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Carol Shields
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
I can remember a moment of illumination, and it was when I was writing a series of poems. I was 29. I remember exactly because I wanted to enter them into a competition, and the competition was only open to people under 30. So I was right at the deadline of this. I did what I have never done before. At the end of each poem, I asked myself, "Is this what I really mean?" and it was the first time I felt I took myself seriously. I was not thinking of that reader, what that reader would -- what the expectations of that reader -- and I think we can never think about that. That's like thinking about market. We have to say -- and I put that question to myself very sternly, and it often resulted in the rewriting of the poem to make sure I said what I really meant. Now this is a piece of wisdom you would think I would have absorbed at once, but in fact, it seems I'm one of these people who has to learn the same thing over and over again. So there have been many times in my writing life where I've had to remember that.
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Donna Shirley
Mars Exploration Program
I signed up for 19 hours. The normal load was 15, but I wanted to take flying. And so, I signed up for this flying class, in addition to a fairly heavy course load. And plus, I'm good at taking multiple choice tests, which was the entrance exam for school. And so, they put me in advanced chemistry and calculus and all these advanced classes, and I was woefully unprepared for them. So, with the heavy course load, flying took a lot of time. So, I really didn't do very well for at least the first eight weeks. And in fact, I was flunking and my parents came up and, oh my gosh, you know, "Can we get you a tutor? What can we do?" So I went home over Christmas and just studied the whole time, and pulled out a B average that semester. But it was pretty hairy.
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Donna Shirley
Mars Exploration Program
The best teacher I had was my high school senior English teacher, who really taught us to love literature and be good at writing and things. Which came in very handy, because a lot of engineers can't communicate, and that was one of the things that helped me become a good communicator was taking this inspiring English class. And then in college I took Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and a few things like that, which was fairly unusual for engineers. So, having some sort of literary background turned out to be really helpful.
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Carlos Slim
Financier and Philanthropist
When you love life, you want to know more about life. I think engineering is important to give you the tools. And in business, to analyze, it's important to simplify, to have the essential points, the essential issues, the fundamentals, the basics, and take out everything that is secondary, to have less variables to study or to look at. Because when you have a lot of variables, and you don't make a distinction between the ones that are essential and the secondary ones and parameters, you have confusion. I will say that engineering is important, but also when I was finishing my (academic) career, I make my thesis about linear programming. That's operational research. That's to optimize functions, optimize results of things, and the study of models that take you to the optimization of the solutions.
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Carlos Slim
Financier and Philanthropist
Carlos Slim: When you make the evaluation of things, when you look at these kinds of investments, it is very important. I think maybe it is more important than engineering to understand the economy, the macro economy. The macro economy is very important, to know the national accounts, what means fiscal deficit, what means trade deficit or trade superávit (surplus), what means each item, but not only quantitative, but also qualitative. I think economy is very important, to know the basics of economy. To understand what is happening, you need to understand economy. You need to understand the financial statements of the companies, the sectors, and to have world references.
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Carlos Slim
Financier and Philanthropist
I learned many things when I was very young, maybe 12 or 13 years old. Then I learned how to understand a balance sheet. I didn't learn that in school. When you look at a balance sheet, there is a lot of information. Not only a balance sheet, but also an estado de resultados. That is a report, financial statement in general. I think finances -- to invest, there are some principles that are very clear, but very easy. You invest with basic conditions. You invest when you have confidence in the management, in the sector -- you like the sector -- and the value of the prices are not high, or are low, low value. Buying intrinsic values in good companies, in good markets and in good sectors. No? I think these kind of things are basics and are not complicated.
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