In engineering, people have a big margin of safety. But in the financial world, people don't give a damn about safety. They let it balloon and balloon and balloon. It's aided by false accounting.

I think I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it.

All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there

Practically everybody (1) overweighs the stuff that can be numbered, because it yields to the statistical techniques they’re taught in academia, and (2) doesn’t mix in the hard-to-measure stuff that may be more important. That is a mistake I’ve tried all my life to avoid, and I have no regrets for having done that.

I would argue that a majority of the horrors we face would not have happened if the accounting profession developed and enforced better accounting.

A board member should be perfectly willing to leave at any time and willing to make the tough calls.

If it is wisdom you're after, you're going to spend a lot of time on your ass reading.