Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy 1/13/26

- What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? - I have no fear of failure. - Trailblazing women, changing the game. - One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself, like the short, and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things. - Julia Boursten hosts CMBC Changemakers and Powerplayers. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Hi, squad pod listeners. This is Becky Quig. You're about to hear a special audio presentation of CMBC's "Warn Buffet, a Life and Legacy." This is about two hours of exclusive never-before-heard interviews with the longtime leader, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet reflects on his life and his business success, and we're so pleased to bring it to you. Let us know what you think in the comments on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. (upbeat music) - "Warn Buffet" built Berkshire Hathaway over 60 years from a textile mill in Massachusetts to a trillion dollar conglomerate. Buffet himself amassing a $150 billion fortune along the way, even while giving away more than $50 billion to philanthropy. Much has been said about Buffet's unassuming life in Omaha, Nebraska, his investment principles, and his beliefs in America. Tonight, through the course of a series of never-before-seen interviews with Warren Buffet over the last 14 years, we focus on what, and who, influenced America's greatest investor, and how those people and moments change Buffet's views on business, philanthropy, and life. We're also joined by his three children, Susie, Halley, and Peter Buffet, who will face the daunting task of giving away the rest of their father's wealth. But first, we look at the future of Berkshire Hathaway, and the man Buffet hand-picked to succeed him as chief executive officer. I'm Becky Quick. Thank you for joining us for "Warn Buffet" in his own words, "A Life and Legacy." It's only been about a week and a half since you announced to the world that you had decided that at the end of this year, you're going to be handing over the CEO title to Greg Able. That's 100%. What happened? What led you to that decision? Well, it's been clear. Two things have been clear. One is where I can do anything I can do, and he can do it way, way better. But he didn't seem to mind waiting. But it was also true that a few years ago, and it wasn't more than a few. I began to get older. Now, it wasn't a terrible thing. And I've been happy. But my balance has changed, and the voice has changed somewhat. And it just happens to people. I had different ages. And since I announced that, and then at that article, people were just pouring in. And of course, certain people want to compare it with former president, on terms of-- I mean, but it had nothing to do with politics. I mean, it just happens. And it happens to some people at 75, very few people. And very few males, particularly, get to 95 without beginning to grow older. And it doesn't mean the world falls apart or anything like that. It just means you can't do certain things that you could do before. And Greg is the person to be running Berkshire right now. And it was important that the board be 100% forum. And that they just forgot about me and just decided whether he was the right guy. And of course, the day after I now sit at the annual meeting, we had a board meeting. And whereas I planned a wait and give them a chance to ask, because the big question is, how big a deal should they be able to do, for example, without getting the board's approval? That's the one that they all got stuck on. But they were fine with that on the Sunday following the meeting on Saturday. Meaning they signed off on Greg's ability to-- Well, they basically did. Yeah, they did. And they just all ended up in agreement. Steve Berk finally said, we don't need-- sit around for three months of period or labor or anything like this. This is the right decision. And so they voted to do it. Meaning what that Greg can do? I mean, that's always been one of the huge powerful things of Berkshire that if a company comes to it, it has the cash to do a deal. It can promise on a handshake because of the authority you've always had with it. And it can make really, really big deals happen very quickly. Greg still has that same authority? He will. He will have a lot of authority. But the fact that I'm sitting there means they think that it's OK with me. And I get used to it. [LAUGHTER] Because you are still there as chairman and someone who controls 30% of the votes. Well, and never going to sell a share. I mean, how many CEOs in the country are willing to never sell a share before their death? And really never intend to sell a share before they put a dollar in their pocket from something like the shares. So that's an unusual asset for the company to have. And it's developed all kinds of communications with us. And I called Greg on one yesterday. And-- On a deal that someone had brought to you? It's a letter that, probably, I'd probably ask the only one that would get a lot of like that in carbon America. Because the person wrote me just totally opened up on the whole situation and everything. Probably if you wanted, wasn't going to deal with anybody else. I think there are still people who are wondering how this whole situation works. You'll still be the chairman. And what will you do? Will your life change? Will you still be coming into the office? And everything will be the same. I will come in. I won't be up there speaking at the annual meeting, but I'll be in the director's section. Maybe you'll interview me at the halftime or something of the sort who goes. But Greg will be the decider. He can't imagine how much more he can get accomplished in a week than I can, or a month. And at the same time, he's not a distorted individual. I mean, he likes to play ice hockey with his-- and he loves what would look like a normal life. And my guess is that if the neighbors didn't know who he was, they wouldn't have any idea that on January 1st, he is going to be the decider on a company that employs close to 400,000 people. And it's got plans around to be around 50 or 100 years from now, and who knows what will happen. But it has a better chance, I think, of being here 100 years from now than any company I can think of. Berkshire is such a different company today than 60 years ago when you became the CEO. I just think about the conglomerate, the operations, the number of employees, as you mentioned, almost 400,000. That requires a different CEO than the CEO you were when you started out. Well, it doesn't require much, but if you think about it, this country was 4 million people with 500,000 slaves or something of them being slaves. And it was an ag company country. And 61 years later, it was well on its way of being transformed into a conglomerate. And in the United States, it's the biggest conglomerate in the world. And it was an agriculture was 80%, now it's 2%. And we're still a big ag company. But the country adjusted to the times as it went along. And it