Shane Parrish

I think about this a lot where you have these short-term optimization and long-term effectiveness are two completely different things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so you can, there's always somebody making more money than you, but maybe they're cutting corners.

Maybe they're doing things that are unsustainable.

And like you said, you can always save money in the short term, but do you damage your brand?

Well, Buffett had this saying where his directive, his letter, I guess, to all of his CEOs after he acquired the company was this.

The only expectation I have for you is to treat this company as if you and your family have 100% of your money in it for 100 years and you can't take it out.

Exactly that.

And I think that that approach enables, even in a public company, that enables people to take long term, do the thing that's optimal.

I think this is why, generalizing a little bit, but this is why founders outperform.

Even when they lead public corporations, they have the same pressures, the same analysts, the same... They also are considering posterity, aren't they?

Yeah, Costco, exactly.

But that comes from the Sol Price line of thinking, which when he started FedMart, he sort of outlined the obligation of our businesses.

We have a fiduciary relationship with the customer.

And Jim Senegal, who founded Costco, was a student of Sol Price.

And later on, they would merge the companies.

Yeah.

And I think that's interesting, right?

Where you treat your employees better.