Ralston

"Stiritz believed that Ralston should only pursue opportunities that presented compelling returns under conservative assumptions, and he disdained the false precision of detailed financial models, focusing instead on a handful of key variables: market growth, competition, potential operating improvements, and, always, cash generation."

"as one of Ralston’s directors said at the time, “Why would you want to shrink the company. Aren’t there any worthwhile growth initiatives?” Stiritz, in contrast, believed that repurchases were the highest-probability investments he could make, and after convincing his board to support him, he became an active repurchaser. He would eventually repurchase a phenomenal 60 percent of Ralston’s shares, second only to Henry Singleton among the CEOs in this book, and he would earn very attractive returns on these buybacks, averaging a long-term internal rate of return of 13 percent."