This is part of my management philosophy. Executives should know they don’t accumulate wealth unless the long-term shareholders do the same.

Most of what will be important in the future is outside our knowledge; it exists only in the future. The direct approach demands a capacity for prediction that we can never possess.

TWENTY: The Most Important Stock on Earth

“Management professors theorized that a chief executive should ideally have between eight and twelve direct reports. Huang now had fifty-five. He had no right-hand man or woman, no majordomo, no second-in-command. Huang also had no designated successor, and as Nvidia grew, its C-suite actually shrank, meaning that there was no scapegoat for mistakes. Board members spoke of his irreplaceability; it was not an exaggeration to suggest that Huang had personally saved the American economy from recession. The US stock market, over the course of Nvidia’s rise, had pulled away from markets in Europe and Asia.

The world is radically uncertain. Information is imperfect. No contract can anticipate all possible contingencies. Not only do we not know what will happen – we often have only limited insight into the range of things that might happen. Unforeseen events will require adaptation. But by the time such adaptation is required, both parties to the contract will have committed to the relationship.

15: The Myth of Ownership

“‘You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.’

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1761