Morgan Industries Quotes

We are free falling backward through time, reincarnating ourselves from our past, reflecting the chaotic energy of the present.

What you do may not be unique, but you are. This is why putting your personality into your brand is so important. You're not in a niche or industry that is without competition. The only difference between you and your competition is your brand.

The human race has dreamed of heaven and hell for millennia. Pleasure or pain unending, undiminished, and uncurtailed by the strictures of life or death. Thanks to virtual formatting, these fantasies can now exist. All that is needed is an industrial-capacity power generator. We have indeed made hell—and heaven—on earth.

Morgan then formed the U.S. Steel Corporation, combining Carnegie’s corporation with others. He sold stocks and bonds for $1,300,000,000 (about 400 million more than the combined worth of the companies) and took a fee of 150 million for arranging the consolidation. How could dividends be paid to all those stockholders and bondholders? By making sure Congress passed tariffs keeping out foreign steel; by closing off competition and maintaining the price at $28 a ton; and by working 200,000 men twelve hours a day for wages that barely kept their families alive. And so it went, in industry after industry—shrewd, efficient businessmen building empires, choking out competition, maintaining high prices, keeping wages low, using government subsidies. These industries were the first beneficiaries of the “welfare state.

A civil servant can make rules that are friendly to an industry such as banking—and then go off to J.P. Morgan and recoup a multiple of the difference between his or her current salary and the market rate. (Regulators, you may recall, have an incentive to make rules as complex as possible so their expertise can later be hired at a higher price.)

America's industrial success produced a roll call of financial magnificence: Rockefellers, Morgans, Astors, Mellons, Fricks, Carnegies, Goulds, du Ponts, Belmonts, Harrimans, Huntingtons, Vanderbilts, and many more based in dynastic wealth of essentially inexhaustible proportions. John D. Rockefeller made $1 billion a year, measured in today's money, and paid no income tax. No one did, for income tax did not yet exist in America. Congress tried to introduce an income tax of 2 percent on earnings of $4,000 in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Income tax wouldn't become a regular part of American Life until 1914. People would never be this rich again. Spending all this wealth became for many a more or less full-time occupation. A kind of desperate, vulgar edge became attached to almost everything they did. At one New York dinner party, guests found the table heaped with sand and at each place a little gold spade; upon a signal, they were invited to dig in and search for diamonds and other costly glitter buried within. At another party - possibly the most preposterous ever staged - several dozen horses with padded hooves were led into the ballroom of Sherry's, a vast and esteemed eating establishment, and tethered around the tables so that the guests, dressed as cowboys and cowgirls, could enjoy the novel and sublimely pointless pleasure of dining in a New York ballroom on horseback.

Someone driving a $100,000 car might be wealthy. But the only data point you have about their wealth is that they have $100,000 less than they did before they bought the car (or $100,000 more in debt). That’s all you know about them. We tend to judge wealth by what we see, because that’s the information we have in front of us. We can’t see people’s bank accounts or brokerage statements. So we rely on outward appearances to gauge financial success. Cars. Homes. Instagram photos. Modern capitalism makes helping people fake it until they make it a cherished industry.

He tells me of experiments his team is developing to monitor the spark of recognition in the brain as people look at online ads. The test focus on a brain wave called P300. (The U.S. Navy has run similar tests to see how pilots distinguish friends from foes in the air.) If a P300 wave heats up within a fraction of a second of a subject's seeing an ad, the Tacoda team will make the case that the viewer has not only looked at the spot but has processed it mentally. The next step? Figuring out which type of people process certain types of ads. Like other Numerati in a wide range of industries, Dave Morgan in scrutinizing humans and searching for hidden correlations. What do we do, he asks, that might predict what we'll do next?

