2023 Quotes

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.


“Research in 2023 found that some dark chocolate bars have cadmium and lead in them. These heavy metals can mess with health, especially for kids. They can cause developmental issues and even lower IQ.

Our role here on earth is not simply to maximize the advantage in our lives. It’s to maximize (protect, regenerate) all of life. We are here not just to make sure we as individuals survive, but to make sure that life survives; not to chase clout, but to chase life.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelgänger: a Trip into the Mirror World (2023)

It must be most dangerous then to be a man. It is indeed, madame, and but few survive it. ― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (Zinc Read, February 21, 2023) Originally publishedJanuary 1, 1932

But then it dawned on me that the opinion of someone who is always wrong has its own special utility to decision-makers.

stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: “Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth.

If your employees, including your CEO, wish to give to their alma maters or other institutions to which they feel a personal attachment, we believe they should use their own money, not yours.

Many shall be restored that now are fallen and many shall fall that are now in honor.

our experience with newly-minted MBAs has not been that great. Their academic records always look terrific and the candidates always know just what to say; but too often they are short on personal commitment to the company and general business savvy. It’s difficult to teach a new dog old tricks.

The C part is in here and it wants to play. Do you want to see it? Or are you going to pussy out on me again?" This quote is taken from "As Easy As ABC", written in 2014, scheduled to be included in the as yet unpublished 3rd book of the Killing Time Legacy Series (expected c.2023).

Charlie’s dictum: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.

Talking to Time Magazine a few years back, Peter Drucker got to the heart of things: “I will tell you a secret: Dealmaking beats working. Dealmaking is exciting and fun, and working is grubby. Running anything is primarily an enormous amount of grubby detail work . . . dealmaking is romantic, sexy. That’s why you have deals that make no sense.

The bird carried me inside his song. It was so beautiful that I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and tried to embrace it, the bird, and when I did, I put my arms around you.

(Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.)

What are we talking about in 2023? We are talking about our shared grief. We are talking about our collective gratitude.

May 2023 be a year of new beginnings and not of recycled endings...a blessing tree of of new beginnings and unopened chapters waiting to be written.

Vampires are not real, even in 2023. So far, anyway. Though if you’d put it on my bingo card for 2020, I might have bought it.

In 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Education, around 130 million Americans read at less than a sixth grade level. That's more than 50 percent of adults in our country.

What I’m praying is that you will choose those beautiful possibilities over any self-annihilating alternatives. My whole life on earth has been the weaving of a single powerful spell. The best part of all my magic was loving you.” (as spoken by the character Valerie Hyerman)

There is no tougher job in corporate America than running an airline: Despite the huge amounts of equity capital that have been injected into it, the industry, in aggregate, has posted a net loss since its birth after Kitty Hawk. Airline managers need brains, guts, and experience—and

If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze– and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself– sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale

In 2023, as I write this, librarians in America are on the front lines of the culture war. Censorship is at an all-time high. According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, “a record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2022, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021.” This is the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than twenty years ago.

I saw the terrible wrath of the place, saw it obliterate hundreds of thousands of people with names and ethnicity and religion like mine, knew for certain that there were deep ugly cracks in the bedrock of this thing called “the free world.” And yet I believed the cracks could be fixed, that the thing at the core, whatever it was, was salvageable. Until the fall of 2023. Until the slaughter.

February Soup by Stewart Stafford The February fog, Turns all into blobs, Orange street lights, To Valentine's Night. When the wind strays, Fog's mantle is grey, Laying misty bouquets, On barren, muddied days. The daffodils of March, Can cheer up Plutarch, Adorned in Kelly green, No sign of foggy screens. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

Am Israel chai, the people of Israel are still alive, and they will exist, and they will always exist - no matter how many times they try to destroy us. We will always stay here.

Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required. Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.

I want my authors to believe fully in the worlds they create, and I want their belief to generate my belief in turn.

A new year is to hide the old scar by hoping to heal the new ones...

Live well and read correctly.

A line from Bobby Bare’s country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions: “I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few.

In insurance, as elsewhere, the reaction of weak managements to weak operations is often weak accounting. (“It’s difficult for an empty sack to stand upright.”)

Pascal’s observation seems apt: “It has struck me that all men’s misfortunes spring from the single cause that they are unable to stay quietly in one room.

Remember, everything comes either directly from God, from a chain of events, or from coincidence.

Alas, my “fiddle playing” will not get me to Carnegie Hall — or even to a high school recital. Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003.

students need only two well-taught courses—How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards—so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value. Though it’s seldom recognized, this is the exact approach

For white Americans (whiteness itself a societal construct that has changed in it definition over time), this new national holiday of Juneteenth, this day off from work, should be like an American Yom Kippur, a Day of Atonement, a day of reflection, a day to keep learning more about how we have failed as a society to live up to our ideals, and what we as individuals can do to make it better, more real, closer to our vision of justice and liberty, a vision that our founding forefathers could not even imagine. 'Do better' should be what all who carry any kind of privilege in this society should say to ourselves and to each other - what can we do, what can you do, to 'do better'?

A CEO’s behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line: If it’s clear to them that shareholders’ interests are paramount to him, they will, with few exceptions, also embrace that way of thinking.

A Cephalopod Wish by Stewart Stafford O, to be an Octopus, Sporting three hearts, Two that won't break, To go on and love more. O, to have its nine brains, To spread a migraine load, Fogless coordinates clear, A tower fire, now contained. O, to have a boneless form, A body fitted to life problems, Not ail from a tumour's grasp, Flee to safety in inky clouds. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved

We Close In Fifteen Minutes by Stewart Stafford Found myself the only taker, Of a minefield guided tour, Through no man's land life, Every exit is now invisible. Stardom magnified my flaws, A broken man lost in a maze, A deadly structure's hostage, A hermit in denial's labyrinth. Glimpse dwindling fragments, In the looking glass of hubris, Flounder in glossy quicksand, The solutions devoured whole. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

From this irritating reality comes The First Law of Corporate Survival for ambitious CEOs who pile on leverage and run large and unfathomable derivatives books: Modest incompetence simply won’t do; it’s mindboggling screw-ups that are required.

The Atlantean Road by Stewart Stafford A snake of stones beneath the waters Soldiers march past spectral daughters Phantom travellers To work or home Atlantean lives replay in foam The water drowned out extinct times Of joy and war Of love and crime The divers rapt by sound immemorial Echoes entombed Sweet voices choral The flame of Erasmus and barking sounds Of canine guards and strangers found The road roused from silent sleep To tell explorers how ancients weep © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

He also realized that success in the field of artificial intelligence would come from having access to huge amounts of real-world data that the bots could learn from. One such gold mine, he realized at the time, was Tesla, which collected millions of frames of video each day of drivers handling different situations. “Probably Tesla will have more real-world data than any other company in the world,” he said. Another trove of data, he would later come to realize, was Twitter, which by 2023 was processing 500 million posts per day from humans.

At Berkshire, managers can focus on running their businesses: They are not subjected to meetings at headquarters nor financing worries nor Wall Street harassment. They simply get a letter from me every two years (reproduced at the end of this letter) and call me when they wish. And their wishes do differ: There are managers to whom I have not talked in the last year, while there is one with whom I talk almost daily. Our trust is in people rather than process. A “hire well, manage little” code suits both them and me.

The bet illuminated another important investment lesson: Though markets are generally rational, they occasionally do crazy things. Seizing the opportunities then offered does not require great intelligence, a degree in economics or a familiarity with Wall Street jargon such as alpha and beta. What investors then need instead is an ability to both disregard mob fears or enthusiasms and to focus on a few simple fundamentals. A willingness to look unimaginative for a sustained period — or even to look foolish — is also essential.

financial markets will become divorced from reality — you can count on that. More Jimmy Lings will appear. They will look and sound authoritative. The press will hang on their every word. Bankers will fight for their business. What they are saying will recently have “worked.” Their early followers will be feeling very clever. Our suggestion: Whatever their line, never forget that 2+2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is ---zip up your wallet, take a vacation and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.

