"Fair to say that some shareholders are going to hate that because they care more about next week's profit than anything else."
Seek reported another year of strong revenue growth - up 20 per cent - and said it would target revenue growth of 15 to 18 per cent in the next years. Those are pretty impressive numbers but investors wrote the stock down by 10 per cent because of concerns about short-term growth.
The jobs and education portal is a mature business in Australia so it has to look for growth overseas, particularly in Asia. Bassat argues there are opportunities there now that won't be available in the future.
"In the short term, our focus is to invest in exciting growth opportunities and execute on our strategic plans across our employment and education businesses," Bassat said, though it appears investors aren't listening.
"In the medium to long term, we expect the reinvestment to deliver strong returns to shareholders."
These aren't just words. Bassat has already proved he is a man with a long-term vision who knows how to turn it into a reality.
An online jobs site might not seem like such a big deal in 2015, but back in 1997 when he founded the company it was revolutionary.
The idea for Seek came when Bassat's brother, who is also a company founder, was hunting for a house. The pair realised how inefficient the existing classified advertising system was, and as they'd just started using the internet, they had an idea about how they could improve it.
The company is now the largest global online employment market place with annual revenue of more than A$850 million ($930.277 million). With operations in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, China, Brazil, Mexico, Bangladesh and Africa, Seek says its employment market places are exposed to about 2.6 billion people and more than 20 per cent of global GDP. It has also expanded into education, helping job seekers find suitable courses.
Bassat knows that building and growing a business takes time and money and those investors who stuck with him have multiplied their money many times over.
Australian needs more businesses like this, where executives have a long-term vision and can brush aside the criticism and pressure that comes when profits don't keep rising as they inevitably won't when a company focuses on growth instead of profits.
If we keep focusing on the short-term - selling when good companies report a profit dip or accepting takeover bids for the immediate gain - then we'll be left behind by nations where investors are more patient.
A lot of the problem is super fund managers, who seem unable to tolerate a bad quarter's results.
Ironically, most of these fund managers are investing to help Australians fund their retirements 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years hence, so it's perplexing that they are so worried about what takes place within the space of three months.
Bassat's stand against the short-term investors is a lead that will hopefully be followed by other chief executives.
The second week of the earnings season has not been kind to Australian investors.
The benchmark ASX-200 sharemarket index is down 8.5 per cent so far in August and is headed for its worst month since the global financial crisis. The market is now 13 per cent below its peak in April.
Company earnings reports aren't great, but they're not all that bad either. According to analysis by online broker CommSec revenue is up 3 per cent and earnings are flat.
These sorts of numbers shouldn't have come as a surprise. We've been told many times that growth is sluggish and there is little prospect of it picking up any time soon.
There are any number of excuses to sell in the current market - a looming rate rise in the United States, a slowdown in manufacturing and a sell-off across Asian markets.
But what's really happening here is a bit of a reality check for investors and fund managers. The market climbed more than 10 per cent between January and April, when there was no good reason for it to do so. The latest tepid earnings results show that and share prices have retreated to more realistic values.
