Richard Kinder Quotes

101 Richard Kinder Quotes

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[In 2010] We started Kinder Morgan with 175 employees and we have 8,000 now.
Richard Kinder

People are happy to pass up good news but not very happy to pass up bad news. You hope that the person is smart enough and works hard enough that he or she also has solutions, but nevertheless, you want to know about that problem.
Richard Kinder

The worst thing in the world is for people to cover up the problem until it gets so big that they can’t cover it up anymore and then often it’s too late to address the problem. Watergate is a classic example. Watergate should have been a nothing, but the coverup is what got everybody into trouble.
Richard Kinder

On a weekly basis we’ve got the pulse of the company right out there in one meeting where everybody can hear.
Richard Kinder

You have to manage your time accordingly to how many meetings you have to schedule. And then you have to run those meetings as efficiently as possible.
Richard Kinder

[On what he has a particularly low tolerance for.] Failure to come forward with problems and ideas… and… if someone tries to take credit for something his people did. You need to make sure everybody gets credit.
Richard Kinder

[On judging his success on a yearly basis.] I usually have a pocket list of a very few things I want to make sure get accomplished. I think it’s a mistake to make the list too long because, frankly, you need to do things you can basically control or have input.
Richard Kinder

I can’t control the price of oil.
Richard Kinder

[On how he manages Kinder Morgan differently to when he was at Enron.] I think a little differently, but a lot of the things are similar. I ran the pipelines for Enron. I think a lot of the principles were the same. I think that once I was in charge of the enterprise, we probably paid an awful lot of attention to cost control at Kinder Morgan; some other companies may not have. You won’t see any ball parks named after us or corporate jets, and if you see somebody at a Rockets game or Astros game, they’re there on their own money … not on Kinder Morgan. We don’t pay for country club memberships. What we try to do is give people the feeling that everybody is in the same boat together.
Richard Kinder

What we try to do is give people the feeling that everybody is in the same boat together.
Richard Kinder



I don’t think anybody begrudges somebody who has created wealth for a lot of people and have made a lot of money for themselves. Good examples are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Michael Dell or Sam Walton, when he was alive. These are people who have created instruments that have spread wealth to a lot of employees and a lot of shareholders.
Richard Kinder

What people resent and I think is horrible is when performance is not necessary to get rewards. When you have a company that is doing poorly, but the CEO is still flying around in a corporate jet or the company goes bankrupt and thousands of employees lose their jobs and you find out in small print a year later that the CEO had a special package that guaranteed him $10 million even though the company went broke. That’s what people resent.
Richard Kinder

The culture we try to build at Kinder Morgan is that we’re all in here together. That’s why I work for $1 a year…
Richard Kinder

If you are really going to drive any kind of culture down through an organization, you have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
Richard Kinder

[In 2010] Today… I believe the biggest single challenge is managing large companies in this kind of governmental environment. It’s very difficult, we have tens of thousands of reports and filings and permits we have to file every year. If you think that sounds simple, it’s not.
Richard Kinder

[In 2010 on the biggest challenge for business.] Adapting to constantly changing regulations is the most significant single challenge.
Richard Kinder

We inherited about 175 employees when we bought Enron Liquids Pipelines. Enron was getting out of the assets business and we wanted to acquire assets.
Richard Kinder

I usually sleep 7½ hours. I’m always up no later than 6 a.m…
Richard Kinder

[On his favorite car] 1964 Porsche convertible.
Richard Kinder

I read an awful lot, but it’s mostly history and biography and other non-fiction. Most how-to business books have limited worth, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve learned an awful lot by reading a lot of biographies.
Richard Kinder



I’ve come to believe it’s not really all that important that you have a set career path… but I think the main thing is to find something you really love to do and do it.
Richard Kinder

[In May 2007] I am not perfect, nor is my management team or our employees. But we have worked very hard to be open and honest in building our company, which I believe is one of the finest energy companies in North America…
Richard Kinder

Actions speak louder than words.
Richard Kinder

Companies and private equity firms are economic beasts.
Richard Kinder

[In May 2007] Ours is an asset-based business, not a people-intensive business. While we like to think that we operate our assets well, we are not foolish enough to believe that the assets do not have value without us.
Richard Kinder

[On investing in realestate in the late 1970’s] Most of my real estate ventures were pretty successful. But I had guaranteed a note on the hotel, and when the bank called the note, I was personally liable.
Richard Kinder

[On keeping costs down in 1997] People thought we were curmudgeons or stick-in-the-muds. But we wanted to drive home one culture here. Cheap. Cheap. Cheap. We were tightwads.
Richard Kinder

We didn’t have the capital, we didn’t have the expertise, and frankly, we just didn’t want to be involved in trading.
Richard Kinder

I get $1 a year [in salary]. No bonus. No additional options. I own a significant stake in the company. If the distribution is raised, that’s good for me. My interests are aligned as much as possible with the shareholders.
Richard Kinder

[On leaving Enron] They offered me the chance to stay on but it was sort of like ‘been there, done that.’ I want to go somewhere where I can run my own show.
Richard Kinder



[In May 2006] As someone once said, ‘You’re for sale every day on the New York Stock Exchange.’
Richard Kinder

[In October 2005] We operate assets and they’re boring and that’s great.
Richard Kinder

[In October 2005] We try to pick that way, and if you can pick a few waves, you can do very well with them.
Richard Kinder

[In October 2005] As [Warren] Buffett said, you can undo 10 years of hard work with one stupendously dumb acquisition. We’re trying to avoid one stupendously dumb acquisition.
Richard Kinder

[In October 2005] We’re now, ironically, the second-largest producer of crude oil in the state of Texas.
Richard Kinder

[In 2000] As always acquisitions must meet our MLP criteria and be immediately accretive to cash available for distribution to unitholders.
Richard Kinder

[In 2002] Kinder Morgan is committed to keeping costs low.
Richard Kinder

[In 2002] Senior management pays great attention to detail, holding weekly reviews of our operational and financial performance for every asset.
Richard Kinder

[In 2002] We avoid businesses with direct commodity price exposure whenever possible. When there is exposure, we hedge to minimize the risk. We don’t have trading and marketing businesses.
Richard Kinder

[In 2003] I’m a big believer in tracking ‘promises made/promises kept’…
Richard Kinder



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