Placeholder Image

字幕表 動画を再生する

  • And now one of the most respected investors in America

  • is going to tell you about his secrets.

  • "Warren Buffett." It's the sound of money.

  • $9.2 billion... Billionaire investor Warren Buffett,

  • the second richest man in America.

  • He's estimated to be worth about $62 billion.

  • That makes him the richest man in the world.

  • ♪ ♪

  • You know, Buffett is not exactly what you might expect.

  • Even though he's in the money business,

  • he doesn't even own a calculator or a computer.

  • He takes the long view,

  • and it's made him billions, many billions.

  • Maybe you can beat the house,

  • but I don't think you can beat Warren Buffett.

  • Buffett filed his first tax return at 13 years old.

  • But he's no average billionaire, Tom.

  • No, he certainly isn't, Matt.

  • He's a $44 billion average Joe.

  • Warren Buffett has an approach

  • that doesn't make him very popular with his fellow billionaires.

  • Warren Buffett, the boy from Nebraska

  • who grew up to become the Wizard of Omaha.

  • What was it about him that allowed him to become

  • the richest man in the world? How did he do it?

  • ♪ ♪

  • 70 years ago, I was in high school.

  • Almost a third as long as the country has been around.

  • And when I was in high school,

  • I really only had two things on my mind...

  • girls and cars.

  • And-- and I wasn't doing very well with girls,

  • so we'll talk about cars.

  • But lets just imagine that when we finish,

  • I'm going to let each one of you pick out the car of your choice.

  • Sounds good, doesn't it?

  • Pick it out, any color, you name it,

  • it'll be tied up with a bow, and it'll be at your house tomorrow.

  • And you say, "Well, what's the catch?"

  • And the catch is...

  • that it's the only car you're going to get in your lifetime.

  • Now what are you going to do, knowing that that's the only car

  • you're ever going to have and you love that car?

  • You're going to take care of it like you cannot believe.

  • Now what I'd like to suggest

  • is that you're not going to get only one car in your lifetime,

  • but you're gonna get one body and one mind,

  • and that's all you're going to get.

  • And that body and mind feels terrific now,

  • but it has to last you a lifetime.

  • I'm on the way to the office.

  • It's all of a five-minute drive.

  • Been doing it...

  • for 54 years.

  • One of the good things about this five-minute drive

  • is that on the way there's a McDonald's, so I'll pick up something.

  • Good morning, thank you for choosing McDonald's.

  • Go ahead and order whenever you're ready.

  • I'll have a Sausage McMuffin with egg and cheese.

  • Anything else? That's it, thank you.

  • Yeah, and I tell my wife as I shave in the morning,

  • I say either $2.61, $2.95, or $3.17,

  • and she puts that amount in a little cup by me here

  • and that determines which of three breakfasts I get.

  • Hi. 2.95. Okay, 2.95.

  • There's the two. How you doing, sir!

  • Hey, great! You're on "Candid Camera"!

  • I see. Hello, everybody!

  • When I'm not feeling quite so prosperous,

  • I might go with a 2.61, which is two sausage patties,

  • and then I put 'em together and pour myself a Coke.

  • Hi, how are you? Hi. I've been good.

  • 3.17 is a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit,

  • but the market's down this morning,

  • so I think I'll pass up the 3.17 and go with the 2.95.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I like numbers.

  • It started before I could remember.

  • It just felt good, working with numbers.

  • I was always playing around with numbers in one-way or another.

  • And it was fun to have a bunch of guys over

  • and have them betting on which marble would reach the drain first.

  • I had a lot of energy as a kid.

  • I-- I was inquisitive, and I was the youngest one

  • always in the class, 'cause I'd skip.

  • I've always been competitive.

  • I liked to read more than most kids.

  • I really like to read a lot.

  • My Aunt Edie gave me a copy of "The World Almanac"

  • and that was heaven to me.

  • And I can still tell you that Omaha's population was 214,006 in 1930.

  • Some numbers just kind of stick with you.

  • And very early, probably when I was seven or so,

  • I took this book out of the Benson Library

  • called "A Thousand Ways to Make a $1,000."

  • And one of the ways in this book

  • was having penny weighing machines.

  • And I sat and calculated how much it would cost

  • to buy the first weighing machine,

  • and then how long it would take for the profit

  • from that one to buy another one, and I would sit there

  • and create these compound interest tables

  • to figure out how long it would take me to have

  • a weighing machine for every person in the world.

  • I had everybody in the country weighing themselves ten times a day,

  • and me just sitting there like John D. Rockefeller of weighing machines.

  • The allowance when I was a little boy was a nickel a week,

  • but I liked the idea of having a little more than a nickel a week to work with,

  • and I went into business very early.

  • I started selling Coca-Cola door to door.

  • I sold gum door to door.

  • I sold "Saturday Evening Post,"

  • "Liberty" magazine, "Ladies Home Journal," you name it.

  • I think I enjoyed the game almost right from the start.

  • But I like being my own boss.

  • That's one thing I liked about delivering papers.

  • I could arrange the route I wanted.

  • Nobody was bothering me at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning.

  • I was delivering 500 papers a day,

  • and I made a penny a paper, but in terms of compounding,

  • that penny's turned into something else.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Einstein is reputed to have said that "Compound interest

  • is the eighth wonder of the world" or something like that,

  • and it goes back to that story you probably learned when you were in grade school

  • where somebody did something for the king,

  • and the king said, "What can I do for you?"

  • And he said, "Well, lets take a chessboard

  • "and put one kernel of wheat on the first square

  • "and then double it on the second

  • and double it on the third."

  • And the king readily agreed to it, and by the time he figured out

  • what two to the 64th amounted to,

  • he was giving away the entire kingdom.

  • So it's a pretty simple concept, but over time,

  • it accomplishes extraordinary things.

  • Berkshire is an amazing company.

  • Fourth largest company in the "Fortune" 500.

  • He is the only person who has ever, from scratch,

  • built a company that is in the top 10 of the Fortune 500.

  • Berkshire Hathaway. Fine, thank you.

  • Well, Berkshire is a holding company of sorts.

  • It owns a large number of separate businesses

  • that operate independently of each other

  • and, to a great extent, from the parent company, Berkshire Hathaway.

  • All right, well, we're going to get more from you in a second.

  • So we have maybe 70, maybe 80 businesses,

  • and we ask them to behave in a way

  • that doesn't hurt our reputation

  • at Berkshire Hathaway, but they run their own lives.

  • Other people do most of the decorating in the office, so various things come in.

  • Originally, when I moved in in 1962...

  • you can see this--

  • I went down to the South Omaha Library,

  • and I think for a dollar, I got seven copies

  • of old "New York Times"

  • from big times like the Panic of 1907.

  • This is one-- 1929 obviously.

  • But I wanted to put on the walls

  • days of extreme panic in Wall Street,

  • just as a reminder that anything can happen in this world.

  • I mean it--

  • it's instructive art you can call it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I was born in 1930 here in Omaha, Nebraska,

  • during the stock market crash.

  • My dad lost his job in 1931, a year after I was born.

  • He was a stock salesman,

  • and he had what little savings he had in the bank,

  • and so he started his own company.

  • He worked right through the depression.

  • ♪ ♪

  • He had an investment company,

  • and as an adult when I looked back,

  • I thought, "Wow, did that ever take a lot of nerve."

  • Sometimes we'd go down there on Sunday,

  • and we could play with the adding machine.

  • My brother and I tended to play the games together.

  • And I remember at one point he said to me,

  • "I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm... 30," or something like that.

  • It was totally outside of anything my family had experienced,

  • but he just was unusual that way.

  • Well, I was the oldest,

  • and then my brother and then my sister.

  • And my father would go to New York periodically

  • to check on businesses, stocks, and things like that,

  • and he'd come back, he'd always have a costume

  • for each of us, and Warren loved it.

  • He was very good-natured. He was quiet.

  • It was hard to tell he was a genius at that point,

  • but I mean, who was looking?

  • The first books I read on investment

  • were actually in my dad's office.

  • Pretty soon, I read all the books in the office

  • and read some of them more than once.

  • My dad had various nicknames for me.

  • He'd call me "Fireball" sometimes,

  • because I'd start little businesses.

  • He didn't care about money at all.

  • He believed very much in having an inner scorecard

  • and never worry about what other people are thinking about you.

  • You know, just-- just--

  • if you know why you're doing what you're doing, that's good enough.

  • I admired everything about him to the extent

  • that I was absorbing lessons from him without knowing it.

  • And the idea that all lives have equal value is something that

  • all three of his children felt since I can remember.

  • My dad at one point ran for congress

  • when I was 12 or so.

  • It was a very republican household.

  • I campaigned for him. My sisters campaigned for him.

  • The whole family did.

  • My mother was very, very bright,

  • and she was very gregarious. She was a good campaigner for my dad.

  • She had a lot of ambition,

  • and I think my brother Warren got a lot

  • of his extreme competitiveness from my mother, actually.

  • She was brilliant at math.

  • You know, I guess they still had these things

  • where you crank them and things added up,

  • and she could add it in her head faster than the machine could do it.

  • She was absolutely amazing in that.

  • She was very dutiful about taking care of the kids,

  • but you didn't get the same feeling of-- of love.

  • It was there, but it just-- it didn't come out the same way as with my dad.

  • Howard Buffett, Sr. On radio: In the nation, the only permanent way

  • to prosperity is a balanced budget.

  • Unless that goal is achieved,

  • all post-war plans will collapse like Hitler's conquest.

  • You have heard Congressman Howard L.H. Buffett,

  • a Republican member of the House of Representatives

  • from Nebraska speaking on the--

  • When I was about 12 or 13,

  • we moved to Washington, my family, and I was mad.

  • I was having fun in Omaha, and I lost all my friends,

  • and now I moved to a town where they were all strange,

  • and so I was very, very unhappy.

  • ♪ ♪

  • At school, I just lost interest.

  • I took pleasure in tormenting my teachers.

  • At that time for example, AT&T was the stock

  • that all teachers owned for their retirement,

  • and I decided that it would drive my teachers a little crazy

  • if I went and short the stock, because when you go short a stock,

  • you're betting that it will go down.

  • So I shorted 10 shares of AT&T,

  • and then brought the confirmation to school

  • and showed these teachers I was shorting the stock.

  • They found me a big pain in the neck,

  • but they did think I knew a lot about stocks.

  • ♪ ♪

  • And then at home, my mother would have terrific headaches,

  • and you didn't want to be around her when she was having the headaches,

  • and she would-- she would lash out more. She would never do it in public.

  • Well, I think we were terrified of her.

  • ♪ ♪

  • When I'd wake up in the morning,

  • I'd listen to hear her voice. I could tell by her voice

  • if it was going to be a terrible day or not.

  • When she got difficult, the three children felt it.

  • When I was at the low point, sort of, I decided that I would run away.

  • So I talked two other guys into running away with me.

  • We went out, and we start hitchhiking...

  • and then we got picked up by the highway patrol

  • and that scared the hell out of us.

  • It's very interesting. My dad never really gave me hell about doing this,

  • but he finally said, "You know,"

  • he said, "you can do better than this."

  • And just saying that, I mean, I--

  • I felt like I was letting him down, basically.

  • So in all ways, he was teaching me.

  • Never taught by telling me things,

  • he just taught by example.

  • He had unlimited confidence in me, even when I screwed up,

  • and that takes you a long, long way.

  • The best gift I was ever given

  • was to have the father that I had when I was born.

  • I didn't want to go to college. I was 16 when I got out of high school

  • and I was buying stocks.

  • I mean, I actually was having a pretty good time

  • and I didn't see that really was much to be gained by going to college,

  • but my dad kind of jollied me into it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • He had a roommate who was a friend of mine,

  • and the roommate said it would just drive him crazy,

  • because he studied all the time,

  • and Warren would come in 15 minutes before the exam

  • and just ace his way through it.

  • I finished in three years, 'cause I had enough credits,

  • and I was in a hurry. I wanted to get out.

  • When I got out of the University of Nebraska,

  • I applied to Harvard Business school.

  • They told me I was to get interviewed in a place near Chicago.

  • I got there, and he interviewed me for about 10 minutes,

  • and he said, "Forget it."

  • "You're not going to Harvard."

  • And so now I'm thinking, "What do I tell my dad?

  • Oh, this is terrible." And it turned out to be

  • the best thing that ever happened to me.

  • Later that summer,

  • I was looking through a catalog

  • and in the catalog, it had these names of people that were teaching,

  • and one was Graham and another was Dodd.

  • I had read this book by the two of them,

  • so I wrote him a letter in mid-August,

  • and I said, "Dear Professor Dodd,"

  • I said, "I thought you guys were dead."

  • "But, now that I found out that you're alive

  • and teaching at Columbia, I would really like to come."

  • And he admitted me. So, you know what?

  • That-- it just shows, you never can tell.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Gentlemen, Professor Graham.

  • Ben was this incredible teacher.

  • I mean he-- he was a natural, and he drew us all in.

  • Are Wall Street professionals--

  • they more accurate in the shorter term than the long term forecast?

  • Well, our studies indicate that you have your choice between tossing coins...

  • and taking the consensus of expert opinions,

  • and the results are just about the same in each case.

  • It was like learning baseball

  • from a fellow who's batting .400.

  • It really-- it shaped my professional life.

  • There are two rules of investing according to Warren,

  • and he learned this from Ben Graham.

  • Rule number one, never lose money.

  • Rule number two, never forget rule number one.

  • Ben Graham basically coined the term "value investing."

  • He believed in careful scrutiny

  • of a company's financial statements,

  • and that if you bought value, it would eventually prove out.

  • A few years ago, I went to Amazon,

  • and sure enough, they had this manual there,

  • so while reliving my youth-- other guys were going to Amazon

  • and probably buying old "Playboys" or something,

  • but I bought old Moody's manuals instead,

  • and when I got out of school, I started selling stocks,

  • I was 20 years old at the time,

  • looked about 16, and acted about 12,

  • so I was not the most impressive salesperson anybody ever met.

  • But what I would do was I went through, page by page,

  • looking for possibly undervalued stocks.

  • Is this like going through an old family album?

  • Better!

  • ♪ ♪

  • When I got out of business school at Columbia,

  • I developed pretty decent skills in terms of business,

  • but I hadn't really come to terms with the world exactly.

  • What were you like around girls back then?

  • Bad. I was-- I was sort of out of the swing of things there for a while.

  • I went to my 60th reunion, and there was a girl there.

  • I took her out one time to the Uptown Theater in Washington,

  • and I asked her whether she remembered what movie we saw,

  • and she said, "No, I don't remember that."

  • And then she said, "But I do remember one thing."

  • And like an idiot, I said, "What was that?"

  • And she said, "Well, you picked me up in a hearse."

  • And it was true that I owned

  • a half-interest in a hearse while I was in high school,

  • which was not the smoothest thing that--

  • or coolest, as they would say now--

  • that you could-- you could do on a date.

  • There were two turning points in my life.

  • Once when I came out of the womb,

  • and once when I met Susie, basically.

  • ♪ ♪

  • She was the girl, yep.

  • But it took her a little longer

  • to figure out I was the boy.

  • I was going to be

  • his youngest sister's roommate at Northwestern.

  • So I walk into their house, he was sitting in this chair,

  • and he made some sarcastic quip.

  • So I made one back. I thought, "Who is this jerk?"

  • ♪ ♪

  • And that's how we met, yes.

  • Listen, Warren is smarter than you even know.

  • His brain is going all the time.

  • And my dad said to me,

  • "Now you have to understand about him--

  • "you're not going to have discussions with him

  • "like you would most normal people,

  • but he has a heart of gold."