decided that there was a lot bigger future in being a very big conglomerate than there wasn't being a big ag company to country. There are some big ag countries around the world, but they're not the United States. So it wasn't like they announced when they came out of the constitutional hall or whatever it was that we're creating this conglomerate. But that's what they did. So you think of Berkshire as being an evolving and constantly changing business? It moves with the times. Like how does it-- It'll always be moving somewhat, but it'll be mostly expanding. But occasionally, there will be things that disappear. We will have companies that 50 or 100 years from now will not be viable in the economy of that world. But we'll have a whole lot more that developed over the years. And we can go wherever the country goes. And we can go with capital. And Greg understands more businesses in a sense than I do. I understand pretty well the ones that came along while I was expanding Berkshire. But if you ask me whether I know much about the companies that are being formed today, the answer is no. There are people who will say, OK, we know that Greg is a great operator. He has proven that. But does he understand the insurance operations? Does he understand the equity portfolio? Does he understand capital allocation? Well, if you understand business, you understand the equity portfolio fund. We buy businesses like we buy marketable stocks. We buy marketable stocks like we buy businesses. They are businesses. I mean, if you-- you and I are a lot of money the day and the provisions or that you lived in normal all your life, you had to buy three companies with the money in the next month. You think about the same things that you think about when you buy stocks, you think about what companies have futures. And which ones have got some competitors that are going to try and try and strangle them. And then, will they be successful? And it goes on and on. But it's the exact same problem. You pick out the best businesses in Omaha. And you certainly wouldn't say, I want daily quotes on them. And I want a chart of their transactions that they've had within the company. Of course, those companies wouldn't make forecast to everything like, I just trying to pick out the three best businesses in Omaha. And we've had-- instead of all of all, we've got the whole country and the sum example, but beyond the country. And he knows how to do that. I know how to do it. He works way harder and more efficiently than I do. And he knows more about certain industries. It doesn't take a genius. It sure doesn't take any Greek symbols or anything like that. I forgot what other businesses were. If Greg-- if he could quit a high school like some of our managers out, hey, it's still be as smart as he is. I can't think of anything that been written. It teaches you more about how to buy a business than a couple of books I've read, you know, 60 years ago. And Greg's operated more than I have when you get right down to it. I mean, he's going over to England to run something. He came to all of one time to run a business for a few years. And there's no secret formula that only CEOs have or anything of the sort. So I have Greg handling my money than any of the top investment visors or any of the top CEOs in the United States. That is a huge endorsement. It is a huge endorsement. But it's an endorsement we've made. And I am going to have him handling the money in effect. I hate those business. Some people have it in business and some don't. Some have it in music and some don't. Some have it in various sports and others don't. I don't understand the brain that well. And anybody does exactly. But some people have unbelievable talents. They can remember hands of bridge. They played 50 years ago and describe everybody else's hand and do that sort of thing. And others can sit down at a panel and start playing right from the lower goal. You know, look at Ray Charles or anybody. I mean, it's unbelievable what different people can do. And I have them have a guy that can run businesses. And if you can run business, you can value businesses unless you're nuts, listen to the wrong people. I want to go back to being on stage when you were about to surprise the world and Greg Abel by telling the truth that he was going to be named the CEO come January 1st. Were you anxious about telling the world? Had you figured out what you were going to say? Why do it as a surprise like that? Oh, I kind of like it. [LAUGHTER] Tomorrow we're having a board meeting of Berkshire. And we have 11 directors, two of the directors who are my children. How in Susie know of what I'm going to talk about there. The rest of them this will come as news to. But I think it's the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end. I've had a few surprises over the years that maybe I may not be done yet, but don't expect too many. But I had not written out any statement. I mean, why would I? I'm still got a brain that can think so and talk about something like a simple thing, a schedule of why I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And interestingly enough, it wasn't emotional. I don't get emotional about some things. But there doesn't emotional about it. I mean, from the moment I bought it, I knew I wasn't going to run it in and do eternity or anything. Well, it did run it for 60 years. I know, and everything I wanted to happen has worked out. I mean, it doesn't mean that everything we've done has worked out. But I couldn't imagine more fun than I've had running Berkshire. And Charlie and I would have more fun out of the things that didn't work a lot of times than did. If you played golf, and every time you hit the ball, it was a hole in one. It would be no interest whatsoever. But if Charlie had a hole in one, it would be a miracle and ball would bounce off the tree and everything, which I would remind him of later on. But that made it. That was the thrill. Still ahead on Warren Buffett, a life and legacy. What else do you think is stupid in business these days? A lot. And here from Buffett's kids. And honestly, when I called him up and said, you know, I want to opt out, he said, I don't blame you. He'd say that at all. He actually thinks it's kind of funny that we have to do this. The reason that I really wanted to sit down with you was to talk about how your views have changed and evolved over time. Because you've been remarkably consistent on so many things. But over the span of the time that I've known you even the last 20 years, you have evolved on thoughts when it comes to business, when it comes to philanthropy, when it comes to life. And I was hoping we could talk a little bit about how your views have evolved and whose influence do you have in that period of time? I got influenced by a series of people and events and thought. And I'm not-- I wouldn't score anywhere near as well on an IQ test knowledge before anything. But I think on a wisdom test, I don't know exactly how you apply it. But I've seen more. And I grew up in an extraordinarily Republican family. So I started out