Mike Smith

“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

“In 1872, the average American farmer fed roughly four other people; now the average farmer feeds about 155 other people.”
― Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

“Here is where the Trump administration’s willful ignorance plays a role. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gain without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing the cost. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.”
― Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

“we now see the world through “scientific spectacles.” He means that rather than relying on our own direct experiences, we make sense of reality through classification schemes, using layers of abstract concepts to understand how pieces of information relate to one another.”
― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World