Robert Rinder Quotes

We're certainly interested in maximizing our return and doing it - we're interested in maximizing our return, but we're also interested in doing it over a long period of time and in doing it in a way that never endangers the firm from a survivability standpoint.

If your business had no risk, you could go get a bank loan and call it a day. VCs like risks - without them, venture capital wouldn't exist. But they need to be risks that VCs are good at assessing and managing.

When buying shares, ask yourself, would you buy the whole company?

I've learned that all investments have risk.

When I buy something, I do so with the intention of keeping it forever.

With poker, you have a resolution of the hand within a couple of minutes. Whereas, even if the thought process in investing is very much the same, you're looking at an outcome that could be 2, 3, 4, 5 years from when you make the original decision. And the mindset related to that is very different.

I never buy a house thinking that I'm going to sell it.

Well, there's always risk in long-term investment.

We saw firsthand how a collapsed bridge in Skagit County impacted our local economy, which is why we must fix our infrastructure now before it's more expensive to maintain in the future.

Trust me: I know a good investment when I see one.

You just have to approach every day and say, 'If you were starting fresh today, what would my portfolio look like?' So that's how we think about it.

I put heavy weight on certainty. It's not risky to buy securities at a fraction of what they're worth.

It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong

At 15, you have to decide if you're going to go into professional dancing and really pursue it. I just a) knew that I couldn't stop acting, and b) I had that sort of foresight to understand that when I was 35 - if I was lucky and if I hadn't gotten injured - my career would be on its way to ending. Now, at 34, I really understand that. But at 15, I understood that as well. I was like, "I can't. That's just too risky.".

Be risky at work. Be safe with your investments.

Security isn't what the wise person looks for; it's opportunity. And once we begin looking for that, we find it on every side. You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Proper accounting is like engineering. You need a margin of safety. Thank God we don't design bridges and airplanes the way we do accounting.

I prefer to underwrite. Simple, clear as a country creek.

Most people spend their lives building financial houses of straws, which are susceptible to wind, fire, rain and big bad wolves.

Suppose you had a small electrical fire and... a structural engineer [looked] at your home's wiring [and] reports that the wiring is "shot" and there is a 50% chance that your house would burn down in the next few years unless you replace all the wiring. The job will cost $20,000... so you get an independent assessment. The next engineer agrees with the first warning. You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you find the one engineer in 1,000 that is willing to give you the answer you want, "Your family is not in danger" or you can change the wiring.

If you want the most reward you have to take the most risk.

I really think that people have to think safety; taking risks for higher yield is a bad idea once you're in late or latish middle age.

Finding a single investment that will return 20% per year for 40 years tends to happen only in dreamland. In the real world, you uncover an opportunity, and then you compare other opportunities with that. And you only invest in the most attractive opportunities. That's your opportunity cost. That's what you learn in freshman economics. The game hasn't changed at all. That's why Modern Portfolio Theory is so asinine.

Using volatility as a measure of risk is nuts. Risk to us is 1) the risk of permanent loss of capital, or 2) the risk of inadequate return.