I bought a company in the mid-'90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game.
Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.
Today, we have our own concentrations of economic power. Instead of Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, the Union Pacific Railroad, and J. P. Morgan and Company, we have Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.
The greatest wealth of this nation is not only the mergers of giant corporations or the possibility of further globalization of the infrastructure of the world. In the United States, our greatest single source of wealth is the minds and talent of our young people. Not to use it is stupid - to waste it is a crime.
Size is the enemy of excellence in investment banking, particularly when you are trying to put together two different cultures.
I left 'Wired' before it was sold to Conde Nast and Lycos, so I didn't experience that transition.
Wal-Mart does not do big mergers, though it will buy much smaller competitors in so-called 'tuck-in acquisitions.'
I can make it very clear: I get paid if we make good investments. And if we don't, I don't get paid. I have no incentive to sell our companies to Google; the entrepreneurs get to decide that. We are minority shareholders.
The Amex has a long, often troubled, sometimes glorious history.
Like most plutocrats, I, too, am a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, cofounded or funded over 30 companies across a range of industries. I was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. I cofounded a company called aQuantive that we sold to Microsoft for 6.4 billion dollars. My friends and I, we own a bank.
The financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property.
Tonight the Republican presidential candidates had a big debate, 10 candidates. The last time that many rich white guys got together, I think Exxon merged with Mobil.
Typical mergers happen when there are two competitors coming together, and they reduce overhead.
Competition is the hallmark of a free enterprise economy. For the past thirty years, however, corporate America has been doing everything it can to cut competition, with major corporations merging and consolidating at every opportunity.
What if the slowdown in merger activity isn't cyclical, but secular? What if corporations have learned the lessons of so many companies before them that the odds of a successful merger are no better than 50-50 and probably less? Is it possible that the biggest deals have already been done?
I plan to eliminate regulations that hinder domestic companies, particularly large conglomerates from investing in other companies.
My dad has been in the fight against monopoly since it wasn't so cool. I'm sure I've turned to the subject to please him, though I think he might consider some of my arguments a little flamethrowing for his tastes.
Trade has always existed, but we used to defend our strategic interests. Could you imagine the United States allowing French engineering giant Alstom to purchase General Electric? I don't think so.
Do I think that if Google wanted to go acquire a competitor, another big company, we should say no? Of course. We shouldn't be approving them acquiring AT&T or Sprint or some big company.
I've been through a couple of mergers - they're not that fun. And it's easy to lose your focus on this grandiose mission you established for yourself as an independent company.
Today's merger makers are not ad people; they're building communications companies.
Every single time you make a merger, somebody is losing his identity. And saying something different is just rubbish.
You have to take a broader view and realize this is an industry like any other - telecoms, Railroads; they went through consolidation. Why shouldn't the computer industry be any different? This shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody but it seemed to be, and a lot of people thought I was nuts when I said these things. And that's why they are alone as a consolidator.
In my view, we need to break up Facebook from Instagram and the other potential competitors that Facebook bought up.
In the Sixties, conglomerates were all the rage.
