In pg 4 of Principles of Corporate finance (Allen et al, 2017), in the context of explaining financing decisions are less important that investment decisions, there is a line that says:
"Financial managers say that 'value comes mainly from the asset side of the balance sheet'"
What does this mean? Why asset side? Why not shareholders equity on balance sheet? The text did use an example of Microsoft, where they point out that successful companies finance R&D by reinvesting existing cashflow.