Business Performance Quotes

Time is the friend of the wonderful business. It's the enemy of the lousy business. If you're in a lousy business for a long time, you're going to get a lousy result, even if you buy it cheap. If you're in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little too much going in, you're going to get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.

Apple is very, very good at almost everything it does, and that includes corporate communications.

We regard using [a stock's] volatility as a measure of risk is nuts. Risk to us is 1) the risk of permanent loss of capital, or 2) the risk of inadequate return. Some great businesses have very volatile returns - for example, See's [a candy company owned by Berkshire] usually loses money in two quarters of each year - and some terrible businesses can have steady results.

I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings.

Berkshire's past record has been almost ridiculous. If Berkshirehad used even half the leverage of, say, Rupert Murdoch, it would be five times its current size.

A company does better the less it pays the CEO.

I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06.

If you're running businesses anywhere in the world, people who really do well are the people who have mental toughness.

Profits are one of the most important goals of any successful business, and investors are one of the most important constituencies of public businesses.

Over the long term, it's hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you're not going to make much different than a six percent return - even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you'll end up with one hell of a result.

United's 2015 earnings were one of the best in the company's history.

An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

When times were good, we made more money. When times are bad, we make less money.

Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.

Consumer accountability drives quality and efficiency.

Starting a business from scratch and having little money in the bank focuses your mind in a way that running a multibillion-dollar business never does. It brings the key drivers of performance into sharp relief. I promise.

In the long run, investing is not about markets at all. Investing is about enjoying the returns earned by businesses.

Somebody once told me, ‘Manage the top line, and the bottom line will follow.’ What's the top line? It's things like, why are we doing this in the first place? What's our strategy? What are customers saying? How responsive are we? Do we have the best products and the best people? Those are the kind of questions you have to focus on.

In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance... you thrive on that.

The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.

Control your cash. Stick to your core business. Know your numbers.

Growth does not always lead a business to build on success. All too often it converts a highly successful business into a mediocre large business.

Every employee in a company depends on the C.E.O. to make fast, high-quality decisions.

If the only common thread you have as an industrial company is the fact that you think you're well managed, you can still be a pretty good company, but you're not going to be a dominant company, a competitive company over time.

Success in business depends more on relationships than spreadsheets.