Henry Singleton

• henry singleton (founders #94)
  • good business is good business—what it does matter less
  • size can work against you—large increases your fragility
    • nature abhors monopoly
    • no prime customer
    • don’t fall into mania of bigness
    • instead of paying 15x PER for acquisition, tender your own shares (i.e., shrink)
  • superpower is being able to think for yourself, and to trust that judgement
    • if everyone’s doing it, they must be imitating—not thinking
  • dividend gets you taxed twice
  • ideology turns your brain into cabbage (Munger)
    • assume no self and prioritize flexibility
      • no masterplan
      • no schedule
      • work on the important problem at the moment, and always figure out what that is
  • managing operation ≠ capital allocation
  • my personal thought: japanese market is following trend in the US
  • cash per se is not problem
    • the problem is how it’s been used and why
  • teledyne was decentralized conglomerate
  1. capital allocation is the job
  2. per share value >>> growth or size
  3. cash flow >>> reported earnings
  4. decentralization >>> politics
  5. independent thinking
  6. sometimes best investment is your own stock
  7. patience is a virtue
  • razor focus on few variables
  • it’s unpredictable, so be flexible
• henry singleton (founders #110 ~37:00)
  • bob noycerevisit
  • invest in yourself because no other people would care about you as much as you would yourself
  • cap allocation = resource alloc
    • the underlying principle should apply to personal liferevisit
  • first principle thinking
    • cut noises (e.g., street consensus)
    • study what worked—regardless of categories
• henry singleton (#110 38:00~)
  • henry learned as he acquired, and it was recursive.
    • he traced and acquired almost the whole production line
      • dynamically executed vertical integration, as it were
  • he used an idea from GM’s chairman’s bookrevisit
  • buyback as investment to yourself