Marvin Harris Quotes

One likes at the point of production to realize the maximum value, and diamond producers are no different.

Creating value isn't enough - you also need to capture some of the value you create.

Because the private sector has evolved processes and metrics for growth over many generations, for-profit models are more likely to efficiently accomplish their goals.

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

Unlike Marvel, we are not setting up redundant organizations for expertise that exists. We will track all DC properties to measure financial success.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

I have always focused on the bottom line.

Business people do two things with their time fundamentally. The first is that they try to create sales, right? Revenue, key to business. But the other thing they devote their time to equally is cost containment. That is to say, how to not create jobs. Because the fewer jobs you can create for the revenue you create, the more profit you make.

The moguls are driven by their respective desires for profit - period.

Profit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.

Corporations are not in business to be social-welfare organizations; they are there to make money.

The thing is, people can't complain about profit-oriented moves if they're only interested in profit themselves. You can't have it both ways. If they're willing to polish up a gift and sell it to make money, they can't really complain about the fact that somebody above them has sold them down the river. That's the way it goes.

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.

Can we please agree that in the real world, corporations exist for one purpose and one purpose only - to make as much money as possible, which means cutting costs as much as possible?

Any business owner can tell you that if their company isn't performing profitably and up to standards, one of two things will happen: either you make changes to improve its efficiency, or a competitor will drive you out of business. Market forces have a way of cutting to the chase rather quickly.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

Farmers the world over, in dealing with costs, returns and risks, are calculating economic agents. Within their small, individual, allocative domain, they are fine-tuning entrepreneurs, tuning so subtly that many experts fail to recognize how efficient they are.

Everything I write is designed to be milked to the last drop of revenue.

Business is a string of seemingly impossible problems looking for solutions. Each problem you solve creates a new barrier to entry for your next competitor.

The key, I think, from a business point of view, is to learn how to be efficient in making a record that's not too expensive, so that you're not going crazy spending tons of money making a product that might not ever return that money.

Our entire team is focused on managing this company for value - fixing or eliminating those operations that lessen value and expanding or adding those that enhance value.

Roughly speaking, when you are dealing with business firms operating in a competitive system, you can assume that they're going to act rationally. Why? Because someone in a firm who buys things at $10 and sells them for $8.00 isn't going to last very long in that firm.

To be successful in business, you have to be ruthless.

A boss is all about good business, so start with everything that you can control and you can turn up that costs you nothing, then lay all the knobs out, look at all the controls, all the remotes, and just turn them all up. It don't cost you nothing.

Business is the systematic playing of games.