Charlie Munger Quotes

If Wal-Mart invests a billion dollars and others invest $100 million, Wal-Mart is going to grow more.

In business, standards establish the rules of the game, creating path dependencies as investments are made and corresponding designs are set in stone and plastic. Inferior standards can prevail due to smart marketing or industry collusion.

For a startup, you need to stay small so the others don't attack, or you aim to be one of the big guys. If you don't do it right, you might lose everything.

We’re far behind [Microsoft]. They are 3 time bigger than we are. They have a monopoly and we don’t—darnit!

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Yes, our competition may have significantly more engineers or significantly more R&D investment. On the other hand, we have significantly more freedom. We have the freedom to innovate.

Benchmark has threatened to block investments that could bolster Uber's competitive position in global markets by bargaining over board seats and its own control.

The fundamental basis of above-average performance in the long run is sustainable competitive advantage.

Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped product.

Not every show has to work equally well. It just has to work better than any competitor because then we can outbid for the content.

In order to become a success, a business doesn't just have to do well, it has to to better than its competitors. Being number one isn't just about bragging rights. Often it means the difference between prospering and merely hanging on.

EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I'm a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win.

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material.

If the only common thread you have as an industrial company is the fact that you think you're well managed, you can still be a pretty good company, but you're not going to be a dominant company, a competitive company over time.

You intentionally start small, because you will not be able to compete with an incumbent... because the incumbent is always going to go for the full solution.

In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable 'moats'.

Management must take the lead in making obsolete its own products and services rather than waiting for a competitor to do so.

Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.

As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company.

Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem.

The concept of profit maximization is, in fact, meaningless.

No formula in finance tells you that the moat is 28 feet wide and 16 feet deep. That's what drives the academics crazy. They can compute standard deviations and betas, but they can't understand moats.

I never said that I wanted to be the only company, is it my fault that I ran my company well? Wouldn't you want the best for your company? Also consider that I started of small.

How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics.