this
weekend, would be the fifth largest business in the United States, behind ExxonMobil, Apple, Google, Microsoft?
BUFFETT: No. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And you get a long enough runway, you know, it just keeps compounding, but I did not expect it.
CLAMAN: Speaking of compounding. The “Omaha World Herald,” which you know, actually did some math and they were saying, listen to this, you guys — $20,000 invested in 1969
in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) and Warren Buffett would equal $75 million today. Is that about right? Or you thought it was more?
BUFFETT: How many dollars?
CLAMAN: 20,000.
BUFFETT: $20,000 would have bought 500 shares of the A-stock, yes.
CLAMAN: So that would be about it. They also pointed out people whom you asked to invest and they didn’t back then. When you were requesting people to take a chance on you, as the little guy, did you get disappointed, scared, worried, when people said no? How many people turned you down?
BUFFETT: Oh, more people did not — I didn’t really go around quite door-to-door, but I let them know I was open for business. But way more people would turn me down, but I don’t blame them. I mean, I was 25 years old, I probably behaved about like a 18-year-old.
So it’s not surprising, but some people did have faith and some of those people are still around. I saw a woman at the jewelry store — it would be more than 50 years ago.
CLAMAN: How many shares
did she buy back then?
BUFFETT: She’s done all right
CLAMAN: She’s done just fine.
BUFFETT: She bought a lot of jewelry yesterday, yes.
CLAMAN: Let’s get to the
shareholder meeting. Again, what strikes me is that this is something no other company does, aside from the fact that you take 5 and a half hours of questions. You traverse the floor.
This is the first year I actually felt a little claustrophobic, OK. So we’re there in the media crush on the floor. As you walk along and you’re hitting all of your businesses and people are trying to snap cell phone pictures of you, it was cold so you opened the floor a little bit earlier, your security’s there, you never get concerned or nervous in those crowds?
BUFFETT: No, it’s fun for me. I love to see the shareholders and they call me Warren. I mean, it’s very enjoyable
CLAMAN: Well, of all the things, you’ve played the ukulele. You’ve ridden on a steer. But this year you did something different. And I don’t know if people saw this, so we wanted to show them. You twirled a basketball with a Harlem Globetrotter named Franklin.
BUFFETT: I got a little help.
CLAMAN: Yes, he helped you a little bit there. Look at that. Did you ever play ball in high school?
BUFFETT: Very poorly. But the Globetrotters were in town about a month ago and I had a good time with them. They got one fellow who’s 7’8″ called Tiny.
CLAMAN: What was your name be?
BUFFETT: I’m not sure. Probably Terrible.
CLAMAN: Well, I look at that and say were you ever an athlete?
BUFFETT: No, no, always liked sports, but I was never any good
CLAMAN: You had strength in other things.
Let’s get to the seriousness of what do you at the shareholder meeting and you took about 5 1/2 hours of shareholder questions. And this time you did something different as well, you invited short seller Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners. I was talking to shareholders afterward. I know the intention was to ask him as you some tough questions. They felt his questions were a little convoluted and that you and Charlie kind of ran circles around him. What did you think of Doug’s questions?
BUFFETT: Well ,he was there to represent the short interest. And I’m a little prejudiced, but I don’t think the short interest has much of a case, actually, so he had a difficult assignment. And here he is with 37 or 38,000 people
