Terry, he's very smart, and builds/maintains exceptional products.
You may not like his demeanor or style, but, you have to give the Devil his due, he's been very, very successful at almost every venture he's entered.
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Patrick,
Batting .350 gets you to the Hall of Fame in baseball and a 60% success rate is awfully good in business. That said, his bondholders just made a deal for 10 cents on the dollar for his casinos, his airline never made a profit (like most others) and his helicopter business is gone. We both know his bankruptcy advisor and again, he can afford a bankruptcy advisor, so you can make the argument that having one makes you a success in American business but I do have to add a little perspective to the phrase "almost every venture". Other than real estate and TV, I don't know of anything else that has worked, but those are two big ones.
I hope the golf courses work, but golf really is pretty simple in terms of numbers. He has done well in real estate, and the dirt alone at his golf investments will probably have real value someday even if the golf courses do not work.
I will always respect the fact that he basically bet his inheritance money from his father (his only real capital at the time other than his father's name) on the NY Hilton and he came up big. Bad timing back then could have easily made him just another New Yorker with a blond East European for an ex.