أتأمّل كافّة العلاقات الإنسانية التي مررتُ بها، بكافة أشكالها وطبيعتها لأجدَهَا أنّها بشكلٍ أو بآخر أتتت لتعلّمنِي معنى التوازن وتوصلنِي إليه داخليًا .. جميع التفاعلات الإنسانية بيننا وبين الآخرين لو ننتبع مسارهَا في الأخير سنجدهَا تأتِي لتسير في هذا المسار لو تعلّم الإنسان الإستفادة من الناس في حياته ومراقبة ذاته، مراقبة متفحصة للمشاعر والأفكار والسلوك .. سنجدُ أنها تأتِي لتعزّز صفة حسنة فينا، أو تُظهر عيبًا خفى عنّا، أو تُصلحَ شعورًا فينا، أو تجعلنا نُبصر ذواتنا بالصورة الصحيحة .. إن الأشخاص المتطرفون، الذين يبالغون في مدحنا أو ذمّنا وإظهار عيوبنا هُم في الحقيقة يدفعوننا للتساؤل بصدق إن كنّا كذلك أم لا، وبعد تلك الرحلة من التساؤل نجدُ أننا شكلنا صورة صحيحة عن أنفسنا .. إن الذينَ يُثيرونَ في صدورنَا مشاعر الغضب، والقلق، والشك والريبة يجعلوننا أمام رحلة البحث عن أسباب هذه المشاعر والبحث عن جذورها، فنتعلّم بذلك ضبط انفعالاتنا، فتخفّ فينَا الانفعالات غير الطبيعية .. إنّ الذين يستغلّوننا بشكل أو بآخر، يعلّموننا كيف نرسمُ حدودنَا فلا يتخطّاها أحد إلا بإرادتنا .. لو نجلسْ ونتأمل عن قرب أثر العلاقات التي مرّت بنا، إمّا كانت سعيدة أو مؤلمة، مثمرة، أو أدت بنا إلى الخسائر، هِي كلّها أتتْ لتسير بنا نحو عمق آخر من معرفة الذات، وكشفت لنا عن سبيل آخر للإصلاح .. ولكنْ ذلك لا يحدث إلا عندَما تُفتح عين البصيرة ويبدأ الإنسان بالتساؤل : كيف ولم وماذا لو .. ؟ وكيف يمكنني أن أستفيد من الذين مرّوا بي ومررتُ بهم. 7.10.2023

Statement on Hamas (October 10th, 2023) When Israel strikes, it's "national security" - when Palestine strikes back, it's "terrorism". Just like over two hundred years ago when native americans resisted their homeland being stolen, it was called "Indian Attack". Or like over a hundred years ago when Indian soldiers in the British Army revolted against the empire, in defense of their homeland, it was called "Sepoy Mutiny". The narrative never changes - when the colonizer terrorizes the world, it's given glorious sounding names like "exploration" and "conquest", but if the oppressed so much as utters a word in resistance, it is branded as attack, mutiny and terrorism - so that, the real terrorists can keep on colonizing as the self-appointed ruler of land, life and morality, without ever being held accountable for violating the rights of what they deem second rate lifeforms, such as the arabs, indians, latinos and so on. After all this, some apes will still only be interested in one stupid question. Do I support Hamas? To which I say this. Until you've spent a lifetime under an oppressive regime, you are not qualified to ask that question. An ape can ask anything its puny brain fancies, but it's up to the human to decide whether the ape is worthy of a response. What do you think, by the way - colonizers can just keep coming as they please, to wipe their filthy feet on us like doormat, and we should do nothing - just stay quiet! For creatures who call themselves civilized, you guys have a weird sense of morality. Yet all these might not get through your thick binary skull, so let me put it to you bluntly. I don't stand with Hamas, I am Hamas, just like, I don't stand with Ukraine, I am Ukraine. Russia stops fighting, war ends - Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. Israel ends invasion, war ends - Palestine ends resistance, Palestine ends. However, I do have one problem here. Why do civilians have to die, if that is indeed the case - which I have no way of confirming, because news reports are not like reputed scientific data, that a scientist can naively trust. During humankind's gravest conflicts news outlets have always peddled a narrative benefiting the occupier and demonizing the resistance, either consciously or subconsciously. So never go by news reports, particularly on exception circumstances like this. No matter the cause, no civilian must die, that is my one unimpeachable law. But the hard and horrific fact of the matter is, only the occupier can put an end to the death and destruction peacefully - the resistance does not have that luxury.