  • He was just totally enamored of her,

  • and why not? And she of him.

  • She'd sit on his lap all the time, and he'd stroke her hair.

  • It was softening him.

  • Susie was really kind, considerate,

  • and she was the balancing force.

  • I just got very, very, very lucky.

  • But I was a lopsided person,

  • and it took a while, but she just stood there

  • with a little watering can

  • and just nourished me along and-- and changed me.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Somebody once said that the chains of habit

  • are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken.

  • I had been terrified of public speaking.

  • I couldn't do it. I'd throw up.

  • And I knew if I didn't cure it then, I'd never cure it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • And so I saw an ad in the paper for the Dale Carnegie Course,

  • which worked on developing your ability to speak in public,

  • and I went down there.

  • Be sincere.

  • A good smile has the same effect

  • as a puppy's tail. When a puppy wags--

  • They made us do all these crazy things

  • to get out of ourselves, and so we stood on tables

  • and did all kinds of things.

  • If I hadn't had done that...

  • my whole life would have been different.

  • So in my office you will not see

  • the degree I got from the University of Nebraska.

  • You will not see the Masters degree I got from Columbia University,

  • but you'll see the little award certificate

  • I got from the Dale Carnegie Course.

  • As a matter of fact, every week,

  • the instructor would give a pencil

  • to whoever had done the most with what we'd learned the week before.

  • And so in the fourth or fifth week,

  • I proposed to her mother,

  • and she said yes. And so that week,

  • I won the pencil, I also got engaged,

  • and it was an incredible week.

  • ♪ ♪

  • The wedding date was kind of interesting,

  • because I couldn't see anything without my glasses,

  • and I was so nervous that I--

  • I just decided to take off my glasses

  • and I wouldn't be able to see all those people out there.

  • ♪ ♪

  • She was 19 when we got married and I was 21...

  • but she was so much more mature than I was. There was no comparison.

  • She was a better person than I was...

  • but when you get married, it's not a question of saying,

  • "I'm going to put a 14 % factor in for humor,

  • and 17 % for intellect, and 22 % for looks."

  • It doesn't work that way.

  • I knew it was the right decision, and-- and it was.

  • You could live anywhere in the world.

  • Why do you choose Omaha, Nebraska?

  • Yeah, I love it, and I-- you know, I was...

  • born about a mile from here and, you know,

  • I've never had a bad experience in Omaha.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Well, Omaha and Nebraska are home to me.

  • Everything about it seems like home.

  • It's a pace, it's relationships.

  • There's a lot of continuity. There's a lot of community.

  • There's a lot of friendship.

  • It's a very solid place and friendly place

  • in which to grow up in, in which to conduct a business.

  • When I came back to Omaha in early 1956,

  • I had no idea what I was going to do.

  • A few months after I came back, some members of the family said,

  • "What should we do with our money?"

  • And I said, "Well, I'm not going back

  • "in the business of selling stocks,

  • but if you would like to join me in a partnership,"

  • I said, "I'll be glad to do it."

  • So within a couple of months after coming back,

  • I set up the first partnership.

  • I wrote all the checks individually.

  • I filed 11 income-tax returns.

  • I took delivery on stocks for all these different companies.

  • I-- I was a one-man band there for six years.

  • Warren would sit upstairs in his little office there,

  • and I would bring up the name of a company,

  • and most of the time he knew

  • much more than I did about the company.

  • He'd know how many shares were outstanding.

  • He'd know the capitalization. He'd know the earnings.

  • It was absolutely incredible.

  • I mean when Warren said something, it meant a heck of a lot,

  • and I think all of us paid a lot of attention to Warren

  • when he took a definite stand on something.

  • When I first met Warren back in 1959,

  • I recognized immediately

  • that he was a very intelligent person.

  • For the last four or five years,

  • the stock market has been booming along

  • and presumably forecasting better business,

  • which has really not materialized,

  • so maybe the stock market is really correcting

  • a previous incorrect forecast this time

  • rather than making a new correct one.

  • He made a lot of money buying thinly traded securities

  • that were incredibly cheap statistically.

  • Warren was, at that time,

  • dealing with small companies,

  • and his investments often were to buy a company

  • that you could figure was a discarded cigar butt,

  • but it had one more smoke in it,

  • and he wanted to buy at the right time

  • to be able to benefit from the one smoke.

  • The first partnership started with $105,100.

  • I put up the 100, and the other people put up the 105,000.

  • And then at the start of 1962, I moved to Kiewit Plaza.

  • And by the time I moved to Kiewit Plaza,

  • we had $7 million invested,

  • and a fair amount was profits.

  • I was then renting a house. I never owned a house to that point.

  • And then two years later,

  • I bought the house I live in today in 1958.

  • We had three children, Susie and I.

  • And we had 'em young, incidentally,

  • which was I think was a very good thing.

  • ♪ ♪

  • My daughter Susie was born here.

  • I named her Susie just like that, as soon as I looked at her,

  • because she looked just like her mother,

  • ♪ ♪

  • And she was a cinch.

  • And then Howie was, you know, this absolute bundle of energy...

  • which made things very difficult

  • for big Susie for a while.

  • Peter again reverted back to Susie's personality,

  • and he was an easy child.

  • Well, I would describe my childhood as normal,

  • but who knows what normal is?

  • People often think,

  • "Well, Warren Buffett was this famous rich guy."

  • He was not famous, and he wasn't rich

  • when we were growing up.

  • ♪ ♪

  • What I saw first and foremost,

  • day in and day out, was consistency.

  • Every day we hear the garage door close in the house

  • and then like clockwork, my dad would come in the door,

  • "I'm home!" And we'd all eat dinner together,

  • which I think surprises a lot of people.

  • Susie Buffett, Jr: My dad, he used to rock me to sleep at night

  • and sing "Over the Rainbow," so I have

  • this insanely sentimental attachment to that song.

  • I've always had a really close relationship with him.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I've got three very different kids,

  • and they've got a common heart,

  • which they got from their mother.

  • She did most of the work by far

  • of bringing up the children,

  • which is probably a good thing.

  • They have more of her qualities than mine,

  • which I would-- I would recommend.

  • Well, my mom was

  • the biggest part of my life growing up...

  • even though I got disciplined on a regular basis

  • and she was usually the one doing it,

  • she was still my best friend.

  • She was somebody who would help anybody,

  • I mean, whether she knew 'em or didn't know 'em

  • or maybe even didn't agree with them, she would still help them.

  • She was incredibly empathetic,

  • and she was interested in every person individually.

  • She never cared about money or business at all.

  • I mean he would go around saying,

  • "I'm going to be the richest man in the world."

  • And I think, well, it's like somebody says,

  • "I play music, and I'm gonna be Mozart."

  • I don't know. How does anyone know...

  • How does anyone know? You know?

  • So that was okay. I don't really care about that.

  • I would say that Susie led Warren

  • toward changing his political views.

  • He grew up as a young Republican,

  • his father was a Republican congressman,

  • but Susie saw things in different ways.

  • She was the catalyst.

  • Freedom, freedom, freedom!

  • Louder, louder, louder, louder, louder!

  • Freedom, freedom... What do we want now?

  • When the children were growing up,

  • I was very involved in civil rights.

  • I was immersed in it, and I think that's what made Warren a Democrat.

  • He would go with me to hear speakers.

  • I remember that speech that Martin Luther King gave.

  • That was one of the most inspiring speeches I-- I've ever heard.

  • I come to say to you this afternoon...

  • Took me right out of my seat. My wife was with me.

  • We both had the same experience.

  • It will not be long. It was interesting, he--

  • in that speech, he talked about truth forever on the scaffold,

  • long forever on the throne, but that scaffold sways the future.

  • Well, he was going to be dead in six months,

  • but that scaffold did sway the future.

  • My wife was more active than I was,

  • but I was 100 % with her mentally.

  • I was just working a little more on my own investments.

  • But it didn't make a difference what we were gonna do

  • with the money after we made it.

  • I thought I would pile it up over the years

  • then she would unpile it in terms of running a--

  • one very large foundation.

  • And I was particularly good at compounding money,

  • and therefore society would benefit by waiting.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I was genetically blessed with certain wiring

  • that's very useful in a highly-developed market system

  • where there's lots of chips on the table,

  • and you know, I happen to be good at that game.

  • Ted Williams wrote a book called "The Science of Hitting,"

  • and in it he had a picture of himself at bat

  • and the strike zone broken into, I think, 77 squares.

  • And he said, if he waited for the pitch

  • that was really in his sweet spot, he would bat .400

  • and if he had to swing at something on the lower corner,

  • he would probably bat .235.

  • And in investing, I'm in a no-called strike business,

  • which is the best business you can be in.

  • I can look at a thousand different companies,

  • and I don't have to be right on every one of them or even 50 of 'em...

  • so I can pick the ball I want to hit.

  • And the trick in investing is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch to go by

  • and wait for the one right in your sweet spot.

  • And the people that are yelling, "Swing, you bum"? Ignore 'em.

  • There's a temptation for people to act

  • far too frequently in stocks,

  • simply because they're so liquid.

  • Over the years you develop a lot of filters,

  • and I do know what I call my circle of competence,

  • so I-I-- I stay within that circle,

  • and I don't worry about things that are outside that circle.

  • Defining what your game is,

  • where you're going to have an edge is enormously important.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I bought the first shares of Berkshire in 1962,

  • and it was a northern textile business

  • destined to become extinct eventually,

  • and it was a statistically cheap stock in a terrible business.

  • Berkshire Hathaway was closing mills

  • and as they closed mills, it would free up some capital,

  • and then they would repurchase shares,

  • so I bought some stock with the idea

  • that there would be another tender offer at some point,

  • and we would sell the stock at a modest profit.

  • And at one point,

  • the management asked me at what price we would tender our stock,

  • and I said, "$11.50."

  • ♪ ♪

  • And the tender offer came out a few months later,

  • and it was at $11 and 3/8ths,

  • which was an eighth of a point cheaper.

  • And that made me very mad,

  • so I just started buying more stock.

  • I just felt that I'd been double-crossed by the management.

  • And in May of 1965,

  • I bought enough so we controlled the company,

  • and we changed the management.

  • It was a pretty silly way to behave,

  • as Warren has recounted in retrospect.

  • One of the reasons Warren is successful

  • is he's brutal in appraising his own past.

  • He wants to identify misthinkings and avoid them in the future,

  • but it was an accident that he chose Berkshire Hathaway.

  • If the chairman hadn't tried to cheat him out of an eighth,

  • there wouldn't have been any Buffett- Berkshire Hathaway history.

  • If you're emotional about investment, you're not going to do well.

  • You may have all these feelings about the stock.

  • The stock has no feelings about you.

  • Looking back, it's interesting, that tender offer--

  • I didn't realize it, but it-- it happened about five days after my dad had died

  • and whether that had affected me or not, I don't know.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Do you remember your last conversation with your father?

  • Yeah, but I don't want to talk about it.

  • I think it just sobered him and hurt him,

  • but...

  • Warren soldiers on.

  • Both Warren and I could look at our fathers

  • and see what they did right and what they did wrong.

  • Warren's father was a real old-fashioned right-wing ideologue.

  • And his father was so intense about it,

  • that Warren just decided that it was mistake--

  • it cabbaged up your head to be that much an ideologue,

  • so he loved his father, but he didn't want to become

  • that much of a true believer in-- in anything.

  • My politics became more overt after my dad died.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Civil rights changed my views.

  • You know, in 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote,

  • "All men are created equal," and then when they wrote the Constitution,

  • they all of a sudden decided that, no,

  • it was just 3/5ths of a person if you were black.

  • I mean, that struck me as kind of crazy.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I was talking to him one day about some racial issue,

  • and he said to me, "Wait till women discover

  • they're the slaves of the world."

  • Now how many men were cognizant of that,

  • and even women then?

  • The initial example is really my mother.

  • She came from a generation

  • where the main function of the wife

  • was to help her husband in the job.

  • And my sisters are fully as smart as I am.

  • They got better personalities than I had,

  • but they got the message a million different ways

  • that their future was limited,

  • and I got the message that the sky is the limit

  • and it wasn't due to a lack of love or anything of the sort.

  • It just-- it was the culture.

  • On the other hand, you can look

  • at the flip side of that and say it's quite encouraging,

  • because if you look at what this country accomplished

  • only using half of its talent,

  • just think of the potential for the future.

  • I'm enormously bullish on America over the future

  • and part of the reason is that we,

  • by some rather stupid decisions,

  • essentially put half our talent on the sidelines.

  • Warren is probably the most rational person I've ever met.

  • Charlie Munger would be a close rival.

  • And Charlie became a man

  • that Warren depended on heavily

  • and I think his first experiences

  • in the discarded- cigar-butt era

  • convinced him that it was not exactly where he wanted to be.

  • He made so much money for so long

  • doing what he'd been taught by Ben Graham,

  • which he'd buy these very cheap stocks.

  • If they were cheap enough, he didn't care it was

  • a lousy company and a lousy management.

  • He knew he was going to make money anyway, just because of the cheapness.

  • Charlie Munger has had a big impact on me

  • in moving me toward looking for wonderful companies at fair prices

  • rather than fair companies at wonderful prices.

  • That was enormously important, because it enabled Berkshire to scale up in a way

  • that would have been impossible to do otherwise.

  • Yep? - What are the key indicators

  • you'd look for within companies before making an investment?

  • Well, I look for something that does give them a moat around it.

  • We have a company called See's Candies out on the west coast.

  • See's Candies Boxed Chocolates.

  • If you give a box of See's chocolates to your girlfriend

  • on the first date and she kisses you?

  • We own you. You know? I mean we--

  • we can raise the price tomorrow.

  • I mean, you'll buy the same box.

  • You're not gonna fool around with success,

  • so the key there is the response.

  • You do not want to get home on Valentine's Day

  • and say to your wife or your sweetheart--

  • preferably they're the same person--

  • you don't say, "Here, honey, I took the low bid."

  • It doesn't work.

  • Price is-- to a degree, is immaterial.

  • If you've got an economic castle,

  • people are gonna come and wanna take that castle away from you.

  • You better have a strong moat.

  • You better have a knight in the castle that knows what he's doing.

  • You're not buying an asset,

  • you're buying a name, you're buying a brand,

  • you're buying a real franchise here,

  • and Charlie was more responsible for that than anybody.

  • ♪ ♪

  • We were mental partners

  • right from the moment we met.

  • I wanna know, going back 50 years,

  • what it was like when you first met Warren.

  • Well, I thought he was a prodigy...

  • and I got a lot of criticism.

  • My wife said, "Why are you paying such enormous respect

  • "to that young man with a crew cut

  • who won't eat vegetables?"

  • He's ungodly smart.

  • He's got a much broader intellect than I do,

  • and he's magnificent at being able

  • to condense important ideas into just a very few words.

  • If you're not interested in the economic scene right now,

  • you're mentally dead.

  • Charlie has no tact.

  • All right, let's talk a little bit about bankers.

  • Charlie, on Friday, compared them to heroin addicts.

  • Yeah, well, that's colorful Charlie,

  • but I would not have chosen that.

  • I once wrote of him

  • that when they handed out humility,

  • he didn't get his fair share.

  • The ideal way to run a headquarters is to have one man,

  • preferably over 80,

  • sitting in an office by himself.

  • Anything else is pure frippery.

  • He's always honest in what he tells me,

  • so I-- I listen to him.

  • We never had an argument.

  • We just...

  • We just kinda roll with it easily.

  • Suppose Warren doesn't wanna do something that I would've done,

  • and suppose that happens four times over 40 years or something.

  • What the hell difference does it make to me?

  • ♪ ♪

  • Net, the record is working out is fine.

  • Both of us know that we've done better by having ethics.

  • Warren's not interested

  • in making money by cheating people.

  • Warren's opinions

  • of Wall Street investment bankers

  • would not endear him to their mothers.

  • He feels that they're, for the most part,

  • not out for their clients.

  • They're out for their own business interests.

  • In the late 1960s, there were just a flood

  • of accounting shenanigans and mergers

  • built upon false accounting and misleading people.

  • It was a time when a lot of charlatans

  • were prevailing in Wall Street

  • and were being applauded by Wall Street.

  • I understood what the game was about,

  • but I didn't want to play in it,

  • so I closed down the partnership at the end of 1969,

  • and I took on the title of Chairman for Berkshire Hathaway.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Well, I think the modern Berkshire

  • is pretty much all a reflection of Warren.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I have constructed a business that fits me.

  • It's kind of crazy to spend your life painting

  • if you're painting a subject you don't want to look at.

  • I've gotten to paint my own painting in business

  • on an unlimited canvas in a way.

  • It's a different sort of place.

  • I work with a great group of people

  • that make my life very easy and that take good care of me.

  • Come. Okay.

  • We have 25 people in the office,

  • and if you go back, it's the exact same 25, the exact same ones.

  • We don't have any committees at Berkshire.

  • We don't have a public relations department.

  • We don't have investor relations. We don't have a general council.

  • We don't have a human relations department.

  • We just don't go for anything that people do just as a matter of form.

  • It's exactly the life I like,

  • and it's not work to me.

  • It's just a form of play, basically.

  • Oh, I-- I like things quiet.

  • I shut the door, actually, at the office,

  • 'cause I don't want to hear anybody talking outside.

  • Broad distinctions between his views

  • and the belt-tightening proposals.

  • And I still probably spend

  • five or six hours a day reading.

  • ...look at what's trending today.

  • Our quick round-up...

  • Well, what's amazing is the stuff he remembers.

  • It's like a little computer, you know?

  • I keep thinking the hard drive will run out of space, but it doesn't.

  • He's one of the smartest people we know.

  • So I was at a couple of the family dinners

  • at the Gates house where Mary, Bill's mom,

  • was trying to convince him to come out

  • to the family place at Hood Canal

  • to meet Warren Buffett, and he was resisting

  • because he was really busy with Microsoft.

  • And finally he said, "Mom, okay, I'll come for lunch."

  • ♪ ♪

  • So the two of us flew out there

  • somewhat reluctantly, 'cause you know,

  • buying and selling stocks-- which is how I thought of Warren--

  • wasn't of particular interest to me and didn't seem like value added.

  • It turned out that was completely wrong.

  • We knew that day that we'd be very close friends.

  • In fact, we just couldn't get enough of each other.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Shortly after I met Bill Gates,

  • Bill's dad asked each of us to write down on a piece of paper

  • one word that would best describe what had helped us the most.

  • Bill and I, without any collaboration at all,

  • each wrote the word "focus."

  • Well, focus has always been a strong part of my personality.

  • If I get interested in something, I get really interested.

  • If I get interested in a new subject, I want to read about it,

  • I want to talk about it, and I want to meet people that are involved in it.

  • We both love to work hard.

  • You know, neither of us like frivolous things.

  • You know he doesn't know much about cooking,

  • or art, or... a huge range of things.

  • I can't tell you the color of the walls in my bedroom or my living room.

  • We're on a satellite phone.

  • I don't have a mind that relates to the physical universe well.

  • Warren checking the DOW.

  • But the business universe I-- I think I understand reasonably well.

  • Warren's ability to size up people and businesses,

  • it's a pretty magical thing.

  • He is the best at that, anybody we know.

  • We-- we should all try to be 20 % as-- as good at that.

  • I like to sit and think,

  • and I spend a lot of time doing that.

  • And sometimes it's pretty unproductive but--

  • but I find it enjoyable to think about--

  • particularly about-- about business

  • or investment problems. They're easy.

  • It's the human problems that are the tough ones.

  • Sometimes there aren't any good answers with human problems.

  • There's-- there's almost always a good answer with money.

  • He was sort of a genius.

  • I think sometimes geniuses are,

  • by default, lonely and isolated.

  • He was not really well adjusted.

  • He was just this funny--

  • I mean, humorous guy who maybe had a moat around him,

  • because he was afraid and he didn't know anyone

  • that he wanted to let in.

  • And to this day, I mean, I don't know...

  • Well, nobody knows him like I do,

  • and probably any wife would say that, but...

  • ♪ ♪

  • He's a loner in a sense.

  • And it's difficult to connect on an emotional level,

  • because I think that that's not his basic mode of operation.

  • He was there... physically,

  • but he was upstairs reading all the time.

  • I always told my mother we have to talk in sound bytes.

  • I learned that early on, that if you start going into some long thing,

  • unless you've explained to him ahead of time that it's going to be a long thing

  • and you need him to hang in there, you lose him.

  • You lose him to whatever giant thought

  • he has in his head at the time

  • that he was probably thinking about before you came in

  • and really wants to get back to.

  • ♪ ♪

  • He's not like the rest of us.

  • I don't think my dad ever took anybody for granted,

  • but you are a little bit blind, I think,

  • sometimes to what other people might be doing behind the scenes,

  • and my dad's gotten a little bit of a pass.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Warren can't find the light switch,

  • and it's probably my fault.

  • One time, years ago when the kids were little,

  • I was feeling really sick. I had the flu,

  • so I lay down on the bed, and I said to Warren,

  • "Will you get me a pan? Or something from the kitchen.

  • I may not get to the bathroom. I feel so sick."

  • He said, "Okay." So he trottles down to the kitchen,

  • and I hear this bang, bip, boom, bang!

  • And he comes up, and he brings me a colander.

  • I looked at it, and I said, "Look, honey, this has holes in it."

  • "Oh, oh, okay." So he ran down,

  • all this banging and everything.

  • And he comes up and he puts the colander on a cookie sheet.

  • Physical proximity to Warren doesn't always mean that he's there with you.

  • ♪ ♪

  • He's so cerebral, you see?

  • That's why I learned to have my own life.

  • We were two parallel lines and--

  • but very connected when he was open to connecting.

  • I did make a joke at one point. I said, you know,

  • we could make a tape of Mom yelling,

  • "Bye, Warren, I'll be back later!"

  • And then have the door slam, and he would just think she was here.

  • I don't think he knew what she was doing most of the time.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Once Howie and I were both gone,

  • as we've gotten older, she started to see the writing on the wall here

  • and just started trying to figure out

  • how she could at least have some more,

  • as she called it, a room of her own.

  • ♪ ♪

  • The worst mistakes involve

  • not understanding other people as well as you might.

  • Well, she left Omaha in 1977,

  • and there really isn't much to say about that.

  • It was devastating for him, and I came home,

  • because I-I-- I can't say I was mad at her exactly,

  • but I kept thinking, "How can you leave him?

  • He's so-- he can't function by himself."

  • So my mother-- she'd asked a bunch of her friends

  • to sort of look in on him, and Astrid was one of them.

  • So I called Astrid. I said, "Astrid,

  • "will you take Warren-- make him some soup?

  • "Go over there and look after him,

  • because he's not gonna make it."

  • And it took him a while to figure it out, but he figured it out.

  • I said, "I'm not leaving you,

  • because I'll be wherever you want me when you want me."

  • My mom moved to San Francisco,

  • and I think one of the reasons it was important for her to leave Omaha

  • was because she just felt like she was kinda trapped in this environment,

  • that everybody knew who she was,

  • that she couldn't have her own identity.

  • He knew that there was something she needed to do

  • and that she really recognized that the money gave us all and her

  • a choice in a lot of ways that a lot of people didn't have.

