the lead in turning risks into opportunities.

When something looks really risky from the outside, what people are doing on the inside - they're not professional risk takers. But they're probably professional risk mitigators.

Then you realize that the preparation and the planning of this small army of people trying to head to the single aim of creating a work that's going to excite people is very risky. Of course, the odds are that it's not going to work out because there are too many possibilities of it going wrong.

A plan is only a scenario, and almost by definition, it is optimistic... As a result, scenario planning can lead to a serious underestimate of the risk of failure.