that way. I grew up in a very religious family. I started out that way. Over 94 years, all kinds of events have happened. Overwhelmingly good. I've had people I've worked for. I've worked for five people. Every one of them treated me better than I deserve to. They didn't pay me better than I deserve. I got 75 cents an hour, but I've had all kinds of reinforcement and being exposed to different kinds of people with different kinds of views. But also seeing a world that is so different in so many ways that you couldn't help but have your thoughts reformulated in some ways. And I've been unbelievably lucky. And I mean, just to live to 94, to start with, but to be born in the United States. And that's been an end to being born white and being born male. And all those things became more impressed on me as I saw more of the world. I did not give a lot of thought when I was 10 years old. That my sisters were able to get to the shore end of the stick. But then I experienced it. I mean, everybody, the world was open to me. And that puts them in a special niche. You can't be born with that kind of knowledge. You can run unbelievable amounts of those first five years, but you don't. You're really focused on your own development or 10 years. But for a while, you can start observing a little bit too. And I changed my views on a lot of things over time. And I really do think that the sum extent with experience you ought to get more wisdom than you started with. And you can't get it out of it. Well, you can learn a lot of things out of book, but you can't have experience. You can't have your heart broken. By reading a book when you're three or four years old, or you can't have the thrill of exileration that comes with accomplishing something until you actually do it. So you do get molded by the years. And when you have 94 years, and you live in America, and you have all kinds of interesting experiences, and you generally keep your health. I mean, you won the lottery. Why don't we talk about some of those influences? Because you mentioned you grew up very Republican. You grew up very religious. That's largely because of your father, who-- Yeah, well, and my mother was religious, but she subordinated. I don't like you to say she would have meet my father, but it just wasn't in the cards that he did what your husband expected you to do in those days. And so her life was subordinated to my dad, which I didn't even think about that. Of course, it was five years old, but I would have thought about it a lot if I'd been a young female growing up. My sister's-- one of my sisters says, well, I've one died a few years ago, but they did not have the same picture. They've been-- for a couple of hundred thousand years, find me a country where it was better off. You were better off being a female from the male. And in terms of inheritance, in terms of ownership, in terms of employment, in terms of anything. And you could take 200 countries, and you couldn't find a single one. Well, that wasn't something I'd dwell on five years of age. But when you see that, you learn more about how people actually operate that. I mean, you can watch it. Or the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. And yet your sisters are being told that Mary Young, while you still got your looks, and I'm being told that the world offers unlimited opportunities. Well, there's something wrong with that picture. But you don't figure that out at 10. Well, what did open your eyes to that? Well, they opened gradually, and then sometimes there'd be an abrupt event that would sort of drive at home to me. And I just have to get out and live a little and live in different environments. And then think about what you're seeing, and if you're lucky, don't quit thinking. Because if you're unlucky, you won't quit thinking. Well, it just struck me as very wrong to have two sisters that had the same IQ that I did. And I mean, if I'd been born female, I would not have had the same life I had. Now, remotely, if I'd been born black, I wouldn't have the same life. And I was lucky enough to be born in America. I mean, just imagine if I'd been born in all kinds of other places, or if I'd, you know, I had a couple of 100,000 years to pick out a womb to come from, and if I'd lived in practically any year, except in the last, maybe 10 years before I was born, my life would have been so much worse, you know? Well, let's talk a little bit about your relationship with your father, because he was the first most important person and most influential person in your life. Definitely. Well, one way or another, your mother or father or both, will be the most important for you or their world. And in my case, my dad was forming me more than my mother, and my dad had total faith in me. And I knew he had total faith in me, and that takes you a long way. And he had faith in my sisters, but he did not have the same and conveyed the same expectations to him. I don't think he thought about it, because he would not have consciously done anything to hurt my sisters. So I mean, they were teaching girls to do different things than boys and have different expectations. What expectations did your father have for you that didn't have her sisters? He told me the world he said, which was very important. He had no feeling that I should borrow his footsteps, period. He says every one of us is different. In court, I think Emerson, on that Earth, somebody that, in fact, the power within you is new in nature, which of course it is. And he just delivered that message to me. So I had no feeling that because he was an investment business originally politics later on, but I felt no obligated. And he never felt that he was very devout in terms of-- he spent a lot of time reading the Bible and teaching. And he just figured as long as I didn't do anything illegal, he would not have approved that. The closest thing I came to was the pinball machine. But he approved that finally. In 2012, we traveled with Warren Buffett to Washington, DC, where his family had moved after his father was elected to Congress. There, he told us about that infamous pinball machine incident. The wall worth was over on this side, and Frank's barbershop. Now, Frank, after we put in the pinball machine, he kept insisting that we put in a peanut machine, which I had philosophical objections to, because you actually had to give people something in the peanut machine. But he said we didn't put in the peanut machine. He would make us take out the pinball machine. So we bought a peanut machine for about $15 or so. And then I bought five pounds of Spanish peanuts for $1.50. And we brought the machine out. There's one, you know, you start a penny and you move a little lever, and some peanuts came out Spanish minutes. And we put the machine in. Dan and I drove to my house, which is only about 10 minutes from when I got there. My mother's saying there's some guy in the phone that's screaming for you in Italian. And I had no idea what was going on. So I had the phone and it's Frank. And he says, get back here immediately. And so we come right back. There's a customer of his. The guy is bleeding from the mouth. And what had happened, we bought this new machine. There was a little glass in the bottom of the bowl. So when the peanuts had come out, the first time, there was a little glass got in it. So now we at our receipts were one cent. And we had a blind bowl, so at that point, I just gave the machine to Frank. And I said, Frank, it's all yours. Don't know I was a petty. I got out of the peanut machine business. He's smart. But he approved of that finally. Well, he actually approved of it. He just figured that it was legal. And I paid my tax on everything. So he always-- he's not a proven proper behavior. But he didn't put you. He didn't manage you or really do anything. But he's just saying you can do better. That's a pretty good message to your kids. It is. And you followed in his footsteps in the financial business. In the financial business? Well, he really was. Yeah, but he wasn't interested there. He wanted to go to the newspaper business. But his father paid for his education and actually told him. Where he thought he should take his first job. And in 1931, on his birthday, he went to the bank he worked for. And it said, you know, go back home, we're closed. And so he then started-- As a result of the-- They went broke. Financial. Yeah. And four banks went broke there in a few days. The great person, I should say. So my dad, he needed something to do. And he didn't want to go in the grocery business to buy a grandfather. So he started the stock, you know, he sold investments. And I think he enjoyed it. But he never fulfilled any part of what he had. His inner self was not involved in that. I got more interested in it. The first day I was down there was obviously-- It has fulfilled you. Oh, yeah. Everybody has different paths through life. And what you really want to do is end up doing something you do if you didn't need to do it for the money. I mean, if you really, you know, whatever it may be, in terms of helping other people, in terms of whatever it may be, you really want to have a job. What the fact you get a paycheck is incidental of what you're doing. Now, you still need to have a job in between. So you may go through a series of other jobs. But I've told my own kids. I mean, you know, just wait a little. Look for the job you'd take if you didn't need a job. And that's basically what my dad was telling me. And I found the answer when I was about five. And it was just interesting to me. Way more interesting to me than it was to my dad. I mean, he kind of got a kick out of the fact that I actually enjoyed all these things. Well, your dad got elected to Congress. You went to Washington. Right. Well, I may have driven by it 30 years ago or so, but I haven't been in it since 1952 when my dad left Congress. Mrs. Wilcox, hi, I'm Warren Buffett. It's a real pleasure meeting you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. What year did your parents move in here? We moved in in the summer of 1943. My dad first lived in Fredericksburg after he got elected. And he got elected in the fall of '42. We moved family back to this area. But my dad thought Washington was kind of a sin city. So he thought that the three children should not be raised in an area like Washington, DC. So we lived in Fredericksburg. My dad had a little apartment up here. It's about 50 miles away. And that did not work out well. And then that summer, the family decided that we were all going to live together. And it was going to be in Washington, DC. So my dad bought this house. I used to store my money there. I might find something I left. And you were a big booster and helped him get elected every time you ran. Well, we're sisters as a family. I'll win all it. Yeah, I'm one of my surviving sisters, Bernie, I'm 91 now. But we talk about that every week. Well, I mean, you want to win. Sure. I mean, we'd campaign with-- we've gone around to these county fairs. And of course, we had this one recording word. We do our as Bernie and I saying, America is a beautiful woman. Mother played it on this little organ we had at the house. And it's a 15-minute program. My dad introduced each one of those kids. And he said, there's Doris age 14. And she said something. And he said, and there's Warren age 11 or 12, depending on what the date of it was. And my line was just the second pop. I'm reading the sports section. And that was my only line, which I delivered flawlessly, of course. And then at the end, my sister's nice saying, America, the beautiful woman. That ran on WOW. And there was just an outpouring for my dad from that. So they may have run it a bunch more times than I'd give a lot to have a copy of that. And of course, we don't. Well, one of the first things I did when my dad got like that, I said, I want to take out every book they have on horse handicapping from the Library of Congress. Because that's the only thing I knew about Congress. It was at the end of this library of Congress. It was famous forever, everything. And my dad said, don't you think it's a little peculiar for a freshman congressman to make that his first request at the Library of Congress? And I said, pop. I said, you're going to be running for election in two years. I mean, I won't look for you if you're kid. So I ended up with hundreds of books on horse handicapping. Really? That's what you took out of that? Well, that was first. More books on stocks came later. But I was particularly interested in horse handicapping at that time. And what I would do is I got all these books. And I was either a speed handicapper, a class handicapper, a speed handicapper. Looks at the horses times that they've achieved in the class handicapper. Looks to their breeding. And I was making a major decision at age 11 or 12 to be either a class handicapper or a speed handicapper. When I guess speed was you chose speed handicapper? I was a speed handicapper, yeah. And then there was a place on North Clark Street in Chicago that would sell you a month of old bracing forms, which were daily. And they had every-- they covered all the major tracks. And so I would buy these month old things for probably nothing. And then I would test my handicapping each day doing 40 races, maybe eight races at five tracks. And test out whether I could-- my knowledge was superior enough to beat, unfortunately, which were very large expenses, like maybe 18% or something of the sort. And that's a big, big handle to beat. And of course, in stocks, you've got a positive something. They're earning money. But all you're doing at race track is trying to beat everybody else that's making judgments about what horse is going to finish first. And so there is nothing being created. There's just a take. So I went from a graduated family from the operation that had an 18% handle against it to something that's had a very dramatic positive expectancy in stocks. And Dow Jones average was 100. It crossed 100 on the day. I bought my first stock. And now it's at 42,000 or whatever. And it's paid dividends all the time. You can't find a horse that does that. But what pushed