Andy Kessler (author)

Andy Kessler (born 1958) is an author of books on business, investing and technology. Mr. Kessler also worked as an investment manager from 1996 to 2001 as a principal of Velocity Capital Management.

Quotes

Running Money (2004) First Edition

• You can't ever forget how precarious and humbling running money really is.
  • Ssangyong Sweat, p. 1.

• You invest in companies with great long-term prospects.
  • Part I, Raising Funds, H & Screw Conference, p. 21.

• It was what I didn't know about that always seemed more interesting.
  • Part I, Raising Funds, Hedgies, p. 24.

• When you think long-term, the edge is really investing because others can't know.
  • Part I, Raising Funds, Hedgies, p. 27.

• When someone pukes up a stock, it's not hard to miss. Mispriced securities all over the table. And we are there with a barf bag, collecting all we can.
  • Part I, Raising Funds, Making Your Month, p. 33.

• High elasticity means that unit output goes up more than prices went down, so you get a growth business.
  • Part II, Revolution, Meeting Mr. Zed, p. 42.

• But someone knew and made a killing. It was investing when you know something no one else knows.
  • Part II, Revolution, Object Lesson, p. 63.

• Cheap power helped create a new market that didn't exist previously.
  • Part II, Revolution, Pressure Drop, p. 66.

• A product lowers the cost of doing something and eventually, customers will figure this out and buy the stuff in big volume, but they're not going to buy yet. You've got to have real conviction to step up and own this kind of company-you're staring over the edge of the waterfall, not sure when the growth is going to start.
  • Part III, Searching For Scale, Four-Door Office, p. 105.

• Think about it- the King James Bible took religion out of the hands of the high priests and put it in to the hands of the people. An entire generation became literate just to be able to read the King James version of the Bible.
  • Part IV, Intellectual Property, The Augmenter, p. 122.

• The stock market teaches you the hard way - it's all in the margin.
  • Part IV, Intellectual Property, Publishing Chips in Taiwan, p. 135.

• Our portfolio was more of a Roach Motel-stocks came in and never left. This was exciting.
  • Part IV, Intellectual Property, It Works Again!, p. 142.

• But I was confused. Here we were scrambling around looking under rocks for great long-term investments, and every other hedge fund, or so it seemed, was doing some funny hedge of cheap yen money and T-bills. That's investing?
  • Part IV, Intellectual Property, The Yen-Scary Trade, p. 165.

• "I've been doing this for years. Never invest in a company with the target price for the stock in the name of the company."
  • Part V, The Next Barrier, Fleece Bank Internet Conference 1999, p. 177.

• Stocks are a voting mechanism, pure and simple. They are a collective vote of expectations of each company's future fundamentals.
  • Part V, The Next Barrier, Do Stocks Talk?, p. 181.

• In fact, maybe Metcalfe's Law is the formula for Doug Engelbart's scaling of human knowledge, just as Watt's steam engine scaled human power.
  • Part V, The Next Barrier, Packet Racket, p. 190.

• "The stock of the greatest company in the world is crap if every investor already thinks it is the greatest company in the world."
  • Part VI, Burst, Morgan Stanley Tech Conference 2001, p. 229.

• I think what I learned is that wealth comes not just from taking risk but from constantly taking risks.
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, What Is Wealth?, p. 233.

• Give me a big enough sandbox to play in, and I'll find the part of it not being used as kitty litter.
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Industrial Economists, p. 237.

• By the way, I love paradoxes.They usually mean someone doesn't understand what's really going on and you can invest in things other people "can't know." I start salivating when I hear that word paradox.
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Wealth How?, p. 259.

• But the stock market is not 1:1-it is not a zero sum game. So those deaf, dumb and blind economists can't find the capital flows.
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Wealth How?, p. 261.

• Economists may insist we are running a trade deficit, but in reality, we are running a margin surplus.
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Why It's Imperative to Drive a Beemer, p. 275 (See also:Robert Kuttner).

• "but then I remembered how crass it is to talk money or stocks with university types."
  • Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Ghana a Goner, p. 281.

• Wealth really is a never-ending process. So is running money. You can't just walk away and ask about the meaning of life.
  • Part VIII, Epilogue, 747 Office, p. 296.