Jay Cowan Quotes

“You don't have to drink this," I said, handing him the champagne. "But Sandy might like it"."No,no. Come on, let's have some," he grinned, popping the cork, taking a swig from the bottle and passing it back. He [HST] rarely failed to show his appreciation of someone appreciating him, which is an admirable trait.”

“There is nothing safer than flying - it's crashing that is dangerous.”

“If there was one thing Sam understood, it was guilt. It didn't have to be logical; oftentimes it wasn't. Itsawed at your gut relentlessly, tediously, until you wore it like a scar.”

“Cowan son of Branieucc, you're the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.”

“My heart is schizophrenic.”

“A good portfolio manager knows which companies to keep and which ones to let go. Many a GP has struggled with portfolio companies that cannot meet their value-creation milestones, or raise additional follow-on rounds of capital, or generate target returns in a time span of, say, five to seven years. The faster you recognize those losses, the better it is.”-“As David Cowan says, “Just focus on your top five—the rest is distraction.” The harder part of the investor's discipline is to know when to quit.”-“You have to constantly scan all of those things and be willing to adjust your own sense of what's a reasonable outcome and move the company into a position where it has the maximum chance to succeed. ”-“Time is your enemy: Portfolio companies always take twice as much capital and twice as long to exit. Early-stage companies rarely meet milestones as planned and always burn cash faster than anticipated.”

“Mystical insight and enlightenment occur when the veil between the worlds is lifted, the worlds are bridged, the gap closes, and we cross over.”

“Old soul." I laughed. "You're Thirty.""It's not the years, it's the experience," he paused.”

“Snoop Dogg is hilarious. T.I. is really funny. Who else? 50 Cent is hilarious. Jay-Z is funny. I've met him, but he's funny in interviews. He was funny when I saw him, too. Ludacris is funny. Everybody is. Rappers are funny, a lot of them.”

“Jay was attacked with peculiar venom. Near his New York home, the walls of a building were defaced with the gigantic words, 'Damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won’t damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won’t put up lights in the windows and sit up all night damning John Jay.”