you out of horses into stocks? Was there a moment that turned you, sourdually? I like both of them for a while. But there was one time when I went to Charleston, West Virginia. And I had a couple of horses in mind, and I lost some money on the first race. And then I did the dumbest thing you can imagine. It was which I just kept betting every race. And when I went home, I was $50 poor, which was all I'd taken with me. And that equivalent was delivering 5,000 papers. I was delivering papers to earn money. I made about a penny each. And so I had to deliver 5,000 papers for doing something very stupid. And I went to the Howard Johnson's and I had a couple of dollars left. But myself and fancy me, all of just that there, and thought about it, and thought about it, and the trade. And that was the end of horseracing. Up next, did you use to tell people to go to hell a lot before that? Well, I certainly didn't do it more before. I heard that in my son afterwards. It's not something you can shank immediately, but-- I would say, in the beginning, you probably were a little more hard press to drive for the best deal possible. Since-- I behavior on-- and businesses changed more of a time. And so-- But that is a product enormously of bringing around the right kind of people. I mean, when you get to be-- and I would pick out number one, a student and a factor, a partner of Thomas Murphy if you don't learn something from that. You don't want to learn anything by being a partner of Bernie Mados. And I've been so, so lucky. Starting with working for-- won't working for my dad, but working for Graham and all these people. I've never had a bad boss. And that's pretty lucky when you're 94. I mean, and I've had the best of them. And I just wish I'd met some of them a lot earlier, but one way or another. Fortunately, most of them lived a long time. So even though I met them at age 40 or something, I still had a long experience with people like Charlie Mugger, number one. But Tom Murphy and a different one, but similar ways. What did you learn from Tom Murphy? Oh, we're not a behave. And he was probably the best business manager. I've ever run into, but he didn't do it. By, you know, putting people to death for eight hours or turning it into 12 hour days, you know. And he brought out the best in everybody. But he wasn't a polyanna. And if you'd done nothing but study him, you wouldn't have had to study anybody else. What's just a lesson you took away? Maybe the first time he sat down and had lunch with him or something, how did things go? When did you realize that he was somebody special? The first time I bricked, I did have lunch with him as long as about 40. And I remember a couple of things from that. But it was just a stream. It was watching him, too. I mean, he wasn't behaving inconsistently with what he said to everybody. You know, he told me, he says he can always tell somebody to go to hell tomorrow. I mean, I mean, just think of how much trouble that keeps you out of, because you haven't lost the option. So don't feel that you've only got 15 seconds to say it, or 30 seconds. Did you used to tell people to go to hell a lot before that? Well, I certainly never bore before. I heard that advice from afterwards. It's not something you could shake immediately, but I watched it work with Tom Murphy. I don't know anybody that had more good interactions, whether it was with buying businesses, whether it was operating businesses, whether it was dealing with any person's problems that came to him. I mean, it was just built into his behavior in every way. And there's a few letters or things I haven't written, because I remember that as a advice. And it's very human to want to tell somebody to go to hell. I mean, yeah, well, that's everybody. And whenever you're ever gained, the only thing is you may have felt a little bit better for-- It can be really satisfying. Yeah, it is satisfying. But go into it, do it with a mirror or something. But you can have a lot of satisfaction the next day. If you just keep saying yourself, you have it given up. And just watching him, he taught me more about human behavior. But it was business oriented to a great degree. But it was beyond that. It was way beyond that. And you find me, anybody that dealt with him, work for him. Girl friends, he broke up with him. I was 60 years ago, or 70 years ago. I mean, anybody that has a bad word to say about him, but he wasn't a polyanna. He made all kinds of big decisions. Every lesson I learned from him was a good lesson. It doesn't mean I apply him all of it. But you know, and you're just lucky when you meet somebody like that in life. And then it's like Charlie, who am I met when I was 29? Charlie and I had more fun on things that failed than succeeded. I mean, we just struck off humorous. A couple of guys like ourselves should make a big mistake. There's just a connection. And my friends of all have been quite intelligent. But they didn't have that. If they get up to 180 or 200, I used to have the curbs charge spending the other way sometimes. But they were all intelligent. But they also didn't all think they had outsmart the other person. Murph never made a deal where he tried to extract the last penny. He always made good deals. And there's a number of them that he didn't make, that he wished he'd made, you know. And he did all kinds of things for other people, especially me. You said that you and Charlie learned more or had more fun from the things that maybe you made mistakes on. What's a project? The two of you did together, a deal. The two of you did together where things went wrong. And then you had a good time as you were trying to figure out how to extract yourselves from it or pay back the people. All kinds of things. Well, we bought a department store in 1965 or 1966 and bought them more. And-- - Would Sandy Goddard's men? - Yeah, with Sandy Goddard's men. And it was his wife's uncle that owned the business. I mean, it was in Baltimore. And Sandy went in it. And his firm took 10%, Charlie's firm took 10%, my firm took 80%, because we were larger in those days. And those guys all the way were very large. And Sandy and Charlie did not know each other at a time. But they both knew me. And anyway, after we bought it, we knew we'd made a terrible mistake. It was just could have been more dumb. There's nothing like owning something to start. And we spent your money to see what's wrong with it. It's like buying a house and finding out that there's all bunch of things you don't like about it. And except it's not so easy. And there we were owning. Social-going Baltimore, and we made a mistake, and we all three agreed on that. And nobody blamed the other one ever, ever. And actually, we had a lot of fun discussing our mistakes. I mean, I don't mean that we sat around laughing about our rating, but just the very action. It's like being in a war, I mean, or something. It just pulls you together when you've got a common problem. And you've got wonderful people in a fox hole with you. And that brings people closer together. You have had an extraordinary number of just spectacular friends that can't be coincidence. Well, no, you shouldn't be selective about your friends. And hope they aren't just selective about theirs. You should be trading up all the time. But you shouldn't be doing it, and they're deceptive about it better. I mean, do you do that consciously or-- I don't think so. I think you're just attracted to people that-- I was attracted to people who were interested in the same thing I was to an extent. Maybe not as intense as I was about some things, or they had different backgrounds and all kinds of things. I would have traded any of my friends for anybody else. And we ended up liking to do things together. I formed that so-called Graham group. And just with the Graham group. Yeah, that came a whole bunch of different people. From K Graham, who wasn't named after, it was named after Ben Graham. And we met for close to 50 years, about every year, and a half, or so on average. And all of these people liked each other. And they were regarded in their own industry as, you know, an approachable, and they just meld them together so well. We started out. Well, we only thought it was going to be held once. Ben Graham was back in the country. And I called 11 people and said, you want to go to San Diego? And it wasn't as easy to get to San Diego. Quite as now, and none of us had that much money, although we all had more money than we'd started with. But I called them and said Ben Graham's in town. And he probably won't be in this hemisphere, you know, in our future and the serverer opportunity to see him. So we read that if we come out, he'll spend a few days with us. Charlie was there, and I didn't know Tom Murphy then. But the person that introduced me to Tom Murphy was there. And then looking at how much class makes all kinds of things. And we had such a good time that we decided to do it again. Well, Ben wasn't going to stay in the country anymore. He's going back to France. But the next time we did Florida, and we-- and again, we just had a lot of fun. And so it became something. And then I would assign different topics, you know, that initially they'd be more financially oriented than they were as you could actually watch the sort of development of the group into new activities as I added people over the years. And they all knew me, but most of them knew each other to some degree beforehand. And we just had a good time for 50 years. And people entered into it in a really unusual spirit of no baloney. You know, I mean, there was nobody that was more important than somebody else in the group. And-- But with the point of learning lectures to a certain extent, the extent of learning that on-- Yeah, well, the morning is always interesting. I mean, there's not any more interesting things. Well, there's probably a few things. I'm going to go with it, but it's longer. Learning is more interesting, you know what? I mean, the idea of a library just think of just a few hundred years ago. I mean, you know, there wasn't anything to read with by at night. When you think of what life was like compared to what it is now, it's wonderful now for-- it's still for a limited number of people. Of course, all kinds of people, particularly outside the United States. But I'd rather be born into almost a poorest family if I could be born today in the United States than to be born in any place else. So you think the American dream is alive and well? I'd love it. If-- yeah, if it didn't come with the power to destroy the planet, I would say that there's never been anything remotely. That's interesting as it being born in the United States today. Do you worry about artificial intelligence? Yeah, after a few times when people pretending to be me of going out and scamming people, we just thought out about one of them. Even the people that are smarts about say they don't know where it's going on. And it's one thing to, I guess, say you don't know where you're going. If you're Columbus, I mean, what do you know? You just want to go back, but the genies out of the bottle. I mean, if someone wants to impersonate me in a way that's scam people 10,000 miles away, or in all malls, they can do it. And they can imitate my voice, and they can imitate my appearance, and they can talk-- they can fool my kids here. What do you do to stop that? What do you-- how do you combat it? How do you put the genie back in the bottle? That's the same problem we have with the nuclear weapons. We know how to build them, and we know how to build beggar ones all the time. The problem is so a lot of other people. And they've got no use except to kill people. Or deter the other guy from using his. I mean, that is something to have created in the world. But it was absolutely necessary to do it in World War II. I mean, it wasn't a doubt the Germans were working on it. You can go to search and read a lot of the Center President Roosevelt just a month before the Germans had been made a poem. I mean, it doesn't mean I know anything about it. I know about your rating for 235 or anything. But I do understand human behavior. It's hardly complicated. I guess when you think about your evolution in thought, we'll go back to this thread of how your views in business have changed. And you talked a little bit about how your assessment of people, what you learned from Tom Murphy along the way. But just your evolution of thought in business, how would you sum that up? How would you say you're different today? A lot of things that I thought was learning about business that weren't true. Like what? If you talk about boards of American companies, that's pretty important. I mean, you're talking about the whole country, almost, with public companies. And the people of the independent directors are not independent usually. The money is useful to them. The money they get for being on the board director. Yeah. I mean, it's the best job in the world to get $253,000, maybe even up to $500,000 a year for doing something that's quite positive. Usually they give you the transportation and they have cars waiting to take you around everything. And everybody's polite and everybody's loved that job. Who wouldn't? And if I didn't have any money and somebody said, "Warn, how would you like to be a director of the X, Y, Z company?" And you'll make $300,000 a year and all you have to do is show up and meet some other nice people and just don't burp. Don't say anything, don't screw it up. And, I mean, if I go to that meeting and somebody else had 10% of the stock of the company and everything of it, they're not independent, you know, and they're not in theory. And what's going to be in the back of my mind? I know how to get a raise from $300,000 to $600,000 a year. And all I've got to do is, when some, somebody's called to come up with a quote, good end quote director, they say, "Well, I know this guy in Omaha, he'd be a good director." Now you've got two people out there that'll recommend you to somebody else because you didn't really cause of any troubles. And if you're the CEO and you wanted to get paid more money and so on, you mean put them on your