Henry Kravis Quotes

If you have something at risk, you think differently.

Any fool can buy a company; just pay enough

Look, don't congratulate us when we buy a company, congratulate us when we sell it. Because any fool can overpay and buy a company, as long as money will last to buy it.

I was an economics major in college, and every summer after school, I would drive my car from California, from Claremont men's college at the time, to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.

You only have one thing to sell in life, and that's yourself.

In the '70s and '80s, what private equity did is it changed corporate America. It started holding companies accountable, and for the first time managers started thinking like owners.

In the large buy out space, which is where we (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) focus our efforts, there are relatively few firms with the capital, experience, infrastructure and networks to compete effectively with the large complex companies that we seek to acquire.

A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.

The trouble, in my opinion, with corporate America today, is that everything is thought of in quarters.

So I picked a field where I had a little exposure. Where I thought I could have an enormous challenge, and have a chance to really do some good, to be a pioneer in an area, and not just be like everyone else.

I want people who will stand up to me. People who are not afraid to say exactly what's on their minds, even though that's probably not what I want to hear. That's what I want.

I always like to refer managers in corporate America as the renters of the corporate assets, not the owners.

If you build that foundation, both the moral and the ethical foundation, as well as the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won't crumble.

Quite frankly, the financial community has to improve its image. The financial community has to be much more transparent than it is.

I've been in a hurry all my life. I've been in a hurry to succeed, and in a hurry to prove myself.

As I said there is nothing wrong with failing. Pick yourself up and try it again. You never are going to know how good you really are until you go out and face failure.

If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.

It used to be that you would go in to see a CEO, and you would ask them, 'Is your company for sale?' and if they said 'No, we have no interest in selling,' that was sort of the end of the conversation.

I love the ability to work with very good managers, and to provide the right incentives for them, and truly become a partner with that management, and make that management take a long view.

Going public is not a business plan.

We've got a portfolio of companies that range all the way from hotels to television stations and cable TV companies, oil and gas, consumer products, and industrial products. If there's anything that I want to know more about, I have the opportunity. It's right in our portfolio. I can spend time at the factory or with the manangement and learn as much as I want. You can't get bored doing that.

It's not just buying the company. Sure, we picked the right companies, and we picked the right management and, most importantly, we've given them the right incentive to perform.