Being ruthless in business

I don't think you have to be ruthless to be successful in business because it really depends what business you're in. If your job is a litigation lawyer or a family lawyer, yeah, you have to be pretty ruthless. That's not a fun kind of environment to work in. But if you're a stock trader, it's just really a timing issue. You're dealing in computers; you're not dealing with other people.

So the question is: are you ruthless because you're mean to people or you're difficult to deal with or negotiate with? Because some people are very successful where they're just building a business and they don't even have to deal with people. So it's not ruthless; it's just hunger. It's being driven and really just finding a target and going after it, not letting any negative things that happen stop you from hitting your target.

I don't think I'm ruthless with the people in my office. I think we're ruthless in strategizing and how to negotiate certain points in a contract in trying to maximize the value for the customer we're representing. Whether we're representing the buyer of an airplane, we're being ruthless trying to get the price down as low as possible. If we're representing a seller, we're trying to keep the...