In the latter stage of his career he became a product of his time: deal-driven, acquisition-oriented and power-oriented. It forced him to do things that he wouldn't have done earlier in his career when he was picking up valuable merchandise at discount prices.

As value investors, we start with the fact that they are historically cheap and at all-time lows relative to the market, ... Secondly, we think there's an opportunity in the next year or two for the pricing cycle to improve. Thirdly, as the financial services deregulation bill makes its way through Congress, we think there's opportunity for some bank takeovers of insurance companies.

They became tv oriented, and tv became a medium where you did a whole lot more with a whole lot less, and you did it faster.

In the 1980s, things became much more commercially oriented.

When I started the business, I hardly went home. I became very driven about work and about my career.

I became used to it. At that time, you are 18 years old. You don't think it's real. I was just trying to stay out of the way. The whole time I was in high school, I had gotten used to people paying a lot of attention to Laurens sports. They put a lot of things on my plate.