Ross Perot may not have usurped Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election in the US, but the Texan billionaire is in no doubt about the key to success.

The trick is to find people with a penchant for winning, he says, but this is not always an easy task.

At a conference in Dublin last week he recounted a conversation with a worried manager.

"Ross, what'll we do if we can't find enough people who love to win?" Reply: "Well if you can't find two people who love winning, get me two who hate to lose. But don't get me anyone in neutral."

Perot does not believe e-commerce spells the end of shopping as we know it. "I have four daughters and a wife and I have every confidence they'd still want to go to the store."

As for money, Perot has never been short of a few million dollars, but he maintains a healthy, some would say odd, disregard for wealth: "I started with nothing and myself and my wife have always used money as a scarce resource. Money is like a narcotic. It deadens the brain, wits and creativity of people."

He says he got his first business break when an IBM executive spotted a young Perot working on a US Navy aircraft carrier.

"I looked pretty impressive because he didn't know how to do it [work a gunfire control system]." Then and there, the IBM man offered Perot a job. The reply was simple: "Now I've been working since I was six and no-one's ever come to me with a job. I don't even know what you do, but I'd sure like to work for you." The rest, as they say, is money.