Quotes by Nicolas Berggruen

About Nicolas Berggruen:

Nicolas Berggruen is a philanthropist and investor. A dual American and German citizen, he is the founder and president of Berggruen Holdings, a private investment company and the Berggruen Institute, a think tank that works on addressing governance issues. Through the Berggruen Institute he is also a co-founder with the Huffington Post of The WorldPost, a media publication dedicated to global issues. His father created the Museum Berggruen in Berlin. The press has sometimes referred to Berggruen as "the homeless billionaire" because he lives in hotels and does not own a home.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In my teens I was interested in photography. Then I decided that I should learn something about the world of commerce. And I came to America at age 17 to escape Europe. I went to NYU - nothing better than being 17 years old and coming to New York.

Nicolas Berggruen

I don't mind staying in one place for a while - I like to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles. It's a place where nobody goes out, where people will leave you alone. People in Los Angeles love themselves and they love what they do and they leave you a...

Nicolas Berggruen

Think of everything in Seattle - Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks. Then you go down to Silicon Valley - Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter. What does New York produce?

Nicolas Berggruen

At the end, the key thing is you've got to live with yourself. That's the real test. Everything else is fleeting.

Nicolas Berggruen

I felt I was owned by possessions.

Nicolas Berggruen

Luckily the whole world is not like me, or else, there would be no world.

Nicolas Berggruen

Brunch is boring, but that's part of the charm of it.

Nicolas Berggruen

Singapore has been incredibly well-managed. It was created out of the swamp, with a strong emotional idea: a safe place for mostly Chinese, but accepting other cultures and other races.

Nicolas Berggruen

Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It's institutional building. It can survive any environment, in theory.

Nicolas Berggruen

Possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal.

Nicolas Berggruen

I can drive. Let's just say you don't want to be in the passenger seat.

Nicolas Berggruen

If you erased New York, I hate to say it, if you erased Frankfurt, even London, the world would not have changed.

Nicolas Berggruen

I was living in Paris, which is a very beautiful, very wonderful place, but a tight place as a city, a tight place culturally. Its people are very brilliant, thoughtful, the place functions, but it's a historical place in some ways, like a big museum...

Nicolas Berggruen

If you have things and if you are a perfectionist, which I am, you have to really tend to them, and it takes energy away from other things.

Nicolas Berggruen

This is a bit like big-game hunting. You look for companies of a certain size that deserve to be public.

Nicolas Berggruen

I understand the human instinct to want to create a nest and possess things, to show them off, but for me personally, it became less and less interesting.

Nicolas Berggruen

Everything I do now is about growing the pot to have more to give away.

Nicolas Berggruen

I don't get that much enjoyment out of saying 'I own it.'

Nicolas Berggruen

Most countries in Africa have the capacity to be great agricultural producers, but they do only subsistence production. So a family will produce for themselves and nothing more. Why? Because of the systems: The markets are not there to go beyond.

Nicolas Berggruen

Other people might have family - three kids or five houses. In my case, that doesn't exist. I'm going to give everything away. Everything has been transferred to charitable trusts. There is no question about that. The question is where, not if.

Nicolas Berggruen

Author Bio

  • NameNicolas Berggruen
  • DescriptionBusinessperson, billionaire
  • BornAugust 10, 1961
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Germany
  • ProfessionReal Estate Broker