"Usually, if everybody is going in one direction wrong"
"You look for white blackbirds"
"You look for white blackbirds"
Profit Is Good
1) Building an international business is exciting. You're breaking new ground, you're opening new areas, and you are dealing with different problems every day, different cultures. If there's an underwriting problem, it's a challenge, because the political systems are different in every way. It's not just doing more of the same.
2) Doing business in Minnesota versus Kansas is not that different. This is more challenging, it's more exciting. It's got to be fun. If you don't like it, you can't do it.
3) There's a price you have to pay to succeed.
4) It doesn't matter if we are talking about hiring a manager in Japan, Eastern Europe, or Latin America, we want somebody who's different than the run of the mill.
5) Our core business is underwriting, that's the basic business. If you fail in your basic business, how in the world are you going to succeed long term in anything? The basic business is not investment, the basic business is underwriting risk. So you want to have the best people who understand risk, and develop the best products to make a profit on that busIness.