compensation? Absolutely. I mean, yeah. And the whole idea, getting independent directors is that they don't have an interest and you couldn't have a more obvious interest than doubling your, you know, if you aren't making any money, you know, you're head of a school, some place or something, but they don't pay very much everything. You make $300,000 a year and you can quit that damn school, it's paid in the neck. And they'll keep you around probably, so you're $75, if you're a Berkshire, you might get to be 90 and beyond the board, but we don't pay that well. Not that incentivizes, you know, Charlie was always a huge preacher on incentives and what do you incentivize by this said, "Well, I'm on to the subject. I mean, I'm looking at our proxy statement, which is 20 pages long, which we set out the other day. And when I started in the business, you know, actually got notice of annual meetings, sometimes it was two pages long or three pages. Now almost everybody has other pages or more, and white properly, courts or ruling bodies or whatever thought, you know, the shareholders are entitled to know how much to see, go arms and there ought to be an explanation. So they stick in there one item that is, how does your salary compare to the average person in a salary like 200 to 1?" and they think that's going to embarrass CEOs. And of course, what it does is, and I've been on 20 corporate boards aside from Berkshire's CEO of ABC, who looks at this thing and he looks at the XYZ company and he goes, "I'm smarter than these guys and I'm working harder, whatever they get, I ought to get that plus some more." And then you get this ratcheting effect and the compensation committee, you know, gets some expert that the corporate secretary picked out who's got the same interest and you couldn't think of a way to incentivize people more to kick up their own salaries than to have them read what somebody next door is making. It's just exactly the opposite of what's intended and the independent directors are the last thing in the world they wanted was to get kicked off a board. Don't ever get another assignment again and they aim to please and you shouldn't expect anything else, you know. So Berkshire does things very differently than other companies? We do it differently because we actually thought through what we've thought through all our policies. That doesn't mean we've come at the right answer, but at least we've thought about them and we say, "What is an incentivize?" And what is an incentive at Berkshire? An incentive, obviously, is to have a bunch of people who are thinking about all the other shareholders and who do not really have anything to gain. So you don't want Berkshire to conform to what everybody else is doing? I want Berkshire to attract people who are smart about business. You want them preferably with an investment that's significant to them, which they bought on the same basis as the other shareholders. And you want to make the job interesting but not remunerative. A lot. Well, I would say I'll give you one example, it's not quite current, but I think it's very stupid for the CEOs or somebody who represents the CEO. Every couple of months to do the investor relations calls they do if they conduct them in a certain way. I mean, I'm not saying that all of them, but so many emphasize, "Here's what we're going to do." I'll give you an example I'm familiar with and I don't even know who started it. But it was far ago, many years ago, somebody thought it was important to emphasize how many different services people signed up for at the company. Once a CEO has done that for many months, they really can't reverse themselves and say, "This really wasn't important," or, "We find out that it backfired," or, "That just doesn't happen in this world." And then they hand the company off to the next CEO and the next CEO if they get on the first call and they say, "Well, gee, John Smith that ran this place was doing it all wrong, you don't say that." So you continue the process and you keep emphasizing and nobody's looking at the fact that that's perverting the behavior of millions of people from the workers, a thousand that worked down below. And when you do it on calls that go out to people, the right stories about your call every time that takes place, you don't want to steer people on the wrong behavior. I mean, it's like with your kids, I mean, you're going to watch how you behave, not what you say. And at first, they may give you a little leeway at first while they're running the ropes, but after a while they know what you're doing. And just think of that if they can put some more business in the last quarter or store up a little piggy bank to, "They're going to do it." I mean, they're serving their master, you know, in the fact that you don't have to issue any instructions to that and believe me, having done a 20 companies, I've seen a lot of that by people, they wouldn't think of stealing your newspaper phone on your door, but they don't realize the impact of, they like to play with numbers. And once you start playing with numbers, you don't quit. And once you have somebody that had to do the rains to accompany, and they've been playing with the numbers, and you say, "Well, we're going to give up playing with the numbers." I mean, you just don't do this that world lot. Well outside of the Mag 7, Berkshire Hathaway is now the most valuable company. It's a long time. But it's something you've built, how did things change along the way as you got bigger and bigger? It got more difficult. And I mean, because it's harder to do, it's harder to compound extremely large numbers than small numbers. And I've always known that. I mean, when I heard $12, the buy-three shares was in service for, doubly by that worth, it was not a remote possibility, I mean, that just got to go out and, you know, saw more bottles of Coca-Cola or do something door to door. So there's just no question that we can't do what we did before. That is when we can't do anything, but we can't do it. You've gotten perhaps more conservative with time. I mean, you've always wanted a buffer of cash around, and that number's gone up over time. I remember when it was $20 billion, maybe $50 billion. Well, that's an external circumstance. I mean, believe me, after we get finished talking, you say, "I've got a great $100 billion and an idea," I would say, "Let's talk." I don't. Well, there's always the chance that tomorrow, somebody will say that to me or I've got something to. Because now you have, I don't know what the latest cash amount is, it's over $300 billion. It's over $300 billion. Well, over $300 billion. It's more cash than the value of all of the stocks in the FTSE 100. Yeah. And it means that when I look at the stock market, when I look at companies of a size that wouldn't make any difference to our total, I don't see anything of, "Well, we're buying one or two things, but at the peanuts." But I'm willing to spend $100 billion this afternoon. Yeah. Glad I'm here today. No, I'd rather have $100 billion in a really good business point at a sensible price