Sam Zell > Quotes

“Risk is the ultimate differentiator. I have always had a deep and complex relationship with it. I am not a reckless person, but taking risks is really the only way to consistently achieve above-average returns—in life as well as in investments. My father proved that when he left Poland. I am probably more comfortable with risk than most people. That’s because I do as much as I can to understand it. To me, risk-taking rests on the ability to see all the variables and then identify the ones that will make or break you.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“While I was unaware of it at the time, my real compensation for that job wasn’t monetary. It was learning about and getting comfortable with rejection. And as I would later realize, indifference to rejection is a fundamental part of being an entrepreneur.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I’ve always believed I am at my best when the scenario around me is at its worst.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“There’s a line from an old movie, Wheeler Dealers: “You don’t go wheeling and dealing for the money, you do it for fun. Money’s just a way of keeping score.” And that’s how I see it. I’ve always been much more drawn to the experience.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I have always believed that every day you choose to hold an asset, you are also choosing to buy it. Would I buy our buildings at the price Blackstone was quoting? Nope.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“This has always been a fatal flaw in U.S. real estate: the volume of development has been related to the availability of funds, not to demand.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Redundancies are much more predictable and transparent than theoretical opportunities to add value. My focus is always on the downside. Overly optimistic assumptions lead to the graveyard of corporate acquisitions.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Where there is scarcity, price is no object. This basic tenet of supply and demand would later become a governing principle of my investment philosophy.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“If you’re not aware that you’re not supposed to be able do something, the barriers to doing it are dramatically lessened.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“work out every morning at 4:45, I’m at the office by 6:30 a.m., and I don’t get home from work until 7:00 at night.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“You just build up a tolerance for rejection. You learn to keep asking and to find ways to get a conversation going. If you can just start and keep a dialogue, you have a chance.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“In real estate I’m known as the Grave Dancer. That was the title of an article I wrote back in 1976, and the nickname stuck. Some might see buying and creating value from others’ mistakes as a form of exploitation, but I see it as giving neglected or devalued assets, in any industry, new life.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I remember this event so clearly because it was at this point in my career that I fully realized the value of tenacity. I just had to assume there was a way through any obstacle, and then I’d find it. This is perhaps my most fundamental principle of entrepreneurialism, and to success in general.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Jay taught me to use simplicity as a strategy. He had an uncanny ability to grasp an extremely complex situation and immediately locate the weakness. He always said that if there were twelve steps in a deal, the whole thing depended on just one of them. The others would either work themselves out or were less important.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I was targeting good real estate assets overburdened by excessive debt. Well, I began seeing similar scenarios unfold in the corporate world and realized I could provide equity to those companies for a stake at a discounted price, and that would help them position themselves for when the market recovered.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“My takeaway was a whole new respect for simplicity. Development required multiple steps, and every step meant one more chance for something to go wrong.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“chairman of everything and the CEO of nothing.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“People always say that to be successful, all you need is demand from 1 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“My big-picture goals were all about creating liquidity by monetizing assets, fund-raising for opportunities on the horizon, and doing great deals.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Some emerging markets will check all the boxes—strong population growth, growing middle class, verge of investment grade, great leadership, and hunger for capital—and then be missing the one ingredient that enables you to monetize your investment: scale. Without scale, you don’t have liquidity. You have no optionality. In essence, you’re stuck.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Boards that don’t exercise an ownership approach are complicit in poor-performing companies.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Sentimentality about an asset leads to a lack of discipline.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“In exchange for their capital, I made a commitment to give them the best return possible on their investment. That was my primary obligation. Nothing stood before that.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“The Jacor story was all about seeing micro opportunities in macro events. In this case, the macro event was legislation similar to the impact of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 on NOLs. But I find implications for opportunity everywhere—in world events, economic news, and conversations. I’ve always been on the lookout for big-picture influencers and anomalies that will direct the course of industries and companies.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Further, as a huge perpetual consumer of capital, I respected the fact that there is no more consistent source of capital than the public markets.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I believe the fundamentals of business—supply and demand, liquidity equals value, good corporate governance, and reliable partners, to name a few—apply across the board.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“when people live in a balloon, they tend to shy away from the guy holding the needle.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“This bit of hyperbole revealed a very important fact: At its heart, grave dancing was an opportunity to resurrect those assets deserving of a fresh start. It was a bet on my ability to affect a turnaround. And the low entry price paid for the risk I was taking to do it. Grave dancing involves confidence, optimism, conviction, and no small amount of courage. All the opportunity in the world means nothing if you don’t actually pull the trigger.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“I didn’t know where I was headed, but, as always, I was very eager to get there.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel

“Shortly before we closed the deal, Randy Michaels and Terry Jacobs, who were running Jacor, came to me to finance the acquisition of a Denver station. Jacor already owned one of the other FM stations in Denver, and this one was losing money and available cheap. They showed up in Chicago carrying a thick book of details, prepared to make their pitch. “This is a great deal,” Randy assured me. He thumped the book on the table, ready to take me through it. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Do you understand the scope of the deal—why we should buy it?” “Yes,” he replied. “All the details are right here in this book.” He added that he and Terry had worked feverishly night and day to prepare it. I picked up the book and tossed it into a corner of my office, where it landed with a thud. Randy and Terry stared at me wide-eyed. “If you really understand it, you don’t need a book,” I said. “You could put it on a single piece of paper.” They looked uncertain. “I assume this says things are going to be great, right?” They nodded. “What happens if you’re wrong? How do I get out of the room?” “What do you mean?” Randy asked. “How bad can it get?” “Well,” he said, “it’s pretty bad now, and if we fail to fix it you could lose some operating capital. But I don’t see a station in Denver ever being worth less than $4 million. I mean, the building, the transmitter—the physical assets alone are worth close to that.” “Okay, great. How good could it get?” The answer, in short, was very good. So I said, “Go do it.”
― Sam Zell, Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel