Am I Being Too Subtle? Quotes

“Risk is the ultimate differentiator. I have always had a deep and complex relationship with it. I am not a reckless person, but taking risks is really the only way to consistently achieve above-average returns—in life as well as in investments. My father proved that when he left Poland. I am probably more comfortable with risk than most people. That’s because I do as much as I can to understand it. To me, risk-taking rests on the ability to see all the variables and then identify the ones that will make or break you.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“While I was unaware of it at the time, my real compensation for that job wasn’t monetary. It was learning about and getting comfortable with rejection. And as I would later realize, indifference to rejection is a fundamental part of being an entrepreneur.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I have always believed that every day you choose to hold an asset, you are also choosing to buy it. Would I buy our buildings at the price Blackstone was quoting? Nope.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I’ve always believed I am at my best when the scenario around me is at its worst.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“There’s a line from an old movie, Wheeler Dealers: “You don’t go wheeling and dealing for the money, you do it for fun. Money’s just a way of keeping score.” And that’s how I see it. I’ve always been much more drawn to the experience.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“This has always been a fatal flaw in U.S. real estate: the volume of development has been related to the availability of funds, not to demand.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I was targeting good real estate assets overburdened by excessive debt. Well, I began seeing similar scenarios unfold in the corporate world and realized I could provide equity to those companies for a stake at a discounted price, and that would help them position themselves for when the market recovered.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Redundancies are much more predictable and transparent than theoretical opportunities to add value. My focus is always on the downside. Overly optimistic assumptions lead to the graveyard of corporate acquisitions.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Jay taught me to use simplicity as a strategy. He had an uncanny ability to grasp an extremely complex situation and immediately locate the weakness. He always said that if there were twelve steps in a deal, the whole thing depended on just one of them. The others would either work themselves out or were less important.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“You just build up a tolerance for rejection. You learn to keep asking and to find ways to get a conversation going. If you can just start and keep a dialogue, you have a chance.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I remember this event so clearly because it was at this point in my career that I fully realized the value of tenacity. I just had to assume there was a way through any obstacle, and then I’d find it. This is perhaps my most fundamental principle of entrepreneurialism, and to success in general.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“If you’re not aware that you’re not supposed to be able do something, the barriers to doing it are dramatically lessened.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Where there is scarcity, price is no object. This basic tenet of supply and demand would later become a governing principle of my investment philosophy.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“work out every morning at 4:45, I’m at the office by 6:30 a.m., and I don’t get home from work until 7:00 at night.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“In real estate I’m known as the Grave Dancer. That was the title of an article I wrote back in 1976, and the nickname stuck. Some might see buying and creating value from others’ mistakes as a form of exploitation, but I see it as giving neglected or devalued assets, in any industry, new life.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I began by presenting them with a challenge: “Aunt Minnie has died and left each of you $100,000. You have an investment choice to make. You can invest it all at 7 percent for five years, or you can invest it at 7.5 percent for ten years.” After they had time to reflect, they unanimously chose 7 percent for five years. When I asked them what risk they’d undertaken with this decision, they said, “None.” Their justification was that by staying short, future inflation wouldn’t erode their returns as much as the longer term, and they’d have optionality after the five years. But they were missing the reinvestment risk. They were so focused on what would happen during the investment period, they neglected to look beyond the five years. Not a problem if rates stayed at 7 percent or higher. But if they dropped? Problem. Once the students understood there is risk by omission as well as by commission, my objective was accomplished.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“The bottom line is if you’re really good at what you do, you have the freedom to be who you really are.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“when people live in a balloon, they tend to shy away from the guy holding the needle.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Some emerging markets will check all the boxes—strong population growth, growing middle class, verge of investment grade, great leadership, and hunger for capital—and then be missing the one ingredient that enables you to monetize your investment: scale. Without scale, you don’t have liquidity. You have no optionality. In essence, you’re stuck.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“People always say that to be successful, all you need is demand from 1 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I’m drawn to emerging markets because of their built-in demand. I’ve always believed in buying into in-place demand rather than trying to create it.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“It also opened up new challenges. When you invest in emerging markets, you’re trading the rule of law for growth. If you think you can count on receiving justice in a foreign courtroom, you should think again.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I believed that the fundamentals of real estate were universal. That is, issues of supply and demand, demographics, capital flows, and so on were as relevant overseas as they were here at home.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“potential bidders wouldn’t be discouraged. The typical breakup fee is up to 3 percent of the selling price, but I set ours at $200 million—around 1 percent of the offer’s equity value.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“The most reliable measure of our buildings’ value remained—and had always been, in my opinion—replacement cost. Replacement cost mattered more to me than rents or comparable prices or vacancies or economic growth or stock price. This was because replacement cost determined the price of future competition.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“In other words, the UPREIT established a methodology for large holders of real estate to create liquidity without triggering a taxable event, as long as the holders didn’t sell their shares.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“The Jacor story was all about seeing micro opportunities in macro events. In this case, the macro event was legislation similar to the impact of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 on NOLs. But I find implications for opportunity everywhere—in world events, economic news, and conversations. I’ve always been on the lookout for big-picture influencers and anomalies that will direct the course of industries and companies.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Jacor was probably an asset I would have held for decades, but it was an investment through one of our private equity funds where we had promised investors a return of capital at the end of a predetermined period.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Boards that don’t exercise an ownership approach are complicit in poor-performing companies.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Further, as a huge perpetual consumer of capital, I respected the fact that there is no more consistent source of capital than the public markets.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel