Are You Playing to Play, or Playing to Win?

In my eyes, Malone is an almost perfect example of a non-scrub — a person who saw into the game of business, and played the actual game, not some made-up, more difficult version of the game. Malone’s insight was that he could load TCI up with debt (at a disciplined five-to-one earnings ratio), and then use the interest payments and cable equipment depreciation as a tax shield for TCI’s utility-like, monopoly cash flows. He then used that debt to expand aggressively, gaining scale advantages, until TCI became the largest cable company in the US, owning interests in various cable programming and tech ventures along the way.

https://commoncog.com/blog/playing-to-play-playing-to-win/