Other highlights (34)
“One of Patterson’s maxims was to think big ideas and speak few words.”
“First, AB InBev creates a basic, simple prototype, to get an understanding of how the company and consumers might react. Then the company provides a small amount of capital, perhaps $50,000, to test it out further. Telles finishes: Three months from now, there are ten guys showing. Two are going to be good. You have to be merciless, to cut those that do not deliver, and then you give $500,000 or more or something [to the ideas that show promise].14”
“Never compromise and never buy out. It is more expensive, probably for a year or two, to fight, but as soon as the opposition know that you will fight at every point, regardless of the money it takes, they will let you alone.9”
““has maintained a relentless focus on experimentation in order to improve the experience for their members.””
“If necessary, we will spend five times as much money as we have already done, in order to down opposition. If they really believe this, they will “throw up the sponge and quit.” We are receiving overtures to buy out opposition. We will not buy them out. We do not buy out; we knock out.”
“The company’s goal is to achieve 15% economic value added, so the better the company performs as a whole, the larger is the bonus pool to be divided among employees.”
“Winston Churchill did: “Courage is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm.””
“All the successful people I ever met were fanatics about focus. Sam Walton, who built Walmart, thought only about stores day and night. He visited store after store. Even Warren Buffett, who today is my partner, is a man super focused on his formula. He acquires different businesses but always within the same formula, and that’s what works. Today our formula is to buy companies with a good name and to come up with our management system. But we can only do this when we have people available to go to the company. We cannot do what the American private equity firms do. They buy any company, send someone there, and constitute a team. We only know how to do this with our team, people within our culture. Then, focus is also essential.22 Our CEOs’ business”
““If we have a good quarter, it’s because of work we did three, four, five years ago. It’s not because we did a good job this quarter.””
“The company is highly decentralized. Each division within Nucor acts as a totally separate, independent business entity. Nucor divisions have almost complete local autonomy, and the communication among the divisions is high. The goal is to get each division to share its best practices and to provide support for one another.”
“Patterson’s mind, knowledge was useless if it had no application to daily life.”
“Ron Wallace, author of Leadership Lessons from a UPS Driver writes, “We promote from within to ensure that the company can pass on our legacy and culture seamlessly from one generation to the next.””
“The first key to the success of Garantia, and of each business that the 3G partners have run since, is what they call creating a big dream. A big dream is important because it brings everyone together; everyone is connected with the same higher cause. But the dream must be attainable, and then, when the dream is achieved, a company needs to evolve and find another goal to achieve.”
“Ken Iverson’s view of risk was similar to a story Herb Kelleher told about Thomas Watson, the disciple of John H. Patterson.”
“James Allen, “The Beliefs that Built a Global Brewer,” Harvard Business Review, April 27, 2012, https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-beliefs-that-built-a-globa.”
“Marcel Telles, interview at FALCONI Movement 2014, accessed June 26, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzcHVpbHIZo”
“the only truly sustainable competitive advantage is a company’s human capital.”
“Sir Richard Branson says, “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.””
“A company’s leadership must have the courage, long-term vision, and ability to execute a drastic cultural shift at an established company or to create one from scratch.”
“We’re not dogs on a leash, doing tricks to manage the stock price or maximize dividends quarter by quarter. We’re eagles. We soar. If investors want to soar, too, they’ll invest in us. The speculators, we don’t need.17”
“Jorge Paulo Lemann, “What You Don’t Learn at Harvard,” accessed June 26, 2016,”
“Cristiane Correa, Dream Big: How the Brazilian Trio behind 3G Capital —Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles, and Beto Sicupira —Acquired Anheuser-Busch, Burger King and Heinz, (Rio de Janeiro: Sextante,”
“Ken Iverson said, “In fact, communication is probably the single greatest virtue of smallness.””
“Goronwy Rees, St. Michael: A History of Marks & Spencer”
“For John Patterson, the vision was more than providing the best cash register; it was keeping employees from stealing from their employers. For Simon Marks, it was to bring high-quality clothing and other merchandise to the masses. For Sol Price, it was to sell the best products at the lowest price. For Les Schwab, it was to give the customer the best service and to provide opportunities for employees to succeed. For Herb Kelleher, it was to bring flying to the masses, with the cheapest fares and best customer service. For Chester Cadieux, it was to provide customers with the greatest convenience. For Ken Iverson, it was to become the most efficient and cheapest steel operator. In every case, all employees knew their company’s mission and embraced it fully.”
“They are able to easily communicate the why and the purpose of the company so that employees themselves can own the vision. This is extremely important, because most employees do not know their employer’s vision and, of course, cannot be invested in what they do not know or understand.”
“Successful Monopolization Through Predation: The National Cash Register Company”
“Occasionally, you’ll find a human being who’s so talented that he can do things that ordinary skilled mortals can’t. I would argue that Simon Marks —who was second generation in Marks & Spencer of England—was such a man. —Charlie Munger,”
““Great Leaders: Marcel Telles,” part 5, accessed June 26, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOYXkdpvOEQ”
“The owners start by developing a dream to be the best at one simple thing. From those dreams, difficult but achievable goals can be established.”
“St. Michael: A History of Marks & Spencer”
“Francisco Souza Homem del Mello, The 3G Way (New York: Ajax Books, 2014), 177.”
“Any business with a large potential size is best served if cash is reinvested back into the business. That way, one dollar is much more likely to be turned into many more dollars in the future. In all but one of our case studies, a majority of cash was reinvested back into the business for future growth. However, intelligent fanatics do not grow for growth’s sake. They reinvest for market domination and much higher profitability in the future.”
