Everything Bill Perkins said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Perkins: Wealthy investors actively seek capable executors over ideas
“The money is easy. It's having an idea that you can execute on. There's tons of money. There's tons of rich guys that don't want to work. They just want to invest in somebody and make a good return.”
Perkins: Educated founders face ego risk, not financial risk
“And so I say to most people at this level of education and intelligence, like, there's no financial risk, there's only ego risk.”
Perkins: People love watching failure to validate their own cowardice
“And the reason why people love a failure is not that they're evil, but it validates their own cowardice, right? They had dreams too that they didn't go pursue.”
Perkins: The ability to convert capital into experiences declines with age
“The, your ability to convert your capital into meaningful experiences or useful experiences declines as you age. Your lung capacity goes down. Your muscle mass goes down. Your fragility goes up. Your, even your attitude. You're like, I don't like that anymore.”
Bill Perkins: Delusional ambition is a requirement to enter the arena
“I generally am the most delusional of my friends. And I think that's a requirement, you know, that, that puts you in the arena. Doesn't mean you're gonna succeed, doesn't mean you're gonna, you know, swim upstream it just means you're in the arena, and you're …”
Perkins: Couples Need a Relationship Coach to Build a Great Marriage
“I tell all my friends, I'm like, you should have a relationship coach. I don't care how good your relationship is, you should have a coach.”
Perkins: I pay at the top of the market to retain talent
“I'm like, what is the market? And then I pay at the top of the market. You know? Golden handcuff them.”
Perkins: Founders destroy value by tinkering with low-level operational tasks
“It's great to pop in, and tinker, et cetera, and you feel useful, and you're learning, but realize that there's the other you, let's call it you prime, that's not doing the big thing that it's meant to do, and you're actually destroying value every time you do…”
Perkins: Directing tasks instead of outcomes treats employees like children
“If you're telling somebody what to do instead of what you want,
Then you don't have an employee, like, you have a child.”
Perkins: High Performers Have an Obligation to Stakeholders to Delegate Low-Value Work
“And so I have an obligation to others to effectively allocate my time to my goals, to my ambitions.”
Perkins: John Arnold is the greatest commodities trader since rice markets
“Actually, my friend John Arnold, he was the most successful commodities trader since the rice trading markets, called in rich and wanted to do philanthropy, and he wanted to have, like, analytical, impactful philanthropy”
Perkins: Solitude Drives Maximum Impact for Knowledge Workers
“As a knowledge worker even though I'm interacting through devices to communicate with people, it's generally me in solitude having the most impact, you know?”
Perkins: Manage autonomous operators like 'fire and forget missiles'
“Like, I'm always trying to find fire and forget missiles. Like, I just want to, that's where I want to go. I want to hit that target. Shoot it up in the air, and they boom, and they hit the target. I don't have to tell them, I tell them what I want, Not how to…”
Perkins: Buy luxury assets to share experiences with friends
“His saying is, is we buy stuff to give it away. And it's true. Like, I didn't buy this boat so I could be on this boat by myself. I bought this boat to share memories with my friends. I didn't buy this property to just sit out here like Little Lord Farm or in …”
Perkins: Relationships Fail from a Thousand Small Cuts, Not Singular Incidents
“I think that relationships die from a thousand cuts, not like this big thing. You know what I mean? Like, even relationships that they have, oh, they cheated on me or whatever, it's like probably the thousand cuts that's created the environment for the infidel…”
Perkins: I lost $10M on a failed El Salvador LNG project
“I lost ten million dollars doing that. You know, when I, when it was, when ten million dollars was like a significant portion of my net worth.”
Perkins: Sold Nevada solar project to Capital Dynamics for $180M
“I sold it to Capital Dynamics for like a hundred and eighty million dollars, right, and spent like 20, 30, 40,000,030 million dollars of mine and my friend's money developing it.”