11. We‘re not ‘uncomfortable‘ investing in Canada

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’re now finally coordinated to where station three, I believe.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. Hey. Hey, everyone.

Hi, Warren. I’m Liam. I’m 27 from Newmarket, Ontario, Canada.

I got invested in Berkshire thanks to my dad who brought me down to this meeting. I’m so excited to be here.

Most 27-year-olds have idols who are rappers, but instead my idols are Warren, Charlie, who we’ll miss forever, and also your cousin Jimmy, who unfortunately had to go this year, too. It’s been a tough year.

As a Canadian, similar with Greg, I always wonder about our Canadian economy and what you think about the Canadian economy.

We’ve got some beat-down bank stocks right now, and I don’t know what your opinions on are on these.

And I also wonder at, in your nineties, if the rumors are true and you’re still able to eat McDonald’s.

I like fast food myself, but I always wonder, at 93, he’s still able to eat those and enjoy the Coca-Cola. Thanks, Warren.

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Well, we’ve got a Canadian here, so we’ll let him answer that first part. (Laughter)

And if you if you watch me, you’ll see what I like to eat, I mean. (Laughs)

Go to it, Greg.

GREG ABEL: OK. Yeah, well, we are fortunate to have a number of operations up in Canada.

It goes across many of our operating entities, and then, as Warren touched on, all the businesses that we have a piece of, that we’re invested in, are up in Canada.

So the presence is significant.

We’re always looking at making incremental investments there because it’s an environment we’re very comfortable with.

Warren touched on understanding the U.S. environment business environment and I would put Canada equally in that bucket, that we understand it and would be comfortable.

And I would say the economy moves very closely to the U.S. So, the results we’re seeing out of our various businesses that report both their U.S. and Canadian operations aren’t drastically different.

And there’s a few that we’re on the energy side, for example, we make very substantial investments up there in Alberta.

But again, it’s very consistent with how that economy’s growing, and I would see it being very consistent with what we see here.

Warren, anything to

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. No, we Canadian obviously, there aren’t as many big companies up there as there are in the United States.

But when we get a I got one from Canada just the other day that I sent over to Greg, too. That

When we see anything that’s suggesting an idea that’s of a size that would interest [us] here and meets other requirements, we don’t have any hesitancy about putting big money in Canada.

It’s just and there are things we actually can do fairly well that or Canada could you know, benefit from Berkshire’s participation.

We did it some years ago not that many years ago but there was a financial institution up there. And they had a problem and they’d had, as I remember, 30-plus, you know, various other people that were kicking it around.

And meanwhile, the place was getting close to the edge for not a fundamental problem. And Ted Weschler from our office went up there. I heard about it on a Monday or something, and Ted Weschler went up there and we offered a solution in a couple of days to something that was getting close to the brink.

So it we do not feel uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form putting our money into Canada. In fact, we’re actually looking at one thing now.

But, you know, they still have to meet our standards in terms of what we get for our money.

But they don’t have a they don‘t have a mental we don‘t have any mental blocks about that country.

And of course, there’s a lot of countries we don’t understand at all.

So, Canada, it’s terrific when you’ve got a major economy not the size of the U.S., but a major economy that you absolutely you feel confident about operating there.

12. Ajit Jain has built Berkshire‘s insurance operations to last

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Becky?

BECKY QUICK: And, Warren, you just said that you’d rather have Ajit running risk assessment at the insurance operations than any other thousand insurance adjusters in the world, so I’d like to follow up with a question that came in from Mark Blakley in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He said, “Warren, for years, you have spoken about the incredible impact Ajit has had on Berkshire.

You’ve often joked, if you and Ajit are in a sinking boat and we can only save one of you, swim to Ajit.

While we often discuss plans for the next CEO of Berkshire, little is mentioned on who will one day replace Ajit.

How should we think about the future of the Berkshire insurance operations, given how challenging it may be to find another Ajit?” And I’d like to hear Ajit’s thoughts on this, as well.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say we won’t find another Ajit. But, fortunately, he’s a good bit younger than I am.

So, I hope you have to worry a little bit about me first, before you start worrying about Ajit. (Laughter)

You know, we won’t find another Ajit, but we have an operation that he has created and that, at least, part of it there are certain parts of it that are almost impossible for competitors to imitate. And if I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t try to imitate them.

And so we’ve institutionalized some of our advantages. But Ajit, is a well, he allowed his presence allowed us to do it. And he did it.

But now, we’ve created a structure that didn’t exist when he came in 1986. Nothing close to it existed with us or with anybody else.

And insurance is the most important business at Berkshire.

Marketable securities are important, but they’re not in the class, exactly, as our insurance business.

And Ajit we won’t have the same business if Ajit isn’t running it. But we’ll have a very good business.

And, again, that’s thanks to Ajit.

You know, I’d been in the business when he came in 1986, you know I’d first went to Geico in 1950. We first bought National Indemnity in 1957. And it was something that we made quite a bit of money in the stocks of of insurance companies.

But we needed we needed an Ajit.

And, fortunately, he came into the office on a Saturday. And he was tired of working at something where he really didn‘t it just didn’t challenge his intellect.

And I said, well, we’ve got a lot of challenges, so -(Laughs)

You know nobody’s perfect. So you’ve never seen an insurance policy or (laughs) owned an insurance stock, but here are the keys. And that’s worked out very well. (Applause)

AJIT JAIN: Thank you very much, Warren. Thank you very much, everyone.

But the fact of the matter is, nobody is irreplaceable. And we have [Apple CEO} Tim Cook here in the audience, I believe, who has proved that

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

AJIT JAIN: and has set an example for a lot of people who follow. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s a great observation.

AJIT JAIN: Now, having said that, I will also add that our board is conscious of the succession issue, not only at Warren’s level, but also at my level.

And, every year, they had me sitting in front of them, answering questions, and having me share my ideas with them, in terms of what would happen to the operations if I get hit by a truck.

We go through the various operations we have. I review with them a short list of people I think ought to be candidates for replacing me.

And, in addition to that, I go a step further and identify a particular individual as the person I would hand over the case to, if something were to happen to me.

Obviously, that could be subject to change, but we take this issue fairly seriously. And I think, at the end of the day, as Tim Cook has proved to us, it’ll be the biggest non-issue of the day. The Earth will keep still keep revolving around the axis.

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We know what we -(applause) we know what we will do. We know it’s a good answer. But we know isn‘t we won’t have another Ajit.

13. Charlie Munger was ‘peaking‘ at the age of 99

WARREN BUFFETT: Station five.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Ange Enunikis (PH).

And I’m wondering, if you had one more day with Charlie, what would you do with him?

WARREN BUFFETT: Hmm. (Laughs) (Applause)

Well, it’s kind of interesting because, in effect, I did have one more day. I mean, it wasn’t a full day or anything, but but he

We we always lived in a way where we were happy with what we were doing every day.

I mean, Charlie liked learning. He liked, as I mentioned in the movie, he liked a wide variety of things.

So, he was much broader than I was. But I didn’t have any great desire to be as broad as he was. And he didn’t have any great desire to be as narrow as I. But we had a lot of fun, doing anything.

And, you know, we’d play golf together. We’d play tennis together. We did everything together.

And this, you may find kind of interesting, we had as much fun, perhaps even more, to some extent, with things that failed because then, we really had to work and work our way out of them.

And, in a sense, there’s more fun having somebody that’s your partner and digging your way out of a foxhole than there is just sitting there and watching an idea that you got ten years ago just continually produce more and more profit. So

It wasn‘t you know he really he really fooled me, though, on he went to 99.9 years. I mean

If you had picked two guys, you know he publicly said he never did a day of exercise, except what was required when he was in the Army. So, he never did a day of voluntarily exercise. He never thought about what he ate, you know? It you know

We started every day and Charlie had he was interested in more things than I was.

But we never had any doubts about the other person, period.

And so if I’d had another day with him, we’d probably do the same thing we were doing the earlier days. But

And we wouldn’t have wanted to know that we only had one day. (Laughs)

There’s a great advantage in not knowing where you‘re going what day you’re going to die.

And Charlie always said, you know, just tell me where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there. (Laughter)

It the truth is you know he went everywhere, with his mind. And therefore, he was not only interested in the world at 99, but the world was interested in him. It’s remarkable.

You know, they he he I would I told him, in the last few years, I’d never seen anybody that was peaking, you know, at 99. And -(Laughs)

The world wanted to come and see him. I mean, they actually wanted to go out to 351 North June Street. And whether it was well, I could name a whole bunch of names but just I‘ll start with Elon Musk, but go down the list, and they all wanted to meet Charlie. And Charlie was happy to talk with them.

And the only the only person I could think of, otherwise, was the Dalia Lama. I don’t know that they had a lot else in common, but -(laughs)

It was he lived his life the way he wanted to. And he got to say what he wanted to say. He, like I, loved having a podium.

And, again, I can’t remember any time that he was mad at me, or I was mad at him. It just didn’t happen.

And calling him was fun, back when long distance rates were high. And we didn’t talk as often, as the years in recent years. We used to be on, daily, for long periods.

And we did keep learning. And we liked learning together. But, you know

We tended to be a little smarter, because as the years went by because we had mistakes and we had other things, where we learned something.

And the fact that he and I were on the same wavelength, in that respect, meant that the world was still a very interesting place to us, when he got to be 99 and I got to be 93.

So, I don’t have a perfect answer for you there, but I can tell you the ingredients that would go into

Sometimes, people would say to me or Charlie, at one of these meetings, you know, if you could only have lunch with one person that lived over the last 2,000 or so years, you know, who would you want to have it with?

Charlie says, I’ve already met all of them, you know, because he he read all their books. I mean

And he eliminated all of the trouble of going to restaurants to meet them or anything like that. He just went through a book.

He had met Ben Franklin. And he really he was remarkable. He’s had, really, no one else to meet because he’d read all their stuff. And he liked Ben Franklin’s stuff better than he liked mine, but

But Ben Franklin, he just had to read about it. He didn’t have to he didn‘t have to go have lunch with him or anything of the sort.

But it’s an interesting question. What you should probably ask yourself is that, who do you feel that you’d want to start spending the last day of your life with, and then figure out a way to start meeting them tomorrow.

And meet them as often as you can, because why wait until the last day. And don’t bother with the others? (Applause)

14. Cyber insurance is hot but too risky for now

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, Becky.

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Karel De Gend in Switzerland, in Europe. And this is for both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Jain.

“As political instability in the world is growing with the rise in the number of armed conflicts and trade tension, there is also increasing risk of cyberattacks.

What are your views on cybersecurity insurance? I’m asking this question, in general, for retail, small businesses, and large companies, including critical key infrastructure, such as power plants, harbors, airports, nuclear plants, et cetera.

Do you see a potential for profit making in cybersecurity insurances? And what are the key challenges?”

AJIT JAIN: OK. Let me start.

Cyber insurance has become a very fashionable product, these days. Over these last few years, it is, at least, a 10-billion-dollar market right now, globally.

And profitability has also been fairly high. I think profitability of at least 20 percent of the total premium, has ended up as profit in the pockets of the insurance barons.

Now, having said that, we at Berkshire tend to be very, very careful when it comes to taking on cyber insurance liabilities actually, for two reasons.

One is it’s very difficult to know what is the quantum of losses that can be subject to a single occurrence. And the aggregation potential of cyber losses, especially if some cloud operation comes to a standstill, you know, can aggregation potential can be huge. And not being able to have a worst-case cap on it is what scares us.

Secondly, it’s also very difficult to have some sense of what we call lost cost, or the cost of goods sold, could potentially be. It’s not just for a single loss, but for losses across over time.

They have been fairly well contained. Out of a hundred cents of the dollar, the premium losses over the last four of five years, I think have not been beyond forty cents on the dollar, leaving a decent profit margin.

But having said that, there’s not enough data to be able to hang your hat on and say what your true lost cost is.

So, in our insurance operations, I have told the people running the operations is I have discouraged them from writing cyber insurance.

To the extent that they need to write it so as to satisfy certain client needs, I have told them, no matter how much you charge, you should tell yourself that each time you write a cyber insurance policy, you’re losing money. We can argue about how much money you’re losing, but the mindset should be, you’re not making money on it, you’re losing money. And then, we should go from there.

So it is projected to be a huge business. My guess is, at some point, it might become a huge business, but it might be associated with huge losses. And our approach is to sort of stay away from it right now, until we can have access to some meaningful data and hang our hat on data.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, you’ve just made you‘ve just heard heard why Ajit is invaluable, because

When you insure something, you really want to think of what how much can you lose. And the question I remember the first time it was it happened, I think, in the 1968, when there were the riots in various cities because I think it was the Bobby Kennedy death that set it off or the Martin Luther King death. I’m not sure which one.

But, in any event, when you had a policy, you have a limit in that policy. But the question is, what is one event?

So, if somebody is assassinated in some town and that causes losses at thousands of businesses all over the country, if you’ve written all of those thousands of policies, do you have one event or do you have a thousand events?

And there’s no place where that kind of a dilemma enters into it more than cyber, because if you think about it, if you know let’s say you’re writing 10 million dollars of limit per risk. And you decide that’s fine, and if you lose 10 million, you know, for some event, you can take it.

But the problem is if that one event turns out to affect a thousand policies and somehow they’re all linked together in some way, and the courts decide that way, you’ve written something that, in no way we’re getting the proper price for and could break the company.

And I will tell you that most people want to be in anything that’s fashionable when they write insurance. And cyber’s an easy issue. You can write a lot of it. The agents like it. You know, they’re getting a commission on every policy they write.

And you’ve got to have somebody in charge of things that understands that you may get an aggregation of risks that you never dreamt of and, maybe, worse than some earthquake happening some place just because you have a whole bunch of policies with a million-dollar limit.

And I would say that human nature is such that most insurance companies will get very excited. And their agents will get very excited. And it’s very fashionable. And it’s kind of interesting.

And, as Charlie would say, it may be rat poison. (Laughter)

15. Solar and wind aren‘t reliable enough yet to totally stop using fossil fuels

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Well, that cheerful view, we’ll go to station six.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. This question is for Warren Buffett and Greg Abel.

My name is Maria Perenes (PH). I am a retiree from Las Vegas, Nevada. I am here today as a member of (unintellligible) Nevada, a group (unintelligible) Latine leaders for the environment of justices.

I am also I am almost here, represented in many Latine in families in Nevada who are struggling to pay their utility bills and want access to affordable, clean electricity.

I want to [ask] today, why is NV Energy, which is owned by the Berkshire Hathaway, building new gas plants instead of investing in solar energy with Nevada, one of the sunniest states in the country?

Can I expect to see future leadership take dangerous investments in the fossils levels more seriously? Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: And thank you, Maria. Greg, you want to?

GREG ABEL: Sure. Thank you.

So, as we touched on, with NV Energy even earlier, there’s a lot going on there. And when I think of there’s no question solar‘s a great opportunity for NV Energy and we’ll continue to utilize it as a resource and continue to invest in it in that utility and the other utility we have in Nevada.

We’re also in a point where when you think of a transition that’s going on within the energy sector, we are transitioning from carbon resources to renewable resources, as was noted. But it will not occur overnight. That transition will take many years.

And as we use the renewable resources, such as solar or wind, they are intermittent. And we do try to combine it with batteries.

But at this point in time, we cannot transition completely away from the carbon resources.

So, if I think of Nevada, in the next two years, our last two coal units are well actually, in the next year our last two coal units will retire. But we are replacing them with a new gas unit, which is truly needed to make sure that system remains reliable and available to our customers.

And that’s done in conjunction with our with the state representatives and our regulatory agencies to make sure we can serve those customers, every day and every minute.

We have great examples in Iowa, where, at times, a hundred percent of our energy comes from wind. And we’re thrilled with that. And I believe we did that, for example, on Earth Day.

Every we had enough wind that we could meet the demand of that state. But the next day, if the wind’s not blowing, we need our gas resources, our gas plants to fill that gap.

And, really, that’s the situation we still have in Nevada. So, we’ll continue the transition to renewable resources, be it solar in Nevada and wind in other areas, combined with batteries.

But for the foreseeable future, we do see gas being a very important resource to help maintain reliability and meet our customer needs.

And to meet it in an affordable way, is also an important piece of that.

So thank you for your comments. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: And we’ve got the capital to do whatever makes the most sense in a place like Nevada. And Nevada, I don’t know, each state calls their ruling commission something different, but they probably call it the Public Service Commission or something like and they’re making the decision as to what they think can and should be done in terms of getting from a vastly complicated utility business moves toward something different without messing things up in the meantime, and, you know, having the lights go off.

They I think they would probably agree with you very much, Maria, that they what they where they want to get. But they can’t they can‘t do it tomorrow, you know, because of the intermittent problems.

And their job is to make sure the lights stay on. And their job is also to move toward better sources. But solar will never be the only source of electricity because it well, Greg may know more about this, but barring some real breakthroughs in storage and that sort of thing.

GREG ABEL: Right.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

GREG ABEL: Yeah, generally, a battery right now, to do it in an economical way, is a four-hour battery. And when you think of the time without the sun being available, that’s a challenge.

Now, there’s a lot of technology advancements. And that’s stretching out. And you throw dollars at a lot of things, you can accomplish things.

But the reality is that there’s a careful balance of the reliability and also balancing, as you as it was noted, the rates do matter and how much customers are paying.

So, delicate balance of both delivering reliability but doing it in an affordable way.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. My friend, Bill Gates he’s working on shortening up that or lengthening the time the battery works.

And so you’ve had some very smart people working on it. But it isn‘t something that you actually do overnight. And I can understand why people want it done overnight.

But it is going to take a lot of money. It’s going to take a lot of good ideas and smart people, like Bill and Greg not me. I don’t understand why the damn lights go on when I even turn the switch. But those fellows really do know. And there’s plenty of them working on it. And we’ve got plenty of money to implement it.

But there are certain things that just take a certain amount of time.

My daughter hates it when I use this example, but it’s really true that you can’t create a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. I mean, that‘s just, you know -(laughter)

You may want you may want a baby, but

So, there are certain laws of nature that you have to work with.

16. Florida‘s insurance market is difficult, but the state is trying to improve it

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Becky?

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Rich McCloskey in Dunedin, Florida.

He says, “Warren and Ajit, would you let us know what you think about the car and property insurance situation in Florida? As a resident, both seem out of control. Since the Florida market seems to be so mismanaged, is this an opportunity for Berkshire?”

AJIT JAIN: Yeah. The Florida market, both for auto insurance and for homeowner‘s insurance, has had a few tough years.

The two problems we face in Florida, and all the risk bearers face in Florida, one is the lawyers and the amount of corruption that takes place in the Florida market is keeps skyrocketing, making it difficult for us to price the product and make a profit.

And, secondly, the amount of activity, in terms of storms, both the frequency and the severity, is also so severe that the losses in Florida tend to make it very difficult for a risk bearer to make money.

Having said that, we’ve had a we fortunately had a very good run in Florida last year. We increased our exposure in Florida, as we talked about, last year. And, fortunately, nothing bad happened. So a lot of our premiums that were in the top line flew straight to the bottom line.

Florida is a large market. Florida is a market that’s subsidized by the rest of the country. I don’t think those that’s going to stand the test of the time.

The Florida market, the legislators are trying to improve it. They have passed a law that is bringing down the amount of fraud that takes place in Florida.

And I hope Florida will be a fairly buoyant insurance market because, at the end of the day, they do believe in the free market more than some of the other states that have an insurance crisis, like California and New York.

So, yes, Florida has a problem. Prices will go up fairly substantially. But at the end of the day, I think we’ll achieve a degree of balance so that the risk bearers can make a decent profit and we’ll be deploying capital out there.

17. Life advice: set goals and take the paths that achieve them

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Station seven, please?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Warren. My name is Christine Hoenig Garcia. And I’m from Agoura Hills, California.

Thank you for being an excellent teacher and imparting your wisdom to us throughout the years.

What advice would you like to share today that you believe everyone needs to hear?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, too bad you didn’t add you added that what the rest of us would like to hear. (Laughs)

Well, I would say that if I had one piece of advice, I would well, and you’re lucky you live in this country because just to start with, because you’ve got opportunities here that wouldn’t exist in (applause) much of the world.

But I would like I would like really sort of use Charlie’s advice of thinking how you would like your obituary to read and then start selecting the educational paths, the social paths, you know, the whatever -(unintelligible) that your particular situation, in terms of associating, and perhaps certainly in my day, it would have been marrying the person that would best help you do that.

Well, Charlie would say you are offering some similar benefit to the partner.

And, you know, the opportunity in this country is, you know, it‘s basically limitless.

But when you think of going back not that many centuries, you know, if you were going to be a shepherd or something like that, you know, a hundred years from now, you know, your grandson was granddaughter was going to be a shepherd.

I mean, nothing really happened. And what has happened in the last 200 years with the combination of the Industrial Revolution and whether it’s science or education or health, or you name it, we are so lucky to be born when we were, the people in this room.

And many of us were lucky enough to be born in the United States as well.

You know, you you‘ve had the you’re entering the best world that’s ever existed. And you want to find the people to share it with and the activities to participate in that fit you.

And if you get lucky, like Charlie and I did, you find things that interest you young. But if you don’t find them right away, you keep looking.

And I always tell students to take the job that you I mean, find the job that you want would like to have if you didn’t need a job. And sometimes you can find that very early. And sometimes sometimes you go through various experiences.

But don’t forget what you‘re trying actually are trying to do. And there’s no place to do it like this country. And find the person that you like to share your life with, in many cases.

And, you know, sometimes you get lucky and do that early. And sometimes you make mistakes.

But I would I would try to you know, in a very, very general way, I would try to figure out how you’d want to look back on your life and think about yourself and start today to go on the path that leads to that goal and expect some difficulties along the way.

But if you’re thinking that way, you’re more likely to get there. (Applause)

18. Greg Abel is now working directly with Berkshire‘s managers

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky.

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Axel Meyersiek in Hamburg, Germany.

What has changed for Berkshire’s operating CEOs since Greg Abel and Ajit Jain became vice chairmen? For example, can and do the operating CEOs still reach out to Warren Buffett directly?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that‘s the answer might surprise you. But they overwhelmingly, the operating executives, well they prefer to talk to Greg or to Ajit. (Laughs)

And that’s understandable because I don’t really do much. And I don’t operate at the same level of efficiency that I would have 30 years ago or 40 years ago.

I don’t know the managers as well as I would have when we were smaller and when I could get more accomplished in a day than I can now.

And you‘ve got when you’ve got somebody like Greg and Ajit, you know, why settle for me, I mean, basically? (Laughs)

So it’s worked out extremely well.

And I almost can’t imagine anything working better. Because Greg, in a year, accomplishes I mean, he sees more of them, understands more about their problems, you know, can give them suggestions. He’s got incredible amounts of energy.

And nobody has more wisdom than Ajit about insurance. And they’ve got access in insurance to him.

Now, they had it before we stuck some of those titles on in insurance. Whereas with Greg, he much expanded things when he became the vice chairman in charge of really everything except insurance.

So, he is if you polled our managers that fall under his jurisdiction, which would be a lot of them, they they would much prefer it, unless, like a few, they weren’t paying as much attention to their business. And I wouldn’t do anything about it. But Greg would. And they still like it when he does it.

He can deliver he can deliver news very well to people who

You know, there’ll be some people, if you have 20 children and you’re very rich, you’ll have some that will be go-getters anyway. And you’ll have some that won’t. And we are a very, very rich company.

And we don‘t we haven’t had a history of being very tough on people that coasted. And we’ve had some that would do that.

And Greg will do something about it. And Charlie and I wouldn’t have. Not because we didn’t know it should be done, but because we were doing so well ourselves. (Laughs)

It just wasn‘t we didn‘t we wouldn’t make the effort. We didn’t want to change our lives that way. Plus, we slowed down in various ways physically and everything.

So, I would I would say that the number of calls I get from managers is essentially awfully close to zero. And Greg is handling those.

And I don’t know quite how he does it. But but we’ve got the right person. I can tell you that.

And with Ajit, he does less physical moving. And the insurance people are more used to working with Ajit, obviously, over the years.

So, I wouldn’t say that changing the title really changes much there. Because he was in charge of insurance anyway. So that‘s you know, you can you can go to a business school, and they can give you way better answers than I’ve just given you. But that’s the way we do it at Berkshire. (Laughs)

BECKY QUICK: Ajit raised his hand.

AJIT JAIN: Yeah, if I can add a comment. From my perspective, the transition has worked out very, very well.

But I think the credit really goes to how Warren has handled the situation. And what I mean by that is after the transition was announced and a lot of the operating managers used to be they were used to calling Warren directly on some issue or the other.

After the transition, when they would continue to do so, Warren would very skillfully, in his manner, handle them such that he would not answer what they were looking for, but at the same time made them feel good, and told them that he sort of enjoyed hearing from them and talking to them.

So as a result of which, you know, the transition took place, people got the message. They got the message and were very responsive to it. And it’s a non-issue as far as today is concerned.

GREG ABEL: Ajit, I‘d probably add -(applause) yeah Ajit, the only thing I would add is we do have an exceptional set of managers across both the non-insurance and insurance.

And yes, Warren made it incredibly easy, but so did they. It was a very easy transition because they care deeply about Berkshire. They care deeply about the culture. And they very much wanted it to be a success.

And we’re fortunate to have those managers in insurance and non-insurance. So, thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah -(applause) what Greg is talking about is they really wanted more direction in some cases than I gave them.

You know, I mean I just sat there reading the Wall Street Journal or whatever. And Greg is I don‘t you know, there one way or another, there are more than 24 hours in his day, you know?

And I just don’t know how he covers the ground he does. But he knows more about the people.

We get the same feeling in terms of judging the attractiveness of businesses and making capital decisions and that sort of thing. But but he’s willing to work.

I mean, you know, and I couldn’t get as much done anyway. You know, what I could do in a couple of hours, you know, may take eight hours now. I just don’t read as fast and everything.

But it’s working very well. And this place, if anything happened to me, it would be working extremely well the next day.

I don’t get any phone calls. You could actually we can rig something up, so we get some answering machine that people think I’m still around, you know, or something, in terms -(Laughter)

So anyway, that‘s that‘s much much less than you’d learn in business school. But that’s the way we do it at Berkshire.

19. ‘Loads of opportunities‘ in India that ‘more energetic‘ future Berkshire management could explore

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Station eight.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, Warren, Greg, and Ajit. Thank you for having us.

Your teachings have not only made us better investors, but more importantly better people. Thank you for that.

My name is Rajeev Agrawal and I am from New Jersey. I run an India-focused fund called DoorDarshi India Fund.

My question is related to India. Indian economy and Indian equities have done quite well in the last five, 10, 20 years. It is the fifth largest economy, and it will be the third largest in the next few years.

My question is, is Berkshire actively looking for opportunities in the Indian equity market? And what will allow you to buy anything meaningful there? Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, it’s a very good question. And obviously, India, you know I’m sure there are loads of opportunities in a place like India. And the question is, do we have any advantage in either insights into those businesses or contacts that will make possible some some transaction that might where the parties in India would particularly want us to participate?

I would say that that’s something that a more energetic management at Berkshire could pursue.

Because we do have the reputation now. Berkshire is known not like it’s known in the United States but it’s known around the world.

And, you know, our Japanese experience has been fascinating in that respect.

So there may be unexplored or unattended to opportunity in that area. I’m not the one to do it. But that may be something that in the future it might be opportunities. There are opportunities.

The question is, does Berkshire have some kind of advantage in actually pursuing those opportunities against particularly against people that are using other people’s money where they get paid based on assets managed or something of the sort?

I mean, there are plenty of people in the game who are buying and running businesses that do not really have our philosophy. I mean, they they’re going to get rich no matter what happens. And their payment may be based on how much they buy rather than what they buy.

So we’ll see how the next management plays the game out at Berkshire. And fortunately, you don’t have too long to wait on that, generally.

I feel fine. But I I know a little bit about actuarial tables, and -(laughter)

I just well, I would say this. I shouldn’t be taking on any four-year employment contracts like several people are doing in this world at an age where you can’t be quite that sure of where you’re going to be in four years. (Laughs)

OK. (Applause)

But you’re absolutely right about if you were energetic, had some way to become a buyer or a party that people particularly wanted to do business with, Japan was great.

And India could be great. But India and Japan aren’t the same. I mean, I don’t adapt myself terribly well to different cultures. And some people are really good at it. And almost anybody is better than I am. But I stumbled into one or two.

But that could happen in, you know, act two of Berkshire Hathaway.

I mean, what it is now and continue to be what it is now. I mean, we’ve gotten from 20 million of net worth to 570 billion.

And, you know, we there aren’t as many things to do, but we can do a few big things better than anybody else can do. And there will be occasional times when we’re the only one willing to act.

And at those times, we want to be sure that the U.S. government thinks we’re an asset to the situation and not a liability or a supplicant, you know, as the banks were, we’ll say in 2008 and ’09. They were all tarred with the same brush.

But we want to be sure that the brush that determines our future, you know, is not tarred. And I think we‘re in the I don’t think anybody’s got a better position to do it than Berkshire. (Applause)

22. Berkshire has a lot of cash, but ‘things aren‘t attractive‘ to buy now

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

BECKY QUICK: This question’s from Johan Heylen, who writes, “You’re sitting on a 168 billion of cash, which you told us today is now more than 182 billion dollars.” His questions are, “One, what is Buffett waiting for? And two, why not at least deploy some of it?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think that’s pretty (laughs) easy to answer.

I don’t think anybody sitting at this table has any idea of how to use it effectively and therefore we don’t use it and we don’t use it now at 5.4 percent, but we wouldn’t use it if it was at 1 percent.

Don’t tell the Federal Reserve that -(laughter) prefer it.

But the we don’t we only swing at pitches we like. And if anybody tried to swing at every pitch or felt that because they hadn’t swung at a pitch for the last two pitches they ought to swing at the third one or something like that, it’s just there are times and obviously but I would say this.

I would not like to be running 10 billion now. Ten million I think we could I think Charlie or I could earn high returns on, because I think there are just a few things that happen on a very, very small scale.

But that if we had 10 billion, we wouldn’t I wouldn’t basically see many more opportunities than we’ve found.

Now, it’s true that something like Japan we could’ve done if the company had had a 30 or 40 billion and we’d make we‘d have had great returns on equity.

But if I saw one of those now, I’d do it for Berkshire.

You know, it isn’t like I’ve got a hunger strike or something like that going on. It’s just that they things aren’t attractive. And there is well, there are certain ways that can change, and we’ll see whether they do.

23. Settlement may change commission structure, but real estate agents still have important role

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Station 10.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, this is an incredible meeting that you host every year. My name is Sean Cawley. I am a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Arizona and California.

My mother Cindy, my brother, and my two sisters all sell real estate with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services for many years.

We love being a part of the Berkshire family along with the 70,000 other agents that sell real estate for the company.

Mr. Buffett, Home Services of America recently settled our class action lawsuit regarding commissions for $250 million last week.

This is this dollar amount’s about a hundred million more than Keller Williams, 166.5 million more than Anywhere Real Estate, which is Better Homes and Gardens and Coldwell Banker.

As a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in multiple markets and a shareholder who’s been coming to this meeting for 15 straight years that’s one of the reasons I got involved with real estate is because of this meeting what are your thoughts on buying and selling a home in light of this recent settlement?

And I’d maybe ask the note to Greg and Ajit, too would you consider a Berkshire agent when buying your next home? (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I don’t buy them that often as some people have noted. (Laughter)

But I certainly would consider them. But I’d say the probability of that happening is low. And I really appreciate the fact you’ve joined up with us.

But I’m going to in terms of the settlement, I mean Greg kept me informed but I turned it over a hundred percent to him.

So, Greg, you want to talk about it?

GREG ABEL: Sure. So, thank you for you and your family for being an agent and working for our company, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services.

I think there’s a few questions in there. One, there is no question the industry will go through some transitions because of that settlement.

Ours and the every other major player in the industry settled. The National Association of Realtors settled for more than 400 million. So effectively everybody was swept up in that settlement.

And it did set the grounds for the both Home Services and for the industry to move forward.

There’s a lot of changes that happen in or are being proposed associated with that settlement. But the one thing that I think you hopefully would absolutely agree with, the real estate agent is still an important part of these transactions.

It’s the one time in our lives where we make these massive investments, and having that counsel and guidance is critical. And that’s really what our business and those other businesses rely on.

How the commission structures change and how it’s negotiated, which is really what the settlement was, it was no longer that a buyer would automatically pay a commission agent to the selling agent. That how now has to be negotiated.

That’ll impact things, but I think the realtors will continue to be a very important part of that. And I think Home Services and the industry will remain very relevant.

And then the only thing I would share with our shareholders on a broader basis is that obligation resides with Home Services and can be met by Home Services.

And that was an important condition because they were also pursuing Berkshire and Berkshire Hathaway Energy and we said, you can pursue us separately, but that settlement will reside with Home Services and be an obligation of that. And they decided the ultimate settlement and will go forward from there.

So, Warren, any other comments?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, yeah. I’ve sold two houses in the last well, in the last 93-and-a-fraction years, (Laughs)

And I’ve I don’t know I’ve bought one that I still have, but I obviously bought the other two.

And I have not negotiated down the commission, even though well, the last one sold for 7 million or something like that. People do negotiate down commissions to some extent.

But I can tell you I’ve looked at the figures and I think the system has really worked out very well.

When I got out of school they had, you know, what they called FSBO, you know, for sale by owner.

And so I’ve been involved to some degree in watching the whole system operate. And I know what our average agent makes. I know, you know, how long they work on things sometimes that don’t materialize. It I don’t think we’ll end up with a better system.

And but, you know, it’s up to Greg and the people at Home Services how we work it through here.

But I like our agency group, and I we’ve got a very large number as you of real estate agents. And I’ve encouraged the expansion we’ve done in the real estate agent real estate brokerage business.

You know, it was just one or two operations when we bought Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and we’ve really built up quite a company. And I think it’s a very fundamental business.

You need help. Ninety percent of the people need help, you know, in buying a home or selling one.

And I’ve watched it operate all my life and been involved with lots of people who have been in the business and bought there was a decision in court, and I told Greg to handle it whatever way that seemed best to him. And I’m quite I’m perfectly happy with the way we’ve handled it, I think.

I’m surprised at the decision, but it we get surprised in decisions in the insurance business lots of times.

I mean, you know, just think of the various things we’ve faced. And, you know, when 9/11 came along, you know, we never thought something like that could happen, but it happened.

And then we didn’t know what was one event or more events. I mean, if you if they closed down the New York Stock Exchange and a bunch of brokers all kinds of people lose their jobs or lose their income for a while, is that one event or multiple events?

Well, there’s all kinds of things come up in business, and we just we play the ball wherever (laughs) we find it.

And I was surprised by the decision. Was it in Missouri that

GREG ABEL: Missouri, yes.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. But, you know, we’ve gotten surprised by some other decisions, and we’ll keep doing sensible things as we move forward.

Greg, do you want to, yeah

GREG ABEL: Yeah. No, I think the only thing I would add, back maybe to how the model has changed, and he asked one yes, we’ll always I can’t speak for Ajit but we’ll always use Home Services agents.

But it’s interesting. I have bought a home abroad because I lived over in the United Kingdom, in Newcastle, running our utility over there.

And it is a completely different experience to buy a home outside of the U.S.

Our agents take great responsibility for the whole transaction in the U.S. They put, as Warren said, time and capital at risk to ensure the transaction closes.

And when you do close it, they make sure what you bought you actually what you thought you were purchasing you end up with.

And that’s not the way it is always around the world. And there are more affordable models, but it’s the old saying, you get what you pay for.

So, I think our real estate agents still provide incredible value within our business, and, as Warren touched on it, it’ll survive. The form may be a little bit different, but there’s no question it’ll continue to thrive.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We still will want to buy real estate brokerages at the right price.

And I hope we’re bigger in the industry 10 years from now and 20 years from now than we are currently.

And I did sell a house for 7 million, and I did not negotiate the 6 percent down. And I feel like I got my money’s worth and then some.

And I’m cheap by nature so -(laughs) and it is not careless about it. I just I got my money’s worth.

24. Insurance companies may lose volume if Tesla is right about fewer accidents with self-driving cars

WARREN BUFFETT: So, let’s move on to Becky.

BECKY QUICK: This question’s for Warren and Ajit. It’s from Jeff Oyster.