  • There was a time Warren was getting criticized.

  • Here was this very, very rich man who was getting richer every year,

  • and really wasn't giving a lot of money away,

  • and there was terrific criticism by some people,

  • which Warren never said anything about.

  • The biggest thing in making money is time.

  • You don't have to be particularly smart, you just have to be patient.

  • Susie didn't want to wait as much as I did,

  • but she never quite appreciated compounding like I did.

  • That is a disagreement we have.

  • I run a foundation now.

  • I think we should be giving more money away,

  • but I understand why we don't--

  • because it's... business.

  • To me the crux of it is, that it wasn't the money itself.

  • You can see that in the way he lives.

  • I mean, he doesn't buy huge paintings

  • or build big houses or anything like that.

  • It's all mental with him, and the money is his scorecard.

  • ♪ ♪

  • And he used to say to me,

  • "Everybody can read what I read.

  • It's a level playing field."

  • And he loves that, because he's competitive.

  • And he's sitting there all by himself in his office,

  • reading these things that everybody else can read,

  • but he loves the idea that he's gonna win. Ha!

  • I'll tell you how you do it.

  • Have you ever seen a juggler

  • juggle 25 milk bottles?

  • How did he ever get to do that?

  • The answer is he started with one bottle, then two, then three

  • and just kept doing it, and pretty soon he was at 25,

  • and that's the way we did it.

  • So, basically, we started out with cash

  • and ended up buying a bunch of businesses,

  • including insurance companies.

  • Insurance is, in itself, a profitable business,

  • but it has the additional advantage

  • of creating something that's called "float."

  • Float is the money that hangs around Berkshire

  • while a claim is waiting to be paid.

  • And Warren turned out to have a extraordinary ability

  • to use the money thrown off by the float

  • to buy companies that fed the growth of Berkshire.

  • In 1983, Mrs. B cashed in on her business

  • by selling control for $55 million

  • to a company owned by investor Warren Buffett.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Warren was quite an expert about newspapers.

  • He got interested in the "Post,"

  • because he recognized it

  • as a greatly undervalued company.

  • He had to write me a letter.

  • "Dear Ms. Graham, I've just bought 5 % of your company,

  • "and I mean you no harm,

  • "and I think it's a great company.

  • "I know it's Graham owned and Graham run,

  • and that's fine with me."

  • And I thought, "Whoa, this guy's really terrific."

  • He used to come to board meetings with about 20 annual reports

  • and he would take me through these annual reports.

  • It was like going to business school with Warren Buffett.

  • Kay Graham did introduce Warren to the world of Washington,

  • entirely different group than he had ever dealt with before.

  • It was clear that working with Kay

  • gave him a different kind of confidence, and he was the star.

  • Everyone wants to hear

  • what Warren Buffett has to say.

  • The Oracle of Omaha

  • building his image and having some fun.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Berkshire shares have increased

  • more than 2,000 % in value.

  • One of the largest market capitalizations in the world,

  • and it could grow a lot larger

  • since Warren Buffett shows no sign of slowing down.

  • So how did he do it?

  • By investing in what he knows and understands--

  • good old-fashioned American brands like Coca-Cola,

  • Fruit of the Loom, and Dairy Queen.

  • What inspired you? This inspired me!

  • Buy what you like, is that what it is? Yeah absolutely.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Today, the Coca-Cola Company will sell

  • almost two billion eight-ounce servings

  • of one form or another of Coca Cola products.

  • Now if you get an extra penny a day, a penny a serving,

  • that's $20 million a day,

  • that's $7.3 billion a year from one penny more.

  • When you own Coca Cola, you own a little piece

  • of the minds of billions and billions of people.

  • That is really good.

  • Who's got the most $100 bills these days?

  • Well, his name is Warren Buffett in this country,

  • and he has just displaced his friend Bill Gates

  • as the richest businessman in the world.

  • And the purpose of Wednesday's meeting was to discuss

  • Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway's plan

  • to purchase railroad giant Burlington Northern,

  • valued at $26 billion. This would be Buffett's largest acquisition ever.

  • He's created Berkshire from virtually nothing

  • into hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap.

  • Nobody else has a record like that.

  • He wanted to have an outstanding reputation

  • that he'd never really upset the apple cart when he bought a business,

  • that he kept the management in place.

  • He was establishing a reputation

  • that paid off later in life.

  • It's been building and building ever since I've known him.

  • It takes 20 years to build a reputation,

  • then it takes five minutes to lose it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • When Warren made his investment in Salomon,

  • I was one of the people, along with many, many others,

  • who were quite amazed, because he had taken

  • a very critical tone in talking about investment bankers and about their greed.

  • And here he was investing in one,

  • Salomon Brothers, that was known to be a member of the club.

  • Warren and Charlie were on the board,

  • and Charlie couldn't stand what was going on there

  • and didn't like the culture at all.

  • And shortly after they got involved, the thing exploded.

  • In 1991 on a terrible day in August,

  • I got a call, and the two top officers of Salomon

  • were on the other end, and they said that--

  • that... "We have problem."

  • This is "NBC Nightly News."

  • Good evening. It is the kind of scandal

  • that rocks Wall Street and raises questions,

  • questions about the integrity of our financial institutions.

  • The giant securities firm of Salomon Brothers under investigation

  • for improper trading of treasury bonds.

  • Salomon admitted it exceeded the limit

  • of trading in government bonds,

  • once by buying bonds in the name of a customer

  • who didn't even know about the deal.

  • Salomon Brothers is under investigation by the Treasury Department,

  • the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the Justice Department.

  • But more important than the fate of the firm itself

  • is the impact their actions could have

  • on the public trust and on the credibility

  • of the American market worldwide.

  • The company owed $150 billion.

  • It owed more money than any other private company

  • in the United States at the time.

  • And that night I met with the man that ran the Federal Reserve of New York,

  • who was the sheriff in effect, and I said, you know,

  • "I've never really owed very much money before."

  • I said, "I've got a little mortgage on a house,

  • but 150 billion is a little staggering."

  • And I was hoping he would say, "Well, don't worry, Warren.

  • We'll give you a few weeks to breathe."

  • And he-- he said to me, "Prepare for any eventuality."

  • ♪ ♪

  • Earlier today, the US Treasury Department

  • announced it had suspended Salomon Brothers

  • from participating in the auction of new issues.

  • It was one more jolt

  • for a scandal-scarred Wall Street.

  • The Fed was in effect saying,

  • "You're an evil force, and we don't want you trading our bonds."

  • It was a huge turning point for Warren.

  • And he believed that, at that particular point,

  • his reputation was on the line.

  • Warren had 24 hours to make up his mind

  • as to whether he was going to go forward or just bow out.

  • And I think at that point, Salomon Brothers could have gone into bankruptcy.

  • And Warren stepped up and took responsibility.

  • Okay. I'm Warren Buffett.

  • I was... elected...

  • Interim Chairman of Salomon, Inc.

  • A few hours ago at a board of directors meeting.

  • Why was it necessary for you to step in

  • and what is your mandate of leadership?

  • I think that it was necessary to step in

  • because I would do whatever was needed,

  • dig out any bit of information about what's happened in the past,

  • and I would do everything I could to make sure

  • that things exactly right in the future.

  • Mr. Buffett, are you satisfied that--

  • I had to convince the Treasury that what was done in the past

  • was awful and stupid, and they had every right to be furious at us,

  • but this firm employed 8,000 people,

  • and it was going to go out of business

  • unless they let us continue, basically.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Warren believed that there was a too-big-to-fail scenario.

  • The term was not used then,

  • but he believed that Salomon was too big to fail.

  • And if Salomon went down,

  • it would take other important parts of Wall Street with it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • We had this death knell from the Treasury,

  • so I called the Treasury.

  • Nick Brady was the Secretary.

  • I'm pleading for my life.

  • And I'm sure my voice was cracking and everything else,

  • and I said, "Nick, this is the most important day of my life."

