Costco

“Costco, I think, makes about 20% return on equity, which is actually quite healthy if you look at, ah, interest rates over this part of the world, and it has, ah, a pat margin of less than two percent, so it has very high capital turns, ah, and it can do that …”

“And when you combine that with the fact that customers are funding a lot of that business because they pay upfront a fee to get a privilege of shopping with you, and that gives you float, which I think is another aspect of a wonderful business.”

“So it's a flywheel where if you sell people products at cost, it's very hard for people who are trying to make a profit to beat you. But if you can make all your money on the memberships, just selling more and more memberships for the ability to buy it costs, …”

“We killed the initiative. We walked away from millions, millions in EBITDA. It was devastating for the company and the budget, but it was the only option to preserve the relationship with my franchisees”

“Costco closed at 41, had been come down from 45. It was a momentum growth Stock darling. They reported a bad quarter that stock opened at 27. And we amazingly bought seventeen million shares that day. It was one of the great trades my whole career. And you cou…”

“Costco would have a unique packaging configuration, which was not really comparable to anything out there in the marketplace, and why that was important for Costco.”

“They cap their markup at 14 to 15% when they could charge more.”

“Price Club sold a hot dog and soda for a dollar 50 in 1976. Today, nearly 50 years later, Costco still charges a dollar 50. They lose money on every single one.”

“He used to say, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job.”