“As a Berkshire and Tesla shareholder, I would like to hear your thoughts on the potential financial effects to GEICO, assuming Elon Musk delivers on his fully autonomous driving goal.

“On Tesla’s most recent earnings call, Elon said, ‘If you’ve got at scale a statistically significant amount of data that shows conclusively that the autonomous car has, let’s say, half the accident rate of a human-driven car, I think that’s difficult to ignore.’

“Assuming Elon succeeds in reducing accidents by 50 percent versus human drivers, wouldn’t auto insurance rates fall to reflect the reduced underwriting risk, thereby adversely impacting GEICO’s revenues and float and perhaps margins too?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the truth yeah, if it well, let’s just take the extreme example.

Let’s say there are only going to be three accidents in the United States next year for some crazy reason that anything that reduces accidents is going to reduce cost.

But that’s been harder to do than people have done before, but obviously, if it really happens, the figures will show it and our data will show it and prices will come down. I would

There have been a lot of people talk about doing that in the past.

I mean, General Motors used to be very big in the insurance business, and when Uber first started, they used some firm which now is I think Ajit will confirm they’re close to bankruptcy now, aren’t they, because of taking things on at the wrong prices? Is that true of

AJIT JAIN: Yeah. Yeah.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah, it insurance always looks easier than it is. And it’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, you know, and then you find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on, but

You know, it’s a very tempting business when somebody hands you money and you hand them a little piece of paper.

But really knowing whether you’re I mean, if accidents get reduced 50 percent it’s going to be good for society, and it’s going to be bad for insurance companies’ volume. But, you know, good for society is what we’re looking for.

So far, this you might find kind of interesting I mean, the number of people killed per hundred million passenger miles driven, I think it actually was in the when I was young it was, like, 15, but even post-World War II it only fell to, like, seven or thereabouts.

And Ralph Nader probably has done more for the American consumer than just about anybody in history because that seven or six has now come down to under two. And I don’t think it would’ve come down that way without him.

There have been some kind of fluke figures of what people did during the pandemic, which are quite interesting because they didn’t drive immediately they didn’t drive as many miles, but they drove more dangerously, didn’t they?

AJIT JAIN: Yeah

WARREN BUFFETT: Is that right, Ajit?

AJIT JAIN: Yeah. Yeah.

So, the point I want to make in terms of Tesla and the fact that they feel that because of their technology the number of accidents do come down, and that is certainly provable.

But I think what needs to be factored in as well is the repair cost of each one of these accidents has skyrocketed.

So, if you multiple the number of accidents times the cost of each accident, I’m not sure that total number has come down as much as Tesla would like us to believe.

Tesla has been toying with the idea of writing insurance directly or indirectly, and so far, it hasn’t really sort of been much of a success. Time will tell, but I think, you know, automation just shifts a lot of the expense from the operator to the equipment provider.

25. Please be in your seats for start of second session

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’re getting close to noon when we’re going to break for lunch. I just want to tell everybody that I would appreciate it very much if they will get in their seats and be ready at one o‘clock when we reconvene because we will have another very short little movie and we’ll just have a little explanation of something that I think will be of interest certainly of interest to me.

But it so I would like them we will break promptly at 12, and I would like everybody to really make an attempt to be in their seat and quiet at one o‘clock. And if you can’t do that, if you’ll wait a few minutes and watch in the halls all that.

But we will we do not want to be seating people and have people milling here at one o‘clock. And just like a play in New York or something we’ll it’ll take a few minutes and only a few minutes to cover what we’re going to at one o‘clock. But we don’t want to be seating people during that period.

26. Berkshire isn‘t trying to predict winners in controlling climate change

WARREN BUFFETT: But now let’s we’ll go on till 12 o‘clock and then we’ll have a break until 1 o‘clock. And we will go to station 11.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Humphrey Liu, and I’m from Charlottesville, Virginia.

I asked a question last year and wish to pose it again. It can be considered a follow-up.

There is something to be said for traditions. It is the same question, but it is a changing and different world we are in.

Looking at global trends, it increasingly does seem that zero-emission vehicles may have finally reached the cusp of massive adoption.

Do you see any opportunities in this space, either in specific vehicle manufacturers or in related technologies?

As an addendum, I will note that Berkshire has very relevant interests in energy, Pilot Flying J, and BYD. Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, we will I hope you’re right.

And massive adoption has been sort of a moving target so far. But I hope we get there.

But Berskshire would not be I don’t think that we bring any special talent to that field. You’ve got vehicle manufacturers, and I would certainly not know how to pick the winners in an industry like that.

But I’ll be delighted if there are some winners. But don’t count on us foreseeing who the winners will be, and don’t count on us for predicting when something will happen.

It obviously has been a moving target so far, and it is an incredible problem that society faces.

And it may be that it may be that governments are not very good at solving it for a while. It’s

All of climate change is it’s got a terrible problem just in the fact that, you know, in effect that, the United States, particularly, has been the one that caused the problem the most and then we’re asking poorer societies to say, well, you’ve got to change the way you live because we lived the way we did.

And, you know, that really hasn’t been settled yet.

You know, it’s a fascinating problem to me, but I don’t have anything to add to how you really slice through the world.

When I was born in 1930, there were just essentially two billion people in the world population statistic now there’s eight billion.

Now if you’d asked anybody in 1930 if you take the 50 smartest people in the world and you said, what’s the optimum population for the world when you’re 93 years old, they would’ve not said eight billion.

There wouldn’t be anybody even close to it. But we did it. Now we’re reaping some of the consequences of having done that.

And we got the benefits in the United States. I’m exaggerating here to some extent, but the developed world basically got a

And then we’re telling a whole bunch of other people that we want them to change the way they live because of the way they live we lived and the way they lived.

So, we will see what happens with it. But that’s a problem that is be very, very, very hard to solve among a couple hundred countries.

And I really don’t have anything to be to contribute on it.

27. Carol Loomis once briefly dated Ty Cobb

WARREN BUFFETT: And now I’ve got instructions from the thing the monitor in front of me.

I would like to introduce one person here that has you all know because she’s been here so many times.

But my friend Carol Loomis, who is now well, she’s going to be 95 on June 25th. You can send presents care of our office.

And Carol has edited the Berkshire annual report -(applause) since 1977.

There we are. (Applause)

And there are two points I’d like to mention.

Every year, I give Carol a little item for her bracelet that is a replica of the front page of the report that year, and they’re different colors and all of that sort of thing.

And so she now has, what, since 1977, what, 47 of them. And she I think she’s put 10 on each one.

But I’ve always wondered, you know, if she put them all on one arm whether one arm wouldn’t now be four or five inches longer (laughter) than the other. But I’m sure she foresaw that.

But I want to reveal one other I want to reveal well, I want to ask one more question while Carol is here because I’m sure almost everybody in this audience grew up, like I did, knowing that Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting average was .367. I mean, he’s the leader among everyone. And maybe that that record is never broken and Ty Cobb, .367′s immortal.

But Carol has a distinction that probably most of you don’t know, but she dated Ty Cobb. And -(Laughter)

Carol was officed at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street in the Time-Life Building and NBC was right across the street in Rockefeller Center.

And the quiz shows became the hit of TV. And Carol being the kind of person she is, walked across the street at lunchtime and went on the quiz show of the late 1950s and they gave her the they gave her the questions regarding baseball. And Carol answered them all correctly.

Of course, she was encyclopedic on all kinds of things but so she knew all the answers.

And she proceeded she was single at the time and she proceeded back to her office at Fortune.

And at some point she got a phone call from sounded like a fairly young man in Georgia, and he said, my uncle is Ty Cobb, and he would like to take you to lunch at 21.

And so Carol went to lunch with Ty Cobb at 21, and I think he subsequently had one more lunch. And then she decided to call it off.

But those of you who follow baseball may have noticed that in the 1990s they found that the statistics had been faulty when Ty Cobb played and that he actually only batted. 366, that there were a couple of at-bats they didn’t count.

So, the real question I want to know from Carol, and I think she should maybe tell us, is that would she have dated Ty Cobb (laughter) if she’d known I mean, I know she wouldn’t have I know she wouldn‘t have dated Ty Cobb if his batting average had been. 300 or something like that. (Laughter)

But where was the cutoff point at which she would’ve told Ty Cobb to stay in Atlanta and forget about coming up to New York?

And if Carol would if anybody has a microphone Carol would care to express herself on that question. It’s the unanswered question that I’ve had and all inquiring minds have had and only she knows the answer.

And she’s with her daughter. She married a wonderful guy, John Loomis, and Barbara’s with her. I’m sure Barbara’s been always wanting to ask this question, but I’ve -(laughter) it’s kind of tough when you’re in the family.

But I am sort of an obnoxious guy who will do it in front of a lot of people. Carol? (Laughs)

CAROL LOOMIS: Zero. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Or we can have Barbara’s guess. Either one will

BARBARA: She would’ve been she would have been happy to go either way, right?

CAROL LOOMIS: Yeah

BARBARA: You would’ve gone

CAROL LOOMIS: Right. (Laughter)

BARBARA: Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Carol -(Applause)

Carol is the best business writer. She comes from the town of Cole Camp, Missouri. You know, I don’t know, the whole place is around a thousand, probably.

