Once every two years I send our [CEOs and Managers] a letter. The only thing I tell them is this, and this is number one every time and this doesn’t change, it won’t change two years from now or four years from now or six years:
Warren Buffet, “Oracle of Omaha”, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
“…here’s a couple of things to keep in mind…we can afford to lose money, even a lot of money, [but] we cannot afford to lose reputation even a shred of reputation. Let’s be sure that everything we do in business can be reported on the front page of a national newspaper..”
It took us 37 years to where we are now but we could lose it in 37 minutes. We have already figured out how to make money but we can’t lose a shred of reputation because you don’t get it back. You can even lose it a lot faster than five minutes.
It takes integrity. We don’t hire somebody that’s got intelligence and energy if they don’t have integrity, we would rather hire somebody that’s dumb or lazy.
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