Jacques, RE: "he knows that by awarding himself options he'd only be stealing from himself! "
Buffett has around 32% of his company's stock.
Of course, he wants to keep it all for himself.
Unlike a founder such as Moore, Buffett doesn't innovate products according to someone that knows him:
fortune.com
"To those who know him...Buffett...don't have much to do with product innovation"
When you build a company that innovates products, the bottom-line is a) you've got to love technology (which he doesn't), b) you've got to attract the best talent in the world and build teams that innovate in a merit-based way. Not in a classist way, not in a two-tier way, not in a top-heavy way - Coke anyone?
Before advocating Buffet, consider the repercussions of creating a two tier society - it slows a country's growth down.
Consider how those countries that do not have a middle class but have a ruling class simply do not have the powerful innovation (and thus, margins) we have in the USA.
In the USA, nearly everyone perceives themselves to be middle class (including those in the top >5% per a recent study, as well as the bottom %) and people contribute passionately to their work and the USA attempts to operate as a middle class country with the belief it is more productive to do so, and so far, that's been more effective than those countries that hoard the money at the top (which isn't to say we don't have our fair share of hoarders as a % - check out some of the oil industry's execs comp plans for hoarders as a %.)
Of course, for a business that does not innovate products but is a back-end cleanup company living off of other people's innovations, then one can certainly get away with treating the workforce like the dirt it appears someone may perceive them to be while in the same breadth sanctimoniously declaring themselves as piously not wanting options (because let's face it, options would be a drop in the bucket to someone with 32%.)
Entreprenuers have the most ownership of any company, and for Buffett to present a picture that claims otherwise, appears dishonest to me.
But in high-tech, at least our entrepreneurs know the formula to the innovation growth engine - which means a team-based approach, not the two-tier system that he's got at Coke.
Oh, and keep the company chairman in the family too:
"If he were to die today, his 46-year-old son, Howard, chairman of an agricultural equipment firm in Assumption, Ill., and also a working farmer (see "Reaping a Biotech
Blunder"), would become nonexecutive chairman of Berkshire."
If you want to further your case about options, may I suggest you separate the discussion out from Buffett, since including him on a high-tech matter simply weakens your case.
In high-tech, folks have absolutely great respect for Buffett's expertise at selecing companies with PE's of 6 and we respect him for his insurance business. But it basically stops when he doesn't get the connection between innovation and options, disses ceo's, and portrays a woman as a sexist object. Sorry, those aren't high-tech qualities.
I do agree with several things about Buffett though - the planes have got to go. Anyone that has done any basic demographic marketing studies will know that corporate planes and flashy displays of wealth turn off Gen X women in a huge way, even if they themselves are wealthy. And I hear Gen Y is even more like this - demographic marketing studies show they are a pragmatic planning lot that don't appeal to the hype of image - they see through it - they like Passats, they don't like computers looking industrial, and they are the "why?" people - they are anti-image.
Amy J |
