Carlos Slim
Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.Collection: Business
The artistic part of us all - I think that the easiest way to appreciate this - is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.Collection: Architecture
At 25, I made many companies. I was thinking more like a businessman or entrepreneur than a CEO. I created many companies, small companies, medium companies. I tried to be involved in many kinds of activities, in finance, in real estate, in mining.Collection: Finance
How can you be on top of the things you do? I think when you are involved in a business, first of all you need to know the business. After that you know the business, you can - the numbers tell you what is happening. You can read with the numbers.Collection: Business
If Wal-Mart invests a billion dollars and others invest $100 million, Wal-Mart is going to grow more.
You don't need to raise taxes on rich people, because they create capitalization and investment. But you need to tax speculation - meaning capital gains.
Any personal crisis - you have to use it to get stronger.
It's important to give a better country to your children, but it is more important to give better children to your country.
The year 1983 was crazy. People wanted to sell not only their investments... but also their companies.
My parents weren't artistic, but I was always surrounded by beautiful things. And Mexico is a country which has experienced thousands of years of art and culture.
I think that anything that has privileges have responsibility and all people that is clear about their responsibility has compromise.
The biggest things in life are not materials.
I love baseball. And American Football, too. But not rugby.
I studied engineering in the national university, the Universidad Autonoma, in San Ildefonso.
In high school, I loved history. I also loved cosmography, algebra. Mexico is so rich in culture and history, and I have always enjoyed that.
Well, when I was very young, maybe 12 years, I began to make investments.
No, my father passed away when I was 13 years old. I was very young.
My mother born in Mexico, but was Lebanese in origin. She born 1902 the same year my father arrived to Mexico when he was 14 years old.
You cannot make thousands of universities or hundreds of thousands of professors, but with technology and the Internet you can have great courses and make a digital university.
If you are in business, you are not enjoying. You are working.
You should have more time for you during all of your life - not when you're 65 and retired.
It's a society of knowledge and experience. You have better experience and knowledge when you are 60, 65 and 70.
Low interest rates are a big opportunity for investment. But the issue is that this money should go to the real economy, not the financial economy.
I studied engineering in the national university, the Universidad Autonoma, in San Ildefonso. There is art everywhere, murals on the walls. It's beautiful.
We don't take anything when we pass away, and we need to do with the sense of responsibility.
When I was very young, maybe 12 years, I began to make investments.
First I opened a check account. I looked at the - I looked that there was nothing of yield. So I bought some bonds. It was a bond. When I bought this bond, it was duplicated in 10 years. I think it was 10 percent.
Our philosophy is you need to give nonprofit money for health, nutrition, education, culture, and sports.
You need to support human development and human capital as much as possible. And we've had 25 years of programs, great programs. We supported 125,000 surgeries. We fund 15,000 scholarships every year for college and higher education. We gave bicycles for rural areas. We gave laptops.
I buy companies for strategic reasons and operate them.
We really think highly of the executives at SBC. And Microsoft is one of the great companies of the 21st century. It is in all of our best interests to work together. In this new wave of technology, you can't do it all yourself; you have to form alliances.
We think that in Mexico, online trading of shares and financial instruments is not going to be as important as it is in the U.S. On days that there is a banking holiday in the U.S., you hardly see any movement here on the stock exchange.
I've always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it's important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective.
You want to have a toy and another toy, and that's not maturity. The biggest things in life are not materials.
I don't have business with any politicians.
There are people who are good for letters and others that are good for numbers.
CompUSA was a bad decision. We stayed too much with CompUSA, and we stayed too short with Apple.
When we face our problems, they disappear. So learn from failure and let success be the silent incentive.Collection: Incentives
Competition makes you better, always, always makes you better, even if the competitor wins.Collection: Inspirational
Most people try to make a better world for our children when what they should be doing is making better children for our world.Collection: Children
Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny.Collection: Past
Do not allow negative feelings and emotions to control your mind. Emotional harm does not come from others; it is conceived and developed within ourselves.Collection: Emotional
Mistakes are normal and human. Make them small, accept them, correct them, and forget them.Collection: Mistake
Anyone who is not investing now is missing a tremendous opportunity.Collection: Opportunity
Money is not a goal. The goal is to make companies grow, develop, be competitive, be in different areas, be efficient to have a great human team inside the company.Collection: Team
All businesses make mistakes. The trick is to avoid large ones.Collection: Mistake
Firm and patient optimism always yields its rewards.Collection: Yield
Focus on essentials and try not to get distracted and bogged down by things that don't add value to the bottom line.Collection: Focus
All times are good time for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so.Collection: Tools
When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered.Collection: Thinking