David Sze Quotes

If you look at Citadel today, that's really - the founding principle of the firm is a real pursuit of talent, a pursuit of people who have a passion for finance, and a pursuit of individuals who make good decisions day in and day out.

As CEO of Aetna, I was a buyer of portfolio companies rather than a participant in the value creation process. From the end of the assembly line, what happened in manufacturing wasn't visible to me.

I think one of the key differentiators I bring to the table as a venture capitalist is a solid understanding of the public markets and how they operate.

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

Start small; get to know the landscape. We take risks but not major risks. We always started with small capital - €4m in Holland, $10m in Russia - and as we get to know the landscape of a country, we think about other businesses.

The most important thing for us is investing and making companies great, and then they have all the options they want, whether that's to go public or stay private.

I've been a customer of the top venture capital firms, so I know exactly what they do and don't do.

I wanted a CFO with public company experience; I needed an HR department, new office space, and a board which could help me grow the business. Insight, the private equity firm I chose, helped me with all that.

We monitor close to 50 companies globally that can be potential investment opportunities. I'd like to see DST as a significant global investment company in the Internet arena.

I have never for a minute felt in was my stock picking abilities. I feel that my stock picking abilities aided- I was able to pick out which are the good stocks in the good market, but I have been blessed with a great market.

The biggest challenge is to build the team and start the company, while hiring people, raising money, building a brand which has no history, all at the same time. You're doing a lot of things that in an established company are already done.

We are quite open, however, to looking at acquisitions and there are opportunities that we periodically consider. and I think that may be something we do in the future, but I must say that there is no commitment to that at the present time in any form or size.

Often, entrepreneurs don't build a board until they are forced to by their VCs when they raise their first financing round. This is dumb, as you are missing the opportunity to add at least one person to the team who - as a board member - can help you navigate the early process of building your company and raising that first round.

The only way one should buy stocks is if you understand the underlying business. You stay within the circle of competence. You buy businesses you understand.

Every phase of building a company is really hard.

I really have become very interested at working with and helping entrepreneurs at the early stages of their growth.

I got an album concept called 'Exit Strategy,' that might be one of my last ones. It's a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don't wait till you're five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.

I started to invest in very-early-stage companies where, even though I wasn't the founder, I could help shape the early strategy and culture.

Other than playing the game I love, my passion is investing in innovative companies and helping the entrepreneurs behind them succeed.

Probably, if I created a venture fund, I would create a firm with virtual services not too different from the a16z model, but without employing people. So I would get CPOs, engineering talent, marketing people who wanted to be involved with the venture fund and provide services.

One of my rules for investing is, I don't invest in a deal where I don't think I have an unfair advantage and where I don't think I can personally impact the outcome.

Whenever I invest, I invest in the person as well as the business.

Our mandate is to find the 200 best companies in the world and invest in them, and find the 200 worst companies in the world and go short on them. If the 200 best don't do better than the 200 worst, you should probably be in another business.

The consequences of overestimating a company and your ability to analyse it are greatly diminished when you're paying a lot less for it than your analysis shows it is worth.

I am the CEO of HCL Corporation, and, of course, a large part of my time does get spent in HCL Corporation, whether it is in actively managing our investments or perhaps even the governance and accountability and really seeing the strategic direction forward for HCL Corporation.