Alexander Acosta Quotes

Spending a few hundred million dollars more a year on evaluations could save tens of billions of dollars by teaching us which programs work and generating lessons to improve programs that don’t

We have a responsibility to make sure that the limited resources we have are spent efficiently and effectively and that programs achieve their mission.

The second thing we did was said, OK, we've now identified the risk, but what do you want to do with the money? Because it's not enough to have risk; you've got to have a meaningful use for the money we give you.

Cost effectiveness and effectiveness are not always the same thing in government.

In a global race, can we really justify the huge number of expensive peripheral European institutions? Can we justify a commission that gets ever larger? Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multibillion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven't worked?

Doing ventures is great - I'm talking economics now - if you've got a rising market. It's wonderful. If I hadn't got HKT, I would have been just as happy. Because there's a price for everything. And to overpay for something is awful.

The more people's money you take to do something, the more inputs you get.

I have seen entrepreneurs ask for hundreds of millions of dollars on a concept and try to sell because of 'their passion' for an idea. If the idea is that good, why wouldn't I cut you out and hire someone who is just as passionate for much, much less?

You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place.

When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing.

Before we give you billions more, we want to know what you've done with the trillion you've got.

It's easy to measure success by the number of dollars spent or by the number of programs initiated, without having too much regard for what was bought and how useful it was to the people who need it - the war fighter and the analyst.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

There's nothing that can replace quality programs in a non-profit.

When the opportunities come, we may not want to buy another nickel asset, but if something comes cheap enough, we're all about return on equity.

Our Fly Smart philosophy is about investing only on those points of differentiation that pay for themselves, that earn a revenue premium commensurate with what it costs us to provide that product or service.

It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

They realize that spending millions to save billions is just good business.

We are not going to compete for programs where we do not believe we can get a fair and sufficient return.

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

It is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.

Filmmaking is a business and at the bottom line people who don't make fiscally responsible decisions end up going into another line of work.

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.

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

I don't give my people's money to those I think are going to lose, so you have to convince me you're going to win.