absolutely fascinating. I work with people I love. I get to paint my own painting at the office. There is no better job in the world. And it’s true I could be doing all kinds of other things, but I would so much rather be coming to the office every day than sitting on a yacht. No comparison.
CLAMAN: We love that our business schools were all involved in this — Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, Columbia, Wake Forest. We love you guys.
I want to ask you, Charlie, the very same question. What keeps you motivated? You’re 89.
MUNGER: Yes, and I think Warren has somewhat understated the advantage of being in our position. I think we’re two of the luckiest people alive.
BUFFETT: We are.
MUNGER: Who wants to sit and do nothing?
BUFFETT: Yes, I know people that are retired, they spend all week planning their next hair cut. You know, that’s not my idea of a lot of fun.
CLAMAN: Well, look at you, Bill, in not even in retirement. You seem to be working harder than ever with the Foundation solving infectious disease problems?
GATES: Yes, I’ve got a second career that’s fun and lets me travel the world, meet great scientists. I’m enjoying it and so I work very long hours.
CLAMAN: And you tweet a lot @billgates to get your message out. It’s been very effective for you. Warren, you started tweeting @warrenbuffet. You said you’re not going to follow people. You won’t even follow Bill Gates?
BUFFETT: Well, I have a direct pipeline there.
CLAMAN: Charlie, what do you think of Warren tweeting now?
MUNGER: Well, I think it’s fine for Warren, but I’m never going to tweet.
BUFFETT: When he says never, he means never.
CLAMAN: Meryl, do you tweet?
WITMER: I do not, no.
CLAMAN: But your kids do? By the way, we want to let everybody know Meryl’s family came to see her in her debut interview. Here are your sons. They must be so proud of you.
WITMER: They are indeed very proud. And that’s always a good feeling as a parent. But the tweeting I will not be doing. There’s a lot of room for error there
CLAMAN: As we finish up, Warren, you know, Meryl’s here. She is a woman. You wrote about the strength of women in our society in “Fortune” magazine. What is the message you want to send when all is said and done about that?
I mean, here she’s a working mom. I look at her, I admire her, I’m a working mom. There really is something to be said about contributing out there, so why do we need to actually force it along?
BUFFETT: Well, we largely wasted half of our talent in this country for a long, long time and part of it was a big, well, it was affected by structural arrangements. And, you know, we talked about all men being created equal and kind of slipped our minds for another 150 years or so until the 19th Amendment was passed and even then it didn’t change that much. So, it would be crazy — but let’s just say that all males 5’10″ and under only could be in three or four jobs like we said to women not that long ago. That would be nutty. And it’s just gone on long enough.
Now we’ve changed the rules a little bit and so the opportunities are opening up. But I also wanted to encourage women not to have any self-imposed limitations. Everybody should have a chance to fulfill their own potential and I think — I think women got the short end of the stick for a long time and I think that the world was changing, but I wanted to keep it changing
CLAMAN: Charlie, you agree?
MUNGER: Sure.
CLAMAN: You’ve got to know, guys, that this is exactly the dynamic that has kept this partnership up growing and now the fifth largest company in the world, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B).
They’ve got a board meeting to attend, but we want to thank you all for sitting for this conversation. Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Meryl Witmer —