  • And I really did feel that it was going to be a colossal disaster.

  • He wasn't sure I was right at all--

  • in fact, he probably thought I was wrong--

  • but he knew that I felt what I was saying.

  • So, the Treasury modified its order,

  • and in effect, of course,

  • it was quite an endorsement.

  • It was huge.

  • ♪ ♪

  • It saved Salomon.

  • Nick Brady went with Warren, because he trusted him.

  • It shows how having a good reputation is really helpful in life.

  • I thank you for the opportunity

  • to appear before this subcommittee.

  • I would like to start by apologizing

  • for the acts that have brought us here.

  • A nation has a right to expect its rules and laws to be obeyed,

  • but I also have asked every Salomon employee

  • to be his or her own compliance officer.

  • After they first obey all rules,

  • I then want employees to ask themselves

  • whether they are willing to have any contemplated act

  • appear the next day on the front page

  • of their local paper to be read by their spouses,

  • children, and friends.

  • If they follow this test,

  • they need not fear my other message to them:

  • Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding.

  • Lose a shred of reputation for the firm,

  • and I will be ruthless.

  • I welcome your questions.

  • It's been 50 years

  • since I formally took control of Berkshire Hathaway,

  • and, step by step, we've created something

  • that is kind of what I dreamt we might create over time,

  • but it took a lot of time to do it.

  • Never seemed like we were making that much progress on any one day,

  • but compound interest works.

  • When you think back 50 years ago

  • when you founded this company,

  • did you ever imagine it would be the fifth-largest company in the world?

  • No, I-- I didn't, but if I was thinking about it,

  • I wouldn't have thought in terms of being the fifth,

  • or the fourth, or the third.

  • You would've wanted number one.

  • Oh! I mean, if you're gonna dream, you might as well dream.

  • ...two, three.

  • Bill Gates wins. Bill Gates wins.

  • Well, a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting is

  • partly a fun festival. It's sort of a Mardi Gras

  • for people to come every year.

  • It's a chance for us to have a lot of fun

  • and meet the people that have entrusted us with their money.

  • Well, we used to have just 30 people in a cafeteria,

  • and now we have this huge public spectacle.

  • Celebration is part of making

  • a group of people work well together.

  • It's a celebration.

  • We are glad

  • You're here at our meeting

  • Be sure to check out our wares

  • We'll sell you See's Candy and Dilly Bars

  • And insurance for all of your cars

  • For its buy, buy, buy all you see

  • At the Berkshire show! ♪

  • All right! Woo!

  • He truly loves to do what he does.

  • Love you, Warren! Aw, yeah.

  • I think investors who own Berkshire Hathaway,

  • they see themselves as a part of a community.

  • One, two, three.

  • There are more long-term holders of Berkshire than any company.

  • People consider it a religion.

  • Okay, right here.

  • They don't buy it with the idea

  • they're gonna sell it next week.

  • I think most of them buying it with the intent of holding it for their lifetime,

  • just like they'd buy a farm or buy an apartment house.

  • At Berkshire, everybody gets the same information

  • from the comprehensive annual report.

  • We don't meet with the analysts.

  • I'm not interested in what an analyst thinks about Berkshire.

  • I'm interested in what the owners of Berkshire think about Berkshire.

  • He came out of a private partnership

  • where people he knew were trusting him.

  • And he had his relatives in the partnership,

  • and they were not rich.

  • And as it got bigger, he started treating

  • everybody else the way he treated his relatives.

  • In terms of our feeling

  • toward the people who are shareholders,

  • we regard them as our partners.

  • They're not some faceless group of people.

  • And that's why at the annual meeting, I love seeing 40,000 of them.

  • It gives real meaning to what we're doing every day.

  • Let's try. ♪ If you know... ♪

  • Susie like I know Susie

  • Oh, oh, oh, what a gal

  • We just have a lot of love and respect for each other.

  • And that's never changed.

  • Oh, oh... ♪ I don't go to most things in Omaha,

  • because I think Astrid lives there with him,

  • and that's for her to do.

  • And then we do all kinds of things.

  • Strange as it may seem to people,

  • I always think, you know, "Who cares?

  • "If it's working between the people who are directly involved,

  • who cares what anyone thinks?"

  • And my mother and Astrid were very close, you know.

  • They really, really loved each other,

  • and I think that my mother was glad that she was there,

  • 'cause she-- she loved my dad.

  • She wanted him taken care of and happy,

  • and there's no one better than Astrid.

  • She's just-- she loves my dad. She wouldn't care if he had one cent.

  • ♪ ...back where you belong

  • Well, Astrid has lived with me for a long time.

  • She's done wonders for me.

  • It worked well, but I don't think it'll work

  • for lots of other people necessarily.

  • Susie and I loved each other, we admired each other,

  • and we were totally in sync with what the other was doing,

  • but we were two different individuals.

  • ♪ ♪

  • The first time Warren came out to San Francisco...

  • we took a walk, and he looked around,

  • and he doesn't-- he's not very visual.

  • He was looking around, and he said,

  • "This really is-- this is your city."

  • I am so drawn to color, light, form, and nature,

  • that he thought it was a good place for me.

  • Over the years I've developed

  • a better understanding of human nature.

  • I can learn a lot about investments out of a book,

  • but I don't think you can learn as much about human beings.

  • You really need some experiences,

  • and I'm wiser in that respect than I was 40 or 50 years ago,

  • even though I can't rattle off numbers

  • the same way I used to be able to.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Well, I think that what we do reflects who we are,

  • and that's true for everybody in this room.

  • And if you do the work I do,

  • you meet the best human beings in the world.

  • People who have made a choice

  • not to make money, but to serve other human beings.

  • I think it's the best kind of life anyone could have.

  • I was with her in Arizona at this "Fortune" Most Powerful Women's Conference,

  • and she told me she had a biopsy the day before,

  • and I didn't really think much of it.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Then we got home, and the biopsy results were not good.

  • It was stage four oral cancer.

  • I was on my way to a board meeting in India,

  • and I remember saying to her,

  • "I'll see you when I get back."

  • And she rarely cried,

  • and she just started crying and said,

  • "No, you need to stay here,

  • and you need to come out for the operation."

  • So we were all there,

  • and the day she was going into the surgery,

  • that morning, my dad...

  • It's funny, he-- there's some of it he just can't--

  • you know, he just can't--

  • the thought of something happening to her was just, for him--

  • you know, was just the worst thing that could happen.

  • ♪ ♪

  • She knew it was going to be really difficult.

  • She knew the recovery was going to be brutal,

  • so I think that she had that surgery for others.

  • It was... quite a big surgery.

  • She couldn't talk, she couldn't swallow, she couldn't eat.

  • But she came out, and I really was with her

  • for the next four months or so.

  • And my dad came out every weekend.

  • ♪ ♪

  • And in a few months she was doing better.

  • She and my dad had gone to Cody, Wyoming,

  • which they did every year with a bunch of friends.

  • And my dad called. This was, I don't know, 8:00 at night or something,

  • and he said, "Something happened to Mom.

  • I'm in an ambulance. You need to come."

  • I actually thought something had happened to my dad.

  • I don't know why I thought that, but I-- I guess I thought

  • my mom had had this recovery,

  • it was successful, and why would anything happen to her?

  • ♪ ♪

  • It was horrible.

  • And a total shock.

  • You know, she'd been fine.

  • She'd been fine. They went off to Cody,

  • she was fine, and they were having dinner,

  • and you know, she didn't feel well after dinner,

  • and... she had the stroke.

  • We went into the hospital room, and my dad was sitting there.

  • He'd been sitting there all night, holding her hand.

  • I was so proud of him,

  • because when it came down to it,

  • he knew what he was supposed to do,

  • and he did it, which was nothing.

  • ♪ ♪

  • So my dad went to sleep,

  • and I sat with her.

