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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

but he had bought it higher up and was outraged that it had gone down. So-called investors didn't buy it because they knew anything about Random House. They bought it as speculators. That's the way most amateurs play the market.

Today people are buying stocks when they don't even know what the companies make, but somebody's given them “hot” tips on the market. Those are the fellows that get wiped out inevitably sooner or later. It's like gambling in Las Vegas. I have an account downtown that I call my “Las Vegas account.” I just buy these crazy stocks without investigating them and have fun. That is, when they're going up I have fun. So long as you can put aside a certain amount of your money purely for speculating, it's like going to gamble in Las Vegas or playing poker. Some people gamble on horses or roulette. I like to gamble with stocks.

Q:

Did this change at all the policy? You were accountable to some stock holders.

Cerf:

The minute that we became members of the stock exchange, we were subject to strict rules and regulations. You've got to give reports quarterly. You've got to get out statements. Suddenly this loosely run business that we had run to please ourselves (a) was getting bigger and bigger every day because we were very successful and (b) was under stock exchange regulations. That meant getting business machines, computers, and new people who understood this sort of thing.





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