I always knew that aiming low was the best path for me, and so I merely sought to learn from my betters a few practical mental tricks that would help me avoid some of the worst miscognitions common in my age cohort.

But people get long runs when they're right on the edge of the wave,

whether it's Microsoft or Intel or all kinds of people,

including National Cash Register in the early days.

The cash register was one of the great contributions to civilization.

We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand.

In those days, working capital belonged to the shareholders.

If the employees were no longer useful, you just sacked them all, took the working capital, and stuck it in the owners' pockets.

That was the way capitalism worked

Nowadays, of course, the accounting is not realistic

This simple idea may appear too obvious to be useful, but there is an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business, science, and elsewhere:

(1) Take a simple, basic idea and
(2) take it very seriously.