I don't think vengeance is much good.

Why would you want to invest with a guy whose thought process says, "If a second layer of fees is good, then let's add a third layer.

The world of derivatives is full of holes that very few people are really aware of. It's like hydrogen and oxygen sitting on the corner waiting for a little flame.

If you have only a little capital and are young today, there are fewer opportunities than when I was young. Back then, we had just come out of a depression. Capitalism was a bad word. There had been abuses in the 1920s. A joke going around then was the guy who said, 'I bought stock for my old age and it worked - in six months, I feel like an old man!' "It's tougher for you, but that doesn't mean you won't do well - it just may take more time. But what the heck, you may live longer."

Sears had layers and layers of people it didn't need. It was very bureaucratic. It was slow to think. And there was an established way of thinking. If you poked your head up with a new thought, the system kind of turned against you. It was everything in the way of a dysfunctional big bureaucracy that you would expect.

I've heard that one-half of the students at elite schools want to go into private equity or hedge funds. They want to keep up with their age cohorts at Goldman. This can't possibly end well in terms of meeting these expectations.

The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don't. It's just that simple.