Fixable but unfixed bad performance is bad character and tends to create more of itself, causing more damage to the excuse giver with each tolerated instance.

I call myself the assistant cult leader.

If it happens every year like clockwork, what's so extraordinary about it?

If we've been a little more successful than other people, is because we always realised that the school of life was always open, and if you were not learning more you are falling behind.

We tend to buy things - a lot of things - where we don't know exactly what will happen, but the outcome will be decent.

I think that if you have a single payer system and an opt-out for people who want to pay more [for better service, etc.], I think it would be better - and I think we'll eventually get there. It wouldn't be better at the top - [our current system] is the best in the world at the top. But the waste in the present system is awesome and we do get some very perverse incentives.

Opportunity cost is a huge filter in life. If you've got two suitors who are really eager to have you and one is way the hell better than the other, you do not have to spend much time with the other. And that's the way we filter out buying opportunities.