Per-Share Value Not Longest Train

"At the core of their shared worldview was the belief that the primary goal for any CEO was to optimize long-term value per share, not organizational growth. This may seem like an obvious objective; however, in American business, there is a deeply ingrained urge to get bigger."

"Growth, it turns out, often doesn’t correlate with maximizing shareholder value."

"the increase in a company’s per share value, however, not growth in sales or earnings or employees, that offers the ultimate barometer of a CEO’s greatness."

"These CEOs shared an intense focus on maximizing value per share. To do this, they didn’t simply focus on the numerator, total company value, which can be grown by any number of means, including overpaying for acquisitions or funding internal capital projects that don’t make economic sense."