She never took an accounting course, and she ended up becoming the best business writer in the United States.

And we you know, she didn’t want to be an editor, actually. I mean, she could’ve done other things at Fortune, but she just plain liked writing business stories.

And like I say, she that nobody came close to her, and she started from scratch.

But in 1977, I asked her to edit my report, and she turned out to be just as good an editor as she was a writer. And it

All the way through this year, including this year, Carol has edited the Berkshire report. And to the extent that anybody enjoys reading them, let’s give a hand to Carol. (Applause)

28. Shareholder Ruth Gottesman donates $1 billion to make Bronx medical school tuition-free

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. And I’ve been told to show a video right before you go to lunch because it’s only 30-some seconds, and then we’ll talk a little bit more about it when we come.

So, if we’ll dim the lights, we will we will have we’ll show what a Berkshire shareholder did when she sold us a billion dollars’ worth of stock the other day. And you’ll meet somebody that I hope is I know she is the prototype she may have more zeroes, but she’s the prototype of a good many Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, and it’ll be the first thing we talk about when we come back.

But some of you may have noticed, whenever it was, a few weeks back, when Ruth Gottesman gave one billion dollars to [the] Albert Einstein [College of Medicine] to take care of all the -(Applause)

Ruth doesn’t like a lot of attention drawn to herself, but here’s how they felt at Albert Einstein when they announced that Ruth Gottesman had just made a decision to take care of all the all of the costs costs of education at Albert Einstein. And it’s going to be in perpetuity. So, let’s just show the film.

RUTH GOTTESMAN (on video): I‘m happy to share with you that starting in August this year, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will be tuition-free.

(Audience of students shown in video erupts into extended cheers and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: And that’s why Charlie and I have had such fun running Berkshire. (Applause)

She transferred a billion dollars to other people. She happened to do it with Berkshire stock.

And, you know, they offered to rename the school after her and everything like that, but she said, Albert Einstein, that’s a that‘s a pretty good name to start with, so

You know, there’s no ego involved, you know, nothing. She just decided that she’d rather have a hundred-plus closer to 150, eventually students be able to start out debt-free and proceed in life.

And she did it happily, and she did it without somebody asking, you know, name it, you know, put my name on all four sides in neon lights. And I salute her. (Applause)

Afternoon Session

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1. Berkshire shareholders are unusually generous with philanthropic contributions

WARREN BUFFETT: So please take your seats. Were going to finish at 3 so the sooner we start, the sooner - more chance well have to talk about various questions you may have.

Id just like to follow on however with that film we showed just before we left for lunch because it says something about Berkshire.

There are, you know, all kinds of public companies and wealthy public companies and - throughout America.

And there are certainly cases where in one family somebodys made a very large amount of money and is devoting it to philanthropy, or much of it to philanthropy, such as the Walton family would be the number one thing in the - in Walmart.

And certainly Bill did the same thing at - Bill Gates - did the same thing at Microsoft.

But what is unusual about Berkshire is that a very significant number of Berkshire shareholders, located all over the United States - not just in Omaha - but the number of different Berkshire holders who have contributed a hundred million dollars or more to their local charities - usually with people not knowing about it - I think is many multiples of any other public company in the country.

Its not more multiples than - you know, Bills put a whole lot into philanthropy. (Applause)

And I dont know the details of the family, but clearly theres a huge sum of money that the Walmart family, Im sure, has done all kinds of things philanthropic and will continue to do it.

But I dont think youll find any company where a group of shareholders who arent related to each other, so many of them, have done something along the lines of what Ruth [Gottesman] did, you know, a few weeks ago.

Just to exchange a little piece of paper that theyve held for five decades - and theyve lived well themselves. They havent denied their family anything.

But they dont feel that they have to create a dynasty or anything and they give it back to society. And a great many do it anonymously. They do it in many states.

To some extent we see a little - some concentration of it in Nebraska because, generally -

When youre giving away a lot of money they call it - in the philanthropic world - they call it, absorption capacity.

And the truth is its very hard to give away a billion dollars, 10 dollars at a time, to people who are needy or something of the sort.

And so large institutions have this absorption capacity, which tend to be universities or colleges or that sort of thing. And some philanthropies are much more imaginative than others.

But the one thing - Ive never - well, most of them want to do it anonymously so I cant tell their specific stories.

But I have to say one thing that was astounding is that the same day we bought a billion dollars worth of Berkshire Class A stock from Ruth so that - and I guess we were actually buying it from the school at that point because shed just given them the - so the transaction was them - was with them - but Mark Millard in our office bought a billion dollars from them, but he also bought 500 million dollars worth of stock from somebody else that nobody will ever have heard of and - in a different state - and I wont elaborate beyond that.

But we have had a very significant number of people, and theres more to come. And obviously they had to be people that came in early, or their parents did, or their grandparents did.

But theyve all lived good lives. They havent denied themselves anything.

I mean, you know, they have second homes and they - but they - they generally - well, in fact I would say almost universally they - people knew them in the community and everything, but theyve used what they accomp - what they saved. They denied themselves consumption, themselves. Thats what savings are, is consumption deferred.

And they’ve - theyve given - they’ve financed everything, all over the country. And usually, they like to do it anonymously.

I outed my sister when I wrote about her in the annual report, but Berties here today. And I told her she should wear a t-shirt or something that said no solicitors allowed, or something that - (laughter) - but they -

But they just do it.

And its really - both Charlie and I felt its really - it’s really fun to work for a group of people like that rather than for index funds or for hedge funds or whatever it may be.

I mean, youre just seeing what people actually - it sort of restores your faith in humanity that people defer their own consumption within a family for decades and decades, and then they can do something like enable, I think it may end up being 150 people, to pursue different lives - and talented people and diverse people - to become a dream of being a doctor and not have to incur incredible debt to do it or whatever may be the case. Theres a million different examples.

And I want you to know that youre very - you’re very - well, youre a unique, actually, group of shareholders among public companies, as far as I know, in terms of the way youve deferred your own consumption, while living fine, to help other people.

And it - you know, it takes a lot of years, but it can really amount to something very substantial.

And what Ruth did was - you know, at roughly my age she looked at a little piece of paper which actually was a claim check on the output of others in the future and she said instead of the output being for her that the output would be for a continuing stream of people for decades and decades and decades to come that were having a different life in the pursuit of becoming doctors than they otherwise wouldve.

And Berkshire has been - and of course her husband Sandy contributed substantially to Berkshires record. Sandy was a wonderful partner to have.

So he - it was both input by him and then there was deferred consumption by his family, and then there was ultimately this final gift to Albert Einstein.

And like I said, the same day - it was only 500 million. Itll go to - in a different way.

But its happening all over, and I dont think any companys like that. So I just want to tell you that its inspiring to work for a group of shareholders. (Applause)

2. Buffett would make Abel, when he is CEO, responsible for deciding both which businesses and which stocks to buy

WARREN BUFFETT: And, Becky, go to it. (Laughs)

BECKY QUICK: All right. The next question comes from Slaven Vukobrat.

“As CEO, will Mr. Abel be in charge of the portfolio of common stocks that Mr. Buffett has been managing? Or will this function be exercised by Mr. Combs and Mr. Weschler?

As investing could be defined as the discipline of relative selection, can major capital allocation decisions such as large acquisitions be separated from the common stock selection process?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I would say that decision actually will be made when Im not around. I may try and come back and haunt them if they do it differently than - (laughs)

But - Im not sure the Ouija board (unintelligible) will get that job done.

So that job - Ill never know the answer on whether it got covered.

But I feel very comfortable about the fact that it will be made by a board that - theyve got loads of brain power. Theyve got a dedication to an unusual institution. And they will figure things out.

But I would say that if I were on that board and were making the decision, I would probably - knowing Greg - I would - I would just leave - I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. And -

He understands businesses extremely well. And if you understand businesses, you understand - you understand common stocks.

I mean, if you really know how business works, you are - you are an investment manager. How much you manage - it may be just your own funds or may be other people.

And if you really are primarily interested in getting assets under management, which is where the money is, you know, you dont really have to understand that sort of thing.

But thats not the case with Ted or Todd, obviously.

But I think the responsibility ought to be entirely with Greg.

The responsibility has been with me, and I farmed out some of it. And I used to think differently about how that would be handled.

But I think the responsibility should be that of the CEO, and whatever that CEO decides may be helpful in effectuating that responsibility, you know, thats up to him or her to decide at the time theyre running the money.

But so I would say that my thinking on that has developed to some extent as the sums have grown so large at Berkshire.

And we do not want to try and have, you know, 200 people around that are managing a billion each. It just doesnt work.

And I think that when youre handling the sums that we will have, youve got to think very strategically about how to do very big things. And I think Greg is capable of doing that.

I think Ive missed a lot of stuff in the past, so Im actually wiser about doing that now.

But I - you know, I would do it better this time around than 2008 and ’09 if something akin to that happened.

But it wont be exactly like 2008 or ’09. You can be sure of that.

But you also can say that there will be times when having huge sums available extremely quickly -maybe itll be once every five years - maybe - it will probably be more like once every ten years or something - but as the world gets more sophisticated, complicated, and intertwined, more can go wrong.

And theres no sense going through here exploring the possibilities of the different things that could happen.

