William's Updates

"Good God ! The 1987 tell-all book overflows with complex business deals in Trump’s sledge-hammer style. Salted with hyperbole, Trump spills the beans on entering a privileged, difficult world he himself was new to in the 70’s. Skating rinks, railroads, luxe buildings, television, football… Trump’s calculated risks are so vast, learning from his hits/misses is as rewarding as it is emotionally rattling. Make no mistake: this is one sharp, gutsy guy. Also, circa 30% of the book concerns financial contracts and legalities, so prepare to parse thru some more nuanced fiscal landscapes.

TIDBITS :
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“I tend not to give up on something I started.”

“I also earn more than $10 million in commissions as a sales agent from apartments in Trump Tower."

“When you set the highest possible standards, they’re expected to maintain.”

“A friend of mine is a highly successful and well known painter … A few months back he invited me to come to his studio. We were standing around talking when all of a sudden he said to me, 'You wanna see me earn $25,000 before lunch?' Sure, I said, having no idea what he meant. He picked up a large open bucket of paint, and splashed some on a piece of canvas… When he was done, he turned to me and said 'Well, that’s it. I’ve just earned $25,000. Let’s go to lunch.' He was smiling, but he was also absolutely serious. His point was that plenty of collectors wouldn’t know the difference between his two-minute art and the paintings he really cares about. They were just interested in buying his name. I've always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.”

“My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing to get what I’m after.”

“Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself. If you can plan for the worst, if you can live for the worst, the good will always take care of itself.”

“Maximize your options.”

“Use your leverage. The worst thing you could possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood and then your dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having what the other guy wants, or better yet needs, or best of all simply can't do without.”

“Perhaps the most misunderstood concept in all of real estate is that the key to success is ‘Location, location, location’. Usually that’s said by people who don't know what they're talking about.”

“What you should never do is pay too much, even if that means walking away…”

“I play to people’s vanity.”

“After he lost the election to Ronald Reagan, Carter came to see me in my office. He told me he was seeking contributions to the Jimmy Carter Library. I asked how much he had in mind, and he said “Donald, I would be very appreciative if you contributed $50 million."…. Until then I had never understood how Jimmy Carter became president… Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected...”

“I don't kid myself. Life is very fragile, and success makes it more fragile. Anything can change without warning.”

“Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what I should have done differently, or what’s going to happen next. If you ask me what the deal is going to add up to, I don't think I have a very good answer, except that I had a very good time.”

“I learned from my father that every penny counts because before too long, pennies turn into dollars.”

“You can’t be scared. You do your thing, you hold your ground, you stand up tall, and whatever happens, happens.”

“My father had done very well for himself, but he didn’t believe in giving his children huge trust funds. When I graduated from college, I had a net worth of perhaps $200K, and most of it was tied up in buildings in Brooklyn and Queens.”

“I don’t drink, and I’m not very big on sitting around… I remember wondering if every successful person in Manhattan was a big drinker. I figured if that was the case, I was going to have a big advantage.”

“If you’re going to make a deal of any significance, you have to go to the top… Everyone underneath the top guy is just an employee. An employee isn’t going to fight for your deal… he’s fighting for his salary increase… the last thing he wants to do is upset his boss. So he’ll present your case with no real opinion.”

“I was relentless.”

“Skyscrapers are machines for making money.” - Arthur Drexler

“…Which he said translated into a 20-story building with 10,000 square feet of usable space per floor. Immediately I told him to transform it to a 40-story building with 5,000 square feet per floor."

“I leased 50,000 square feet … for an annual rent of $3 million, plus a percentage of their profits… My carrying costs were approximately $2.5 million a year. In other words I was paying out $2.5 million to own the site, and getting $3 million back… a profit of $500,000 a year, and owned the land for nothing, all guaranteed, before I even began construction.”

“I’ve hired a lot of women for top jobs, and they’ve been among my best people. Often, in fact, they are far more effective than the men around them.”

“When we went to the quarry, we discovered that much of the marble contained large white spots… That was jarring to me… So we ended up going to the quarry with black tape, and marking off the slabs that were the best. The rest we just scrapped, maybe 50% of the total. By the time we were finished, we had taken the whole top of the mountain…”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the rich, it’s that they have a very low threshold for even the most mildest discomfort.”

“The cycles of buyers at Trump Tower became something of a barometer of what was going on in the international economy. At first the big buyers were the Arabs, when oil prices were going through the roof… After the Europeans, we got the South Americans and the Mexicans…”

“I have a very simple rule when it comes to management. Hire the best people from your competitors. Pay them more than what they were earning…That’s how you build a first class operation.”

BONUS : NO-HOLDS-BARRED BEAN-SPILL :
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“Unfortunately, rent control is a disaster for all but the privileged minority who are protected by it."

"Mia Farrow, for example, has ten rooms overlooking the park. She pays about $2,000 a month for an apartment that might rent for upward of $10,000 a month on the open market."

"William vanden Heuvel, a very prominent attorney who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Jimmy Carter, pays less than $650 a month for his six-room apartment in a terrific building on E. 72nd Street."

"Suzanne Farrell of the New York City Ballet has a fourteen-room duplex near Lincoln Center, for which she pays under $1,000 a month."

"Alistair Cooke, the TV personality, pays about $1,100 for an eight-room apartment on Fifth Avenue."

"Fashion designer Arnold Scaasi, for example, has a six-room duplex facing the park, for which he is paying $985 a month."

"The most notorious example of all may be Ed Koch… He pays $350 a month… The worst thing, though, is that Koch doesn’t even live in his rent-controlled apartment. He lives in Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor."

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