Some emerging markets will check all the boxes — strong population growth, growing middle class, verge of investment grade, great leadership, and hun… - Sam Zell

Some emerging markets will check all the boxes — strong population growth, growing middle class, verge of investment grade, great leadership, and hunger for capital — and then be missing the one ingredient that enables you to monetize your investment: scale. Without scale, you don’t have liquidity. You have no optionality. In essence, you’re stuck.

Risk is the ultimate differentiator. I have always had a deep and complex relationship with it. I am not a reckless person, but taking risks is really the only way to consistently achieve above-average returns — in life as well as in investments. My father proved that when he left Poland. I am probably more comfortable with risk than most people. That’s because I do as much as I can to understand it. To me, risk-taking rests on the ability to see all the variables and then identify the ones that will make or break you.

I started negotiating the deal, which was complex beyond belief. I was creating structures and terms that had never been done before. I went to Jay and took him step-by-step through this incredibly complicated transaction. And damn it if he didn’t just look at me and say, “But, Sam, isn’t the real key to this whole thing just to rent the office space?” And sure enough, that’s what the whole transaction was predicated on. Jay’s level of intellectual rigor really appealed to me. And I immediately latched on to the understanding that I could cut right to the heart of something complex if I broke the problem into pieces. It was a matter of organizing my thinking. A discipline.

My point was that when it was all said and done, it didn’t matter how smart you were if you didn’t have staying power, if you weren’t able to hang on to your assets.