If your employees, including your CEO, wish to give to their alma maters or other institutions to which they feel a personal attachment, we believe they should use their own money, not yours.
Integrity, intelligence, and energy
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities : integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it ; it’s true. If you hire somebody without (integrity), you really want them to be dumb and lazy.
Football
If you have mediocrity and you have a bunch of friends on the board, it’s certainly not the kind of test you put a football team through. If the coach of a football team puts 11 lousy guys out on the field, he loses his job. The board never loses their job because they’ve got a mediocre CEO. So, you’ve got none of that self-cleansing type of operation that works with all other jobs.
Business
I like a business that, when it’s not managed at all, still makes lots of money. That’s my kind of business.
The best CEOs
The best CEOs love operating their companies and don’t prefer going to Business Round Table meetings or playing golf at Augusta National.
Cockroaches
Problems in a company are like cockroaches in the kitchen. You will never find just one.