But you do want to be able to act when it happens, and I think the chief executive should be somebody that can weigh buying businesses, buying stocks, doing all kinds of things that might come up at a time when nobody else is willing to move.

It wasnt that people didnt have money in 2008. Its that they were paralyzed.

And we did have the advantage of having some capital and a willingness to - an eagerness even - to act and a government that, in effect, looked at us as an asset instead of a liability.

And I think that all of those qualities will be even more important as our capital pile grows.

And so I think Greg may have even more fun than I had in a period when extraordinary things were happening and we were the logical place to go.

Well, it - you never know whether it will be next week, next year, next decade.

But it wont be a century from now. That is for sure.

And the more intertwined and sophisticated the world financial situation gets, the more vulnerable it gets, in a certain sense. It solves a lot of small problems, but it leaves it more vulnerable to large problems.

Greg, does that bother you at all, or not? (Laughter)

GREG ABEL: Without directly answering the question, I think theres - one important thing is, I think, as we go through any transition, its important to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire lives by today will continue to survive, Warren.

And I think thats what - the thing Id want to communicate. That well - we have our operating businesses, insurance, non-insurance. Were going to - well provide them the capital necessary to be successful and grow if its appropriate.

At the same time, were expecting a return of capital from them when they have excess cash.

And then, as weve discussed or youve touched on, always looking at potentially new businesses as a whole or in a piece. And as youve always highlighted - and I fully agree - its - well always look at equities as were investing in a business, either one percent or a hundred percent.

But were looking at the business. Were looking at the economic prospects of that business and how sustainable it is and what it will look like 10 years from now and is our - the capital we originally put in at exponential risk, or where does that risk sit, that profile?

And then, of course - and then well obviously have our contingent to always put excess cash in the safest investment there is in U.S. Treasurys, knowing we want to maintain that fortress of a balance sheet for two reasons.

One, to act, but also to always protect our shareholders. If we have - we want to maintain the position Berkshire is in now realistically for the - to ensure - to ensure it endures.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, when he says that it makes me wish Id stayed around to be number two instead of number one in this process (laughs) over the years. It’s -

You know, it doesnt get more fun than what were doing, and were better positioned than ever before.

Were not positioned, though, however, to earn extraordinary returns versus what American business generally earns.

You know, I would hope we could be slightly better. But nobodys going to be dramatically better in some - you know, over the next century, it gets very hard to - it gets very hard to predict who the winner will be.

And if you look back, as we did a few meetings ago, as to the top 20 companies in the world at 10-year intervals, you realize the game isnt quite as easy as it looks.

But getting a decent result actually is - reasonably - should be reasonably easy, if you just dont get talked out of doing what (laughs) has - works in the past. And dont get carried away with fads and dont listen to people who have different interests in mind than the interest of our shareholders.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah?

GREG ABEL: He mentioned OXY, which I think is a great example.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

GREG ABEL: Where you made the original decision, basically, on a weekend with some thought.

I think your confidence, which was reflected in continuing to acquire more shares, is sort of that type of process, where -

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, incidentally, I should just throw this out there, since theres been speculation on it.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, youre next, Becky.

WARREN BUFFETT: So lets go on to - station three. Is that correct or not?

WARREN BUFFETT: And now we move - (applause) - now we move to Becky.

但他——他并不打算再使用它们了。但他也想让我知道，如果我曾经做过类似的事情，我的行为并不算太糟糕，他允许人类可能会有行为失当的时候。

所以我确信，在结婚之后，由于我对跳舞之类不同活动的热情，我的行为可能比婚前要好一些。

他说，那是——你知道，我们都会这么做。但不要再犯了。（笑声）

所以这是获取人类智慧的一部分。

说到人类智慧，我们这里有查理的一本书。《穷查理宝典》。这本书值得读三四遍。

我想我读了本·格雷厄姆的书大概五六遍。每次我读它，我都意识到我只需要在某些事情上想得更深入一点。

它们并不复杂。

但是，你知道，如果你有一些很好的指引，比如你从查理那里得到的，那么读几遍比仅仅计划读完图书馆里的每一本书要好。

10. 巴菲特离家出走时，他父母的反应

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们进入第四部分。

观众成员：杰夫·罗布莱尔，来自俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨。我想到了本·格雷厄姆博士、芒格先生、您的父亲。

我的问题是给我们在座所有人的，但可能尤其适合在座的年轻朋友——在人生中选择正确导师的重要性，明智地选择朋友，也许你可以给我们讲讲这些人每个人的故事。谢谢您，先生。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，毫无疑问，你说得百分之百正确，拥有正确的导师非常重要。

你知道，如果你能找到他们，你很幸运。

我的意思是，查理有——查理有他的导师。我有我的。

有趣的是——我的妹妹今天也在这里——我的小妹妹——我们俩是幸存者——我们都有过同一位英雄，尽管随着年龄增长，我们发现自己并不同意他的很多想法。但我们认同他的价值观和动机。

这比有人给你读一本带有许多规则、相当不错的教义问答书要好得多。

但总有一个人在你打破某些规则时仍然会继续爱你，他占据着一个特殊的位置。

这就是查理生命中拥有的，也是伯蒂和我生命中拥有的。

所以，我——我就重复你说的话。我不需要给你一堆——嗯，当我离家出走时——我给你举个我自己的具体例子。

当我离家出走，我们搭便车去了宾夕法尼亚州的赫希，被州警察抓到，等等。我说服了另外两个家伙一起去，我们疯狂地向州警察撒谎，说我们有父母的许可。

我们住的地方有个小孩向警察告密说我们离家出走了。

就像我说的，当州警察抓住我们时，我们决定了两件事，你知道——我们决定告诉他们一堆谎言，说我们有父母的许可。

我们决定最好离开赫希，因为这些警察迟早会发现的。

所以，总之，几天后我们回到了华盛顿。

当我走进家门时——嗯，其中一个小男孩的母亲——另一个孩子是国会议员罗杰·贝尔的儿子——他的母亲因为这件事病倒了，住进了医院。

他把自己的现金和储蓄债券都拿了出来，所以她很担心。而法官贝尔，她的丈夫，也非常担心。

我走进华盛顿的家门，我母亲说：“你怎么这么快就回来了？”

我父亲说——（笑）——他说：“我知道你能做得更好。”（笑声）

我对我父亲比对我母亲更在意。

所以你要有正确的导师。你不必——导师不是基于他们取得了什么成就。而是——你知道，是——

是你想成为的那种人。如果你模仿正确的人，你就有了一个很好的开端。

我指的不是赚钱方面的良好开端，而是指过好人生方面的良好开端。

所以，你可以和我妹妹伯蒂核实一下，她就在这里，看看我是否把这个故事讲对了。

顺便说一句，她也离家出走过。但她没有我走得那么远。不过——

她是离家出走去我爷爷家，大约两英里远。（笑）

但我不想贬低她离家出走的能力，因为她在其他很多方面都比我出色得多。

但说到离家出走，我绝对胜过她。（笑）

11. 巴菲特谈 Pilot 交易纠纷：“结局好就一切都好”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们继续，贝琪。

贝

题目：2024年股东大会

第5部分，共5部分

但人性就是人性。我们都有弱点、怪癖以及其他一切。不要因为自己有这些而对自己过于苛责。

但也不要完全原谅自己。（笑声）

你可以改变未来。你无法改变过去，但你可以改变未来。

15. 预测人工智能将如何影响伯克希尔和世界还为时过早

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，六号站。

股东：下午好。我叫卡罗琳，是圣地亚哥的一名律师——

沃伦·巴菲特：我已经有麻烦了！（笑声）

股东：——但请不要因为这个对我有看法。

请记住，芒格先生也曾是一名律师。

沃伦·巴菲特：没错。

股东：首先，我衷心感谢巴菲特先生，感谢您的商业诚信、不懈的领导以及对慈善事业的慷慨贡献。

我想问两位尊敬的专家的是，既然人工智能这个精灵已经出了瓶子，正如有人今天早些时候敏锐地指出的那样，伯克希尔·哈撒韦的哪些业务可能最容易受到人工智能的威胁？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是个很好的问题。

问题在于我对人工智能几乎一无所知。

但是——（笑声）——显然，任何劳动密集型的领域——它都能创造出大量的闲暇时间。至于世界会如何处理这些闲暇时间，则是另一个问题。

至于更多的闲暇时间——我知道很多人在刚开始工作时，他们想要的就是闲暇时间。而我喜欢的是实际解决更多的问题。

但人工智能意义深远。我的意思是，这就是它成为精灵的原因。你知道，就是可能发生的事情。

我可以讲几个关于精灵的笑话，但我最好还是不要了。（笑声）

格雷格·阿贝尔：我想，沃伦，我们可能不——

沃伦·巴菲特：我不知道——你知道吗——在我们的业务方面，他们会想出办法的。我的意思是，我们有聪明的人，而且它——

显然，如果它被以有益社会的方式使用，它对社会会有极大的好处。但我不知道如何确保这种情况发生，就像我不知道如何确保二战中使用两颗原子弹时，你知道你没有创造出日后可能毁灭世界的东西一样。

