Michael Chertoff Quotes

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

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.

When you have less risk, you have more fun. You can take risks. It's much easier to take risks when there's less money on the line.

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.

The first thing you've got to remember is that it's your clients' money you're spending.

I have plenty of investments that I wish I'd never made. But the model is to lose money on a lot of investments and then make 1,000X or 10,000X on an investment.

One way to mitigate our risk is to invest in companies with understandable business models.

Many businesses fail because the owner wasn't willing to invest and wasn't educated on the difference between spending money frivolously and investing money into the business for growth, and the risks and rewards of that cash infusion.

Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.

The last thing you want to do, unless it's a very unusual situation, is to invest money.

There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.

I have no complaints about losing money I put in high-risk investments. I did some of that when I had real money; my informed choice, my measured gamble.

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

I'm not sure at all that I'm any good at this mentoring/investing business - that's why I'm using my own money, and that's why it's not a career.

And one of the things we did here was we put the maximum amount of money up front in those cities that were at the greater risk, but that doesn't mean that we keep rebuilding the same security over and over again.

Our entire approach to the banking and financial services business is risk-adjusted returns. We believe that in most parts of the world, and including pockets in India, banking tends to mis-price risk.

Investing in a poker game and investing in stocks, at least the way I do it, it's a very similar skillset.

In some industries, we refer to risk taking as 'research and development.' At financial institutions, we often take risk by investing in securities.

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

Why take the pay-per-view gamble? I don't need to do that.

When you take smaller gambles, no one particular deal can be big enough to have a material adverse effect on the company.

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

My whole business philosophy is based on a risk-reward ratio. But it's got to stack up. If it doesn't, don't do it. You might as well go to a casino.

When you see a 'Shark fight' erupt, we aggressively want to understand what we are committing our money toward.