Brisbane’s nature tended towards the serious, but there was a graveness to his manner that told me he was speaking entirely from his heart. “I would like to work with Morgan. On a regular footing.” Sir Morgan Fielding. Secret advisor to the Prime Minister, my distant cousin, and Brisbane’s sometime employer in activities that could only be termed espionage . “You have given this a great deal of thought,” I temporised. “I have.” He began to walk, pulling me slowly along, his hand covering mine. “The threat in Germany grows. I don’t know how long we have, but something is stirring, something ugly and dangerous. Morgan is worried, too. He is in Berlin now.” ---- “Morgan is not terribly trusting at the best of times, even of us.” “But you want to work for him.” “With him,” he corrected . “Times are changing, and we both believe that the methods that have been used in the past will no longer serve. It’s time to create a new agency with new operatives, young minds that can be trained properly to sleuth out information and pass it back to London.” “You have thought this through,” I said, a trifle tartly. “I suppose it even has a name.” “Morgan likes the notion of the industriousness of bees. He was thinking of calling it the Apiary.” I thought a moment then shook my head. “No. Call it the Vespiary. After a nest of wasps. They have a more ferocious sting. If we are going to take on Germany, let them know we mean it.” He stopped, openmouthed. “You’re serious. You raise no objection.” “To what? You taking on dangerous work? You’ve done that since before I knew you. It was half the reason I fell in love with you, I expect. I could no more ask you to give up your work than I could hold back the tides. It is the stuff of which you are made.” He embraced me then, and when he drew back, my lips were tingling in the cold. “There’s something else,” he said. “Tell me.” “Morgan and I shall want your help.” It was my turn to stare, mouth agape. “You mean it?” “I do. You bungle into my cases with no method or order, and yet you have the instincts of a bloodhound. You understand people and what drives them. The Apiary will have need of people like you.” I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “The Vespiary,” I corrected. He grinned. “We shall see.” Just then he cocked his head. “And I would like to go up to the nursery and see the child.” I smiled in return.

Morgan was the first new blood to come into the captivity industry in nearly two decades,” says Dr. Visser. “That made her possibly the most valuable orca held in a tank at that time.

This line of defense is still at the core of today’s tax-dodging industry. But it was wrong when J. P. Morgan advanced it and it is wrong now. Why? Because the law of the United States—like that of most other countries—contains a set of provisions, known as the economic substance doctrine, that make illegal any transaction that has no other purpose than a reduction of tax liability.

So, you don’t perform magic?” “Of course I do,” Morgan said as though it should be obvious. “Again, not the kind the entertainment industry would lead you to believe. I can’t move things across a room with the power of my mind. I can’t transform a person into a toad. I can use elements from nature to bring about what a person needs.

Ian and Steve knew there were no hotels cater- ing to the taste and lifestyle of their clientele. It was obvious to them that the hotel business was stale with sameness; if they could infuse art and lifestyle into this segment of commerce, they would disrupt the industry.

VC makes 50 investments they likely expect half of them to fail, 10 to do pretty well, and one or two to be bonanzas that drive 100% of the fund’s returns. Investment firm Correlation Ventures once crunched the numbers.20 Out of more than 21,000 venture financings from 2004 to 2014: 65% lost money. Two and a half percent of investments made 10x–20x. One percent made more than a 20x return. Half a percent—about 100 companies out of 21,000—earned 50x or more. That’s where the majority of the industry’s returns come from. This, you might think, is what makes venture capital so risky. And everyone investing in VC knows it’s risky. Most startups fail and the world is only kind enough to allow a few mega successes.

Modern capitalism makes helping people fake it until they make it a cherished industry.

It calls for compassion, most of all for the direct victims of our dominant food practices, but also those who are exploited by the contemporary industrial food system. It should also evoke some compassion for ourselves as we work through this complex set of demands to achieve a life whose flourishing does not diminish the flourishing of others. And, if the Dalai Lama’s challenging ideas about universal compassion make sense, we need to practice compassion even for those who support the industrial food system, not in spite of the slaughter of billions of innocent beings, but because of it. As the philosopher Baruch Spinoza observed, “Hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and may on the other hand be destroyed by love” (Spinoza and Morgan 2006, 83).” (Compassion and being human: Deane Curtin p. 1310

It calls for compassion, most of all for the direct victims of our dominant food practices, but also those who are exploited by the contemporary industrial food system. It should also evoke some compassion for ourselves as we work through this complex set of demands to achieve a life whose flourishing does not diminish the flourishing of others. And, if the Dalai Lama’s challenging ideas about universal compassion make sense, we need to practice compassion even for those who support the industrial food system, not in spite of the slaughter of billions of innocent beings, but because of it. As the philosopher Baruch Spinoza observed, “Hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and may on the other hand be destroyed by love” (Spinoza and Morgan 2006, 83). (Compassion and being human: Deane Curtin)

In the way that everything on Wall Street was rank-ordered, with a heavy overlay of social class, trading was a lower activity than what Morgan Stanley did, the province of smaller and, to be frank about it, Jewish firms, in the same way that having clients who were in retailing or media, rather than industry, was lower, and also Jewish.

