You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.
It doesn’t do Costco any good if nobody can afford to buy anything.
You just can’t get too focused on worrying about what’s going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.
If we take care of the business and keep our eye on the goal line, the stock price will take care of itself.
I say at our management conferences that the amount Wal-Mart grows in just one year is the equivalent of Costco’s size.
We’ve always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco.
You don’t have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that.
In the final analysis, you get what you pay for.
Paying good wages is not in opposition to good productivity.
Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company. The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.
Technology helps us become more efficient and productive but our business still has a lot of art as opposed to strictly science.
I think that most of the people running companies today are motivated and pay is a small portion of the motivation.
If you’ve got to work for the rest of your life, you’d better do something you’ll enjoy.
It’s like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.
Our attitude is that if you hire good people and pay them a fair wage, then good things will happen for the company.
You could raise the price of, say, a bottle of ketchup to $1.03 instead of $1, and no one would know. Raising prices just 3% per product would add 50% to your pretax income. Why not do it? It’s like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.
There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts? That’s true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam’s Club next door.
When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen.
You take an educated gamble. If you don’t occasionally make a mistake, you’re not doing your job.
Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company.