While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility.
I began to realize that the big money must necessarily be in the big swing.
I don't think about how much business my films will make.
A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.
I think it's a competitive advantage that both Amazon and Google and other tech companies have over a lot of their counterparts. They take big risks and are pioneering new markets with the promise of big rewards. It's why Amazon is kind of reliably starting new businesses and opening kind of new frontiers.
Speculation, in its broadest sense, is not an evil in itself, but the contrary, and relieves public distress far oftener than it creates it.
Speculation meant real estate investment and business.
I'm always investing. I'm constantly in talks with someone about some opportunity.
If there isn't a business logic to get to marketability, the chance of an idea's importance in the world is very low.
I want to make something commercial that people can pick up on.
My partner, Jeff Ullrich, and I always thought Earwolf was going to be big. There were a couple of studies before we launched saying podcasts were going to really grow. But I remember so many conversations at the beginning where people would say, 'How are you going to make money with this?'
When the market goes to hell, it's more of an opportunity than a problem.
No star is bigger than the success of a film.
Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.
Unless a Western's made money - doesn't matter who made the money, doesn't matter what the subject is - if the last one didn't make any money, you can't make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre.
Dealing with uncertainty is always a key challenge for investors. But dealing with uncertainty doesn't mean avoiding it - on the contrary, it is often fuzziness about a company's future that creates the type of opportunity bargain-hunting investors cherish.
Instead of hoping he must fear and instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.
I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral.
People need to have the incentive that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. Otherwise they'll stop investing.
I have these ideas that people go 'Oh, that's cool. I'd pay to see it, but I'm not gonna give you $25 million.'
The idea of investing in entrepreneurs who are building things from scratch, where I can participate in their dream, was very, very exciting to me.
If you buy all the stocks selling at or below two times earnings, you will lose money on half of them because instead of making profits they will actually lose money, but you will only lose a dollar or so a share at most. Then others will be mediocre performers. But the remaining big winners will go up and produce fabulous results and also ensure a good overall result.
At the end of the day, it's a business; people want to make money. That's the intention with every film. It happens for some movies. For others, it doesn't.
I saw soda pop for $1.20 a six pack. That price messes with your head. You start thinking you're gonna sell soda pop. Suddenly I've got packs of pop with me. "Looking to buy some pop? 50 cents a can. It's not refrigerated because this is a half-assed commitment!"
What a company's been earning doesn't mean anything. What you have to look at is what people think it's going to earn. If you can see something in two years is going to be entirely different than the conventional wisdom, that's how you make money.
Your financial cost can best be figured out when you realize that if you were to devote the same time and energy to business instead of gold, you would be a millionaire in approximately six weeks.