  • And I just kept putting my hand on her heart

  • to see if she was breathing, and...

  • At one point, you know, I didn't feel anything,

  • so I went out, I got the nurse,

  • and I said, "Can you come in here?"

  • And she said, "No, she's gone."

  • So, I have to say one of the worst moments of my life

  • was waking my dad up to tell him that.

  • ♪ ♪

  • It's a very strange thing, love.

  • You can't get rid of it.

  • If you try to give it out, you get more back.

  • If you try to hang onto it, you lose it.

  • Susie... really put me together.

  • She believed in me.

  • She-she-she-- she put me together.

  • And I would not only have turned out to be the person I turned out to be,

  • but I would not have--

  • I actually wouldn't have been as successful in business without that, and...

  • she made me more of a whole person.

  • ♪ ♪

  • He went dark, essentially, quiet and inward

  • for a certain amount of time.

  • ♪ ♪

  • You know, my dad is a solitary guy,

  • and he had lived, essentially, a solitary life in a lot of ways.

  • I think it came down to him figuring out

  • how he was gonna get through this tunnel

  • and get out the other side.

  • In my head at the time, I thought,

  • "God, I don't know if he'll ever get out of bed."

  • But he did.

  • Welcome. I'm Patty Stonesifer,

  • the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

  • And we appreciate you coming today,

  • especially since I sent a very vague and very late notice

  • to ask you to come to a conversation with Bill and Melinda

  • on the future on philanthropy.

  • So, lets get on with it.

  • I have the pleasure of introducing a good man

  • whose great decision is going to change the world, Warren Buffett.

  • ♪ ♪

  • A remarkable decision tonight

  • from one of the richest men in the world.

  • Mega-billionaire Warren Buffett says

  • he is giving away most of his fortune away to charity.

  • Buffett has pledged to give away

  • the bulk of his fortune

  • to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

  • and giving more than 15 % of his money

  • to foundations started by his three children and his late wife, Susan.

  • One global health activist called what Buffett did today

  • one of the most remarkably selfless acts that history will ever record.

  • That's a better hand than I get at a Berkshire Hathaway meeting.

  • I'd like to thank you for coming.

  • It-- it's a great day for me. It's a great day for my family.

  • My wife Susie and I had planned that whatever I made

  • would go back to society,

  • and, originally, I thought she would outlive me

  • and that she'd make a big decision on it.

  • But since her death, I had to rethink

  • the best way to get the money into society

  • and have it used in the most effective way,

  • and I had a solution staring me in the face.

  • It was completely out of the blue. I mean amazing.

  • The largest single gift ever given was

  • what he gave away that day.

  • I'd like to ask the people representing those...

  • various foundations to come out.

  • The first three letters are easy to sign, I just sign "Dad."

  • ♪ ♪

  • When he wrote the letter to us,

  • he put something in that letter

  • that was incredibly important to me,

  • which was exactly how our foundation behaves,

  • which is, if you're gonna try to bat a thousand,

  • you won't do very many things that are important.

  • But if you're willing to basically strike out a few times,

  • you can really change something big.

  • I.C.C.N.!

  • Well, I feel terrific about the fact

  • that my three children each run a separate foundation

  • that combines their special interests,

  • whether it's early education

  • or whether it's farming in areas where people's techniques for using

  • small plots of land could use a lot of improvement.

  • All kinds of ways-- vaccines, you name it.

  • More powerful than Buffett's gift

  • is the message he's sending to other wealthy Americans,

  • that those who have the least in this world

  • should benefit from those who have the most.

  • In my entire lifetime, everything that I've spent

  • will be quite a bit less than one percent

  • of everything I've made.

  • The other 99 % plus will go to others,

  • because it has no utility to me.

  • ♪ ♪

  • So, it's silly for me to not transfer that utility

  • to people who can use it.

  • It's doing me no good.

  • I am so proud of what we do.

  • I almost cry at every board meeting,

  • because I just think she would be so proud.

  • And that is my biggest job, in my opinion,

  • is to make sure that every penny gets spent

  • the way she would want it spent.

  • Whoever you are in this life, you don't want to think

  • you wasted a lot of your energy, love,

  • and time on something useless.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I always thought I'd marry a minister, a doctor, or somebody

  • out doing some valuable service

  • to human beings.

  • And the fact that I married somebody who makes just piles of money

  • is really the antithesis of what I ever thought,

  • but I know what he is,

  • and... he is...

  • There's no finer human being than who he is.

  • ♪ ♪

  • The truth is that I'm here

  • in my position as a matter of luck.

  • Hey! How are you doing, Grandpa?

  • Hey, Grandpa! Okay.

  • When I was born in 1930,

  • the odds were probably 40:1 against me being born in the United States.

  • I did win the ovarian lottery on that first day, and on top of that, I was male.

  • Put that down as another 50/50 shot

  • and now the odds are 80:1 against being born a male in the United States,

  • and it was enormously important in my whole life.

  • To think that that makes me superior to anyone else

  • as a human being is just-- I can't follow that line of reasoning.

  • Perfect! Okay, good luck.

  • I think I was lucky to have been standing alongside Warren Buffett

  • while he was becoming Warren Buffett.

  • He has developed over the years. He's broadened.

  • His values extend through all of his life.

  • He wants to lead a life that he and his father,

  • if his father was still living, would say was a good one.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I think he's going to end up in the history books a hundred years from now.

  • I'm not sure what role he's going to be assigned.

  • Will he be famous for what he did as an investor

  • or as a philanthropist?

  • But Warren said that his ambition in life is to be a teacher.

  • The world is a great movie to watch,

  • but you don't want to sleepwalk through life.

  • The important thing to do is to look for the job

  • you would take if you didn't need a job

  • and life is wonderful then.

  • I mean, you'll jump out of bed in the morning

  • because you're really looking forward to the day.

  • I have-- for over 60 years,

  • I've been able to tap dance to work

  • just 'cause I'm doing what I love doing and--

  • and I just feel very, very lucky.

  • Okay, class dismissed.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Night.

  • Do you fear death?

  • No, I don't.

  • I've had a terrific life. I feel-- you know, it's gonna happen,

  • and I have no idea what happens after it.

  • I'm an agnostic, so I--

  • you know, it may be terribly interesting.

  • It may not be interesting at all. We'll find out.

  • But physically, I'm pretty well depreciated.

  • I'm getting down to salvage value.

  • But it really doesn't make any difference at all.

  • It doesn't interfere with my work. It doesn't interfere with my happiness.

  • It doesn't interfere with my thinking.

  • ♪ ♪

  • I don't feel any diminution in my enjoyment of life

  • or enthusiasm for life at all.

  • In fact, in a sense, the game that I'm in

  • gets more interesting all the time.

  • It's a competitive game. It's a big game,

  • and I enjoyed the game a lot.

  • ♪ ♪

  • Somewhere over the rainbow

  • Way up high

  • There's a land that I heard of

  • Once in a lullaby

  • Somewhere over the rainbow

  • Skies are blue

  • And the dreams

  • That you dare to dream

  • Really do come true

  • One day I'll wish upon a star

  • And wake up where the clouds

  • Are far behind me

  • Where troubles melt

  • Like lemon drops

  • Oh, way above

  • The chimney tops

  • That's where

  • You'll find me

  • Somewhere over the rainbow

  • Blue birds fly

  • Birds fly over the rainbow

  • Why then, oh, why can't I? ♪

  • Somewhere over the rainbow

  • Blue birds fly

  • Birds fly over the rainbow

  • Why then, oh, why can't I? ♪

  • If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow

  • Why, oh, why

  • Can't I? ♪

  • Good night, Susan.

And now one of the most respected investors in America

字幕と単語

ワンタップで英和辞典検索 単語をクリックすると、意味が表示されます

A2 初級

Becoming Warren Buffett (2017 Documentary)

  • 3492 195
    'Johnson Eh に公開 2017 年 05 月 27 日
動画の中の単語