格雷格·阿贝尔：是的。是的，我认为当我们考虑许多业务部门的AI时，我的意思是，我们确实是在思考，沃伦，它如何让我们更高效、更有效？

我的意思是，它会导致更多的空闲时间，而且我们可能并没有考虑迭代式的AI，在那里我们研究非常具体的流程，我们的员工可以实施它，要么——

有时，它会取代劳动力，但希望在业务内部还有其他机会给他们。

但我认为，当你考虑我们所有的业务时，我的意思是，我们在很多业务中确实有大量的劳动力，但我认为在我们公司目前的阶段，也许也是AI目前的发展阶段，这实际上是关于我们如何做得更有效、更高效、更安全，如果涉及危险流程的话。所以——我们还在早期阶段。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯，他的作品读起来很棒，思维令人难以置信，但大约在我出生的时候，他写了一本书，预测了可能发生的事情——我不知道是不是在未来100年或更长时间——他正确地预测到，人均产出将以现在这种令人难以置信的速度增长。

但是，至于推测人们会如何利用这些产出——我的意思是，这个人聪明得令人难以置信。（笑声）

但事情并没有完全按照他预测的方式发展。他关于方程式中将加入什么因素是对的，但他并没有完全弄清楚结果会是什么。

所以——这真的是——嗯，我们在研发原子弹的时候并不知道，很可能很快就会有九个国家拥有它们，其中三个我们非常需要担心的国家也会拥有。但我们当时确实别无选择。

你可能已经写过各种各样的论文和其他东西，但我们无论如何都会去做。我们需要去做。

如果你没读过，去谷歌搜索利奥·西拉德和阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦写给罗斯福总统的信，会非常引人入胜，这封信写于1939年德国或希特勒进入波兰前大约一个月。

信中阐述了——嗯，利奥·西拉德知道将会发生什么，或者对核弹发展可能发生的事情有很好的预感。

他无法联系到罗斯福，但他知道一封由阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦签名的信可以做到。

所以这很可能是有史以来最重要的一封信。你可以读一读——对我来说这非常引人入胜——这封信开启了曼哈顿计划，开启了——你知道，一切随之而来。

我敢打赌罗斯福并没有理解它，但他明白阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（笑声）寄来了一封信，而且他可能知道爱因斯坦在说什么。他最好——他最好启动曼哈顿计划。

这个世界发生的事情简直令人难以置信。

16. 巴菲特更担心财政赤字而非美国债务规模

沃伦·巴菲特：不管怎样，我们继续，我想下一个是贝基，对吧？

贝基·奎克：是的。来自加利福尼亚州尔湾市的兰迪·杰夫斯提问。

“2024年3月25日的《华尔街日报》报道称，美国国债市场规模大约是2008-2009年危机前的六倍。

“您认为在未来的某个时间点，全球市场是否将无法再吸收所有正在发行的美国国债？”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我会说——答案当然是，我不知道。

但是——我最好的推测是，美国债务将在很长一段时间内被接受，因为几乎没有替代品——但问题不在于债务的数量——你知道，国家债务在很长一段时间里根本不值一提。然后——

问题不在于数量。而在于通货膨胀是否会以某种方式失控，真正威胁到整个世界经济形势。而美元作为储备货币根本没有替代品。

你会听到很多人就此发表长篇大论，但这确实是答案。

保罗·沃尔克在1980年之前就对此感到担忧。

但是——他当时面临生命威胁，我碰巧在那段时间和他有过一些接触。

他是一个非常非常了不起的人，他实际上决定必须采取行动，否则整个金融体系会以他无法预测的方式崩溃。

他做到了，你知道，有人威胁要杀他，做各种各样的事情。但他是那个危机时刻的合适人选。

但当时威胁体系的并不是正在发行的美国债务的数量。而是通货膨胀和美元的未来价值，你知道，现金是垃圾之类的想法——你知道——这正在酝酿一些可能真正影响世界经济体系未来的事情。

保罗·沃尔克承担起了这个责任。他很有胆量。

如果你没有读过一两本关于他的书——或者他最后写的那本书——你应该看一看。

但是——我不担心数量。我担心的是财政赤字。

你知道，如果——但我通常不是一个焦虑的人。

我的意思是，我会思考这个问题，但我不会坐着——让自己为此烦恼。但我忍不住会去想。这就是——

我们有一个——我们有一个很大的关注点——有趣的是——我认为这或许与此有关——关注点集中在美联储。

而他们，你知道，他们就是喜欢这样，因为事情总是在发生，经济学家总是说美联储会怎么做等等。

但财政赤字才是应该被关注的重点。

而（美联储主席）杰伊·鲍威尔不仅是一位伟大的人，而且是一个非常非常明智的人。

但他不控制财政政策，他偶尔会发出一种伪装的恳求，（笑声）拜托——请关注这个，因为如果我们有问题，问题就会出在这里。是的。（掌声）

正如一位喜剧演员曾经说过的那样——有一位脱口秀喜剧演员在他的演讲后常说：“我忘了得罪谁了？”（笑声）每次开完这些会，我都有这种感觉。

17. ‘善待他人——世界会更美好’

沃伦·巴菲特：但是我们还有时间至少再回答一个问题，也许两个。让我们去七号站。

股东：你好，我叫丹尼斯，来自德国吉夫霍恩。这是我第一次来这里。我和我的朋友一起来的，顺便说一句，他很想邀请您共进晚餐。

您谈到英雄的重要性，我们很高兴——而且很感激——您是我们拥有伟大价值观的英雄，首先感谢您。

我的问题是，很明显，您在人生中取得了巨大的成功。早些时候，您谈到每一项投资都有机会成本。从我的人生经验来看，这不仅仅适用于投资你的钱，也适用于投资你的时间。

沃伦·巴菲特：没错。

股东：您在办公室度过的每一个小时，都是您无法与配偶或孩子共度的一个小时。

以您现在的人生经验，如果您有机会重新开始，您会以不同的方式设定优先级吗？如果是，如何设定以及为什么？还有，邀请您共进晚餐的最佳方式是什么？（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，如果我想出怎么做到的话，这肯定不会是我的优先事项之一——（笑声）

但这并非针对你个人，因为——你知道——你最多能算出我还剩下多长时间，而且——

不，我不认为——我的意思是，我可以想出各种各样本应做得不同的事情，但那又怎样？你知道，我是说，我并不完美。

我不相信过多的自我批评，也不相信对自己、对自己的成就或想做的事情不切实际。

你做——你知道，你做了很多事情。谁知道稍微不同的权衡会——你知道，你只是不能——你不能——你不知道那些道路会通向何方。

我觉得——我认为没有必要为过去发生的事情而自责。你知道，事情已经发生了，你还要过完余生。你不知道它会持续多久。

你继续努力去做那些对你来说重要的事情。

如果我是一名医生，或者如果我从事各种不同的职业，我可能会做不同的事情。

但我真的很喜欢为信任我的人管理资金。

我没有出于财务原因去这样做的理由。你知道，我不是在运营对冲基金或收取业绩提成什么的。

但我就是喜欢被信任的感觉。

查理也有同样的感觉。你知道，那是一种很好的人生感觉。而且它一直是一种很好的感觉。

所以我真的不寻求做出太多改变。

而且，你知道，如果我很幸运，我还能再活六七年，也可能明天就结束，但这对每个人都是如此，尽管方程不完全相同。

但我不相信要为你过去所做的任何事情而自责。我也不相信——嗯，我相信要努力找到你擅长什么、你喜欢什么。

然后我认为你可以追求的一件事是——因为任何人都可以做到，而且这很了不起——与金钱无关——但你可以选择善良。你知道，那就是——

你可以选择善良——世界会因此变得更美好。（掌声）

我不确定如果我更富有，世界是否会变得更好。但毫无疑问——我是说，你们都知道善良的人。最终，去追求变得——或者我相信你们很多人本身就是——但请去追求变得更好。

18. ‘如果你在生活中幸运，确保其他很多人也幸运’

沃伦·巴菲特：我想我们可以再问贝基一个问题，然后就结束了。

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自德文·斯普金。

（巴菲特轻笑）

“3月4日，查理的遗嘱已在洛杉矶县提交。第一份附录包含一个不寻常的条款。上面写道：‘总体来看，我漫长的一生是幸运的，家族传统所要求的正直和服务使我的生活变得更好。因此，我遵循一种我希望现在更常见的古老做法，加入了一项道德遗嘱，优先考虑的并非财产，而是责任的传递。’”

“如果您要向伯克希尔股东提出一项道德遗嘱，您会施加哪些责任？为什么？”

沃伦·巴菲特：我可能会说，读一读查理的作品吧。（笑声）

他说得已经很好了。我会——嗯，我会说，如果他们经济上不宽裕，如果你在善待他人，你就在做大多数富人不做的事情（笑声），即使是在他们捐钱的时候。

但这与你是富有还是贫穷无关。

我想说的是，如果你在生活中很幸运，请确保其他很多人也很幸运。（掌声）

19. ‘我不仅希望你们明年能来，而且希望我明年也能来’

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。有——

以防你们想知道我给自己提的建议是什么——在这段时间里一直是这个。

（巴菲特举起一直面向他的牌子，上面写着：“闭嘴！”）

（笑声）

所以我们只回答了三十个，什么，三个问题还是什么。

但是非常感谢你们的到来。

我不仅希望你们明年能来，而且希望我明年也能来。（笑声和掌声）

谢谢。