The victory of the industrialized North over the agrarian South placed immense power in the hands of captains of finance and industry such as Vanderbilt, Belmont, Gould, and Morgan, builders of railroad and banking empires. Victoria Woodhull, flamboyant medium and woman’s rights advocate, made her reputation by offering astute stock tips to Vanderbilt, providing him with the sort of practical suggestions that spirits in the past had steadfastly abjured. The spirits of deceased financiers became increasingly popular at other mediums’ seances, ready to dispense financial advice.

Every industry and career is different but there's universal value in accepting the hassle when reality demands it. Volatility, people having bad days, office politics, difficult personality, bureaucracy. All of them are bad but have to be endured if you want to get anything done. Many managers have little tolerance for non-sense ... but it's just unrealistic... Sitting through periods of insanity is not a defect, it's accepting an optimal level of hassle. Same in business.

The only solution is knowing the very few things in your industry that will never change and putting everything else in a bucket that's in constant need of updating and adapting. The few, the very few things that never change are candidates for long-term thinking, everything else has a shelf life. Long Term is less about time horizon and more about flexibility.

Warren Buffett, the most-admired person in the investing industry has at times had a miserable family life—partly his own doing, the collateral damage of a life where picking stocks was the highest priority.

In passing the 1893 resolution, the suffragists might as well have announced that if they, as white women of the middle classes and bourgeoisie, were given the power of the vote, they would rapidly subdue the three main elements of the U.S. working class: Black people, immigrants and the uneducated native white workers. It was these three groups of people whose labor was exploited and whose lives were sacrificed by the Morgans, Rockefellers, Mellons, Vanderbilts—by the new class of monopoly capitalists who were ruthlessly establishing their industrial empires. They controlled the immigrant workers in the North as well as the former slaves and poor white laborers who were operating the new railroad, mining and steel industries in the South.

We tend to judge wealth by what we see, because that’s the information we have in front of us. We can’t see people’s bank accounts or brokerage statements. So we rely on outward appearances to gauge financial success. Cars. Homes. Instagram photos. Modern capitalism makes helping people fake it until they make it a cherished industry. But the truth is that wealth is what you don’t see. Wealth is the nice cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The watches not worn, the clothes forgone and the first-class upgrade declined. Wealth is financial assets that haven’t yet been converted into the stuff you see.

Who has the right answers but I ignore because they’re not articulate? Which of my current views would I disagree with if I were born in a different country or generation? What do I desperately want to be true so much that I think it’s true when it’s clearly not? What is a problem that I think applies only to other countries/industries/careers that will eventually hit me? What do I think is true but is actually just good marketing? What haven’t I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive about how something works? What looks unsustainable but is actually a new trend we haven’t accepted yet? Who do I think is smart but is actually full of it? Am I prepared to handle risks I can’t even envision? Which of my current views would change if my incentives were different? What are we ignoring today that will seem shockingly obvious in the future? What events very nearly happened that would have fundamentally changed the world I know if they had occurred? How much have things outside my control contributed to things I take credit for? How do I know if I’m being patient (a skill) or stubborn (a flaw)? Who do I look up to that is secretly miserable? What hassle am I trying to eliminate that’s actually an unavoidable cost of success? What crazy genius that I aspire to emulate is actually just crazy? What strong belief do I hold that’s most likely to change? What’s always been true? What’s the same as ever?

Do you have a 30-year time horizon? Then the smart price to pay involves a sober analysis of Google’s discounted cash flows over the next 30 years. Are you looking to cash out within 10 years? Then the price to pay can be figured out by an analysis of the tech industry’s potential over the next decade and whether Google management can execute on its vision. Are you looking to sell within a year? Then pay attention to Google’s current product sales cycles and whether we’ll have a bear market.

What changed was: Competition grew as opportunities became well known; technology made information more accessible; and industries changed as the economy shifted from industrial to technology sectors, which have different business cycles and capital uses. Things changed.

Josh Kopelman, who ended up partnering with Morgan to launch a new venture capital firm at the end of 2004, First Round Capital, focused on startups, especially in New York. “Today we have over 50 New York companies in our portfolio, including Fab.com, a great success in the design and fashion industry,” explains Morgan. “We usually are the most active venture firm in the city in number of new deals.

Jimmy’s goal since childhood, he explained to Siegel, had been to join the cast of Saturday Night Live. He was endearing. After a two-hour call, Siegel offered to represent him. She had one question, however. “Why don’t you stay and graduate?” Jimmy was a semester shy of a degree. Siegel suggested that they get started in the summer, so he’d have a bachelor’s degree to fall back on, just in case. “No, no,” Jimmy insisted. “I need to get on Saturday Night Live, and you’re going to make it happen, because you know Adam Sandler! I don’t want to do anything else.” Siegel knew this was a long shot—and a long-term endeavor—especially for an out-of-town kid with zero acting credits. But for some reason, she couldn’t turn him down; she had never met someone as focused and passionate about a single dream as this grinning bumpkin from the tiny town of Saugerties, New York. And though his skills were rough, given some time in the industry, she thought he might just make it. “OK, let’s do this,” she said. So, in January 1996 Jimmy quit college and moved to Los Angeles. For six months, Siegel booked him gigs on small, local stand-up comedy stages. Then, without warning, SNL put a call out for auditions; three cast members would be leaving the show. Having worked with one of the departing actors, David Spade, Siegel pulled a few strings and arranged a Hail Mary for the young Jimmy Fallon: an audition at The Comic Strip. SO HERE HE WAS. Fresh-faced, sweating in his light shirt, holding his Troll doll. In front of Lorne Michaels and a phalanx of Hollywood shakers. When Jimmy ended his three-minute bit, the audience clapped politely. True to his reputation, Michaels didn’t laugh. Not once. Jimmy went home and awaited word. Finally, the results came: SNL had invited Tracy Morgan, Ana Gasteyer, and Chris Kattan, each of whom had hustled in the comedy scene for years, to join the cast. Jimmy—the newbie whose well-connected manager had finagled an invite—was crushed. “Was he completely raw? A hundred percent,” Siegel says. But, the SNL people said, “Let’s keep an eye on him.

While many futurists and business leaders believe that robots and automation are taking jobs from humans, I believe that it's the humans who are takin the jobs away from robots.

ALEC created a set of “task forces” that addressed issues of concern to the corporate members. The task forces were directed by a team composed of corporate representatives and state legislators. This partnership appears to be unique in American history, giving companies an unprecedented chance to craft public policy. Brand-name companies like Procter & Gamble and Coors Brewing joined ALEC. But Koch Industries was one of the most active participants. Koch almost always sent a representative to ALEC’s task force meetings, recalled Bonnie Sue Cooper, who was chairman of ALEC in 1997. A Koch lobbyist named Mike Morgan was on ALEC’s board of directors with Cooper. In the late 1990s, when ALEC was struggling financially, Koch’s political network loaned the group $500,000 to keep it afloat.

Third is understanding the power of incentives. A financial bubble might seem irrational, but the people who work in industries that are in bubbles—mortgage brokers in 2004 or stockbrokers in 1999—make so much money from them that there’s a powerful incentive to keep the music playing. They delude not only their customers but themselves.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see that a little inefficiency is the ideal spot to be in. Same with analysis. There’s an investing quip that it’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. But where does the intellectual effort go in the investment industry? Toward the pursuit of precisions—decimal-point exactness that deludes people into thinking they’re not leaving opportunity on the table, when more often they are leaving no room for error for their analysis to be wrong.

In what other industry does someone with no college degree, no training, no background, no formal experience, and no connections massively outperform someone with the best education, the best training, and the best connections?

Who has the right answers but I ignore because they’re not articulate? Which of my current views would I disagree with if I were born in a different country or generation? What do I desperately want to be true so much that I think it’s true when it’s clearly not? What is a problem that I think applies only to other countries/industries/careers that will eventually hit me? What do I think is true but is actually just good marketing?

People mock how much short-term thinking there is in the financial industry, and they should. But I also get it: The reason so many financial professionals stray toward short-termism is because it’s the only way to run a viable business when customers flee at the first sign of trouble. But the reason customers flee is often because investors have done such a poor job communicating how investing works, what their strategy is, what they should expect as an investor, and how to deal with inevitable volatility and cyclicality. Eventually being right is one thing. But can you eventually be right and convince those around you? That’s completely different, and easy to overlook.