Where you have complexity, by nature you can have fraud and mistakes. You'll have more of that than in a company that shovels sand from a river and sells it. This will always be true of financial companies, including ones run by governments. If you want accurate numbers from financial companies, you're in the wrong world.

There are always people who will be better at some thing than you are.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

I think track records are very important. If you start early trying to have a perfect one in some simple thing like honesty, you're well on your way to success in this world.

If you skillfully follow the multidisciplinary path, you will never wish to come back. It would be like cutting off your hands.

In fact I've probably never seen such a wide moat.

A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: "You don't seem smart enough to be so good at what you're doing. Do you have an explanation?"