Competition

"You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits."

"I have an idée fixe that I am completely obsessed with on the business side — which is that if you are starting a company, if you are the founder entrepreneur starting a company, you always want to aim for monopoly. ... And you want to always avoid competition. ... Hence competition is for losers. ... What makes a business valuable? ... A business creates X dollars of value and captures Y% of X. X and Y are independent variables."

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat."

"Our species will not survive another 100 years if we don’t move from a competitive to a cooperative mode of existence. “Me first” is an obsolete, unsustainable perspective."

"Oliver E. Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets."

"There can be only one."

"Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbors’ eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone, Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult."

"Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition."

"It is better to buy than compete."