Warren/Charlie Quotes:
"What it is, it's a gathering of owners and these people feel like owners, we treat them like owners and we try to have them have a good time while their here. But these are people who are real shareholder owners, as opposed to somebody who owns a ticker symbol and is thinking about next quarters earnings or something of the sort. So it's a different breed of shareholder".....Warren Buffett. Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
"I think there's also been an element of people liking to be seen here or being able to say they've been here. It's a way of saying 'I'm very wise or very rich', without really bragging. You just sort of casually mention you've been at the Berkshire meeting and everybody assumes you've held your shares forever.".....Charlie Munger. Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
"Many people at this table are managing money for other people so in effect they're our passengers. So pretend for a moment that we are bush pilots, we're trying to get the passengers safely from point A to point B. For me at least, coming to this meeting is a chance to clean the windshield, to reset the compass. Even though the principles don't change, the information's not new, it's really good once a year to spend five hours with Charlie and Warren and get the gyro back in sync and to resist a 23 year old analyst, yap, yap, yapping in your ear and to resist the fax that comes in every morning and says a lot of crap.".....Jimmy Armstrong. Investor, Pittsburgh PA
"Well there are exceptional loyalties and there are old fashion ideas about how you get loyalties, and after all the auditorium is full of people who have co-owned shares with the managers for many decades, and in many cases they co-invested when everyone was young and obscure. Also when you come back to a place like that you are celebrating old loyalties, and of course the basic idea behind so much of Berkshire is the old fashioned idea that the best way to get loyalty is to deserve loyalty".....Charlie Munger. Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
"(When I first met Warren in the 1960's I noticed that)... He was very quick, very knowledgeable, a great memory which may not necessarily see immediately, but after you hear all the information that comes out over a few hours you'll realize how much is stored in that head"....Otis Booth. Investor, Los Angeles, CA
"It was February 1972. I was 12 years old at the time and I was reading a book called Super Money and Buffett was profiled in a chapter there, and he was described at that time as 'the greatest investor that nobody had ever heard of', essentially. And I read that chapter and I said "That's it. That's the guy I want to emulate."...Gifford Combs. Investor Los Angeles, CA
"I truly believe that Warren is an awfully good investor because of Charlie. I think Charlie brings far more to the table then most people realize and, to be honest, I gave him short shrift for a very long time.".... Steve Wallman. Investor, Madison, WI
"It's a reaffirmation of common sense. And I think you've got to admit there's no substitute anywhere for common sense in investing. And both of the fellows have shown that it's binary. It's one or zero, it's black or white. Don't faff around with discount rates and saying 'is it sort half good or better than the last thing?' or whatever. It's either good or bad, and if it's bad, don't worry with it. Just leave it alone. Get rid of it. Go for good.".....Mark Nelson. Investor, Sydney
"It probably has something to do with Buffett and Berkshire being able to generate annual returns of like 23% for thirty years. I mean that's just unprecedented in history. There's been some other great investors who have something close but nothing that steady with that many beneficiaries. So Berkshire is just a wonderful collection of companies. Warren's very smart, delightful, folksy, philosophical guy with great charisma so I think the combination of the business and the personality.".....Lawrence Cunningham. College Professor & Author
"By definition if you've got a million and a half shares roughly, you know you've only got so many seats, and you want people in those seats that are as in sync with you, and your objectives, and your time horizons, and all of that as you can. I mean that's how you have happy church, a happy home, a happy school or what ever it may be, is to have people there that are more or less are on the same wave length." ......Warren Buffett. Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway |
