"I think I pick more winners than losers"
About this Quote
The line is pure boardroom self-mythology: breezy, confident, and carefully noncommittal. "I think" softens the claim just enough to sound reasonable rather than grandiose, while still letting the speaker occupy the posture of a natural winner. It is the rhetoric of the dealmaker, not the accountant: a vibe statement that invites you to trust the operator's instincts without asking for the spreadsheet.
"I pick" is doing heavy lifting. It frames success as personal judgment, not as luck, timing, inherited advantage, regulatory winds, or the labor of thousands. The phrase turns complex, often structural outcomes into a simple narrative of taste and talent. That is exactly how reputations get built in business culture: by attaching results to a single chooser, then calling the chooser "visionary."
"More winners than losers" is a gambler's metric, not a moral one. It implies that losses are expected, even healthy, as long as the ratio stays flattering. It also quietly normalizes collateral damage. In the corporate world, "losers" can mean failed ventures; it can also mean suppliers squeezed, pensions raided, towns hollowed out, employees made redundant. The ambiguity is convenient. It keeps the conversation on outcomes and away from costs.
The context around Philip Green makes the line sharper. When a businessman with high-profile successes also becomes associated with spectacular blowback, this sort of statement reads less like modest confidence and more like preemptive reputation management: a way to insist the scorecard still leans his way, even if the public is now auditing what counts as a "winner."
"I pick" is doing heavy lifting. It frames success as personal judgment, not as luck, timing, inherited advantage, regulatory winds, or the labor of thousands. The phrase turns complex, often structural outcomes into a simple narrative of taste and talent. That is exactly how reputations get built in business culture: by attaching results to a single chooser, then calling the chooser "visionary."
"More winners than losers" is a gambler's metric, not a moral one. It implies that losses are expected, even healthy, as long as the ratio stays flattering. It also quietly normalizes collateral damage. In the corporate world, "losers" can mean failed ventures; it can also mean suppliers squeezed, pensions raided, towns hollowed out, employees made redundant. The ambiguity is convenient. It keeps the conversation on outcomes and away from costs.
The context around Philip Green makes the line sharper. When a businessman with high-profile successes also becomes associated with spectacular blowback, this sort of statement reads less like modest confidence and more like preemptive reputation management: a way to insist the scorecard still leans his way, even if the public is now auditing what counts as a "winner."
Quote Details
| Topic | Confidence |
|---|
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