than have $100 billion in cash. I know the cash, I mean, certain levels necessary, but cash is not a good asset. Yeah. You need to oxygen, you don't need to be surrounded out, you don't have to pay a lot for everything like that. But you do need oxygen. And if you ever, without four or five minutes, it will learn and cash is that way. So you always need to have it available, because you do not know what will happen. I do not know what the stock market will do, and I do not know what business will do. I started out with that assumption how many years ago it was, and I haven't learned anything about what the stock market was going to do. I didn't find it. I may have read every book in the public library, but I didn't find the answer then to the question of what the stock market is going to do next week or next month or next year. I tried it all. I did charts, it all lost statistics, all kinds of things. I was looking for something, but it turned out I was looking for something that, in my opinion, doesn't exist. But I still found the game interesting, so then I looked at it through a different set of glasses that Ben Graham had at me, and I saw this was a game you couldn't lose really if you followed his rules. Coming up. You know, if you're super rich, you should get kids enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing. It made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before. I have no fear of failure. Trailblazing women, changing the game. One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. It really does come down to just trusting yourself, like the short, and you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Bourston hosts CMBC Changemakers and Powerplayers. You have said that you're going to have 99% plus of your money that is given away to try and solve some of those problems. It won't solve them, but it can help solve certain specific problems. If somebody's going, you know, can't do another money over the school, and you know, a scholarship does. Some good, you know, and how well you administer something like that and how you do the right thing. But there are certain problems that money doesn't, or can't solve, and when I first thought about philanthropy, I thought that essentially was the threat that the atom bomb presented. I mean Einstein in August of 1945, when I was 15, this changes everything in the world except how people think. People have thought about it ever since, and they still haven't, although they only progress they've made as they've gone from what they've thought was one country, but have it. And then when the Russians or the Soviets got it, you know, we were terrified with the idea of the Soviets in the United States with too many sound leaders, I mean, between, between the Academy of Korea. Now we have eight going on nine, and we know we've got some people's that, you know, it scares the hell out of you if they got a popcorn, nuclear weapon. And the game hasn't stopped, but it was a lot better when only one country had it and one more. I mean, the difference between two countries having a weapon that can destroy each other and one was huge, but now since then, you know, now the two were the good old days. Your philosophy on philanthropy, again, has changed. You mentioned that was at the beginning, and you've gotten criticism your whole life for not giving away more money sooner. You know, if you look at the people with their future and with funds, you should use the people who are going to use their money unintelligently, you should have them fund the current expenditures, and you should have the people who are going to build the funds for the future, actually accumulating your private. Now, that accumulating their money, because you're going to compound it into larger sums and you're going to have it more intelligently invested. And that sounds very self-serving, which it is, you know, and so we did it much more slowly. And I think I would still do the same thing, but I would have hoped for a better result. And I gave up on the, in effect, on the nuclear money. Something that problem? I don't know how money solves it. I don't think I can drop dollar bills from the sky and get somebody to get rid of their nuclear weapons. You now have. If I could lay out whatever I've got, and I could pick out three countries that would permanently get out of the nuclear game, I'd do it in five seconds. I wouldn't wait around, I'd die or do anything else, I just do it. I mean, that would really be something. Well, now you have north of $150 billion in growing. And? Well, what is growing? Well, it depends. I won't call it that. I would call it that. But the odds are it grows. Yeah. What do you want done with this? You're not going to sell a single share of Berkshire while you're alive. You would. Yeah, but I'm not going to live that long, you know. I mean, I'm, and I kids are willing to do it. I trust them 100%. I've sat down with your three kids recently and talked to them about how, you know, they see all of this, just the responsibility of it. The three of you, your father has told the world, are going to be responsible for figuring out what to do with all the money that he has built up in Berkshire over the last 60 years. What did you think when he started telling you that, when he started getting to you guys? When did he come to you? What did he tell you? What were your thoughts? I thought, well, we better get along. It was two years ago. Two years ago. A little over two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. What, how did, what, I don't know exactly. Yeah. I don't know exactly. He was sort of sort of talking about it. Yeah. I don't even remember. It was probably March-ish two years ago. So whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, just the idea of, wow, you tap dance to work every day for 60 years. Then you're going to go. Yeah. Exactly. And I don't really remember that it was like some big announcement to us. He just sort of started talking about it. Yeah. But he kind of, there were hints kind of as we went through the wills at certain times. Yeah. I mean, it kind of, some of it evolved. And then he just kind of decided. But I think there was a little bit of, you know, telegraphing of some of it. But not exactly what form or how it happened. Because we went through, you know, when he would do a new will, we would sit down. And he would say, you know, you have any questions or ideas or, you know, whatever. He didn't really pretty open about discussing that like at least 10 or 12 years ago. Yeah. He's been very open about. Yeah. Because he's, you know, the wills gone through a few iterations over the years. And he's always been really open about talking about it. And, you know, if we have any questions. I mean, I always have little notes written all around the pages. I mean, he's been open about telling the world that too. Yeah. That's the right way to do it. Yeah. Especially when your kids are older. You don't want to leave questions afterwards. And you don't want them wondering why you did things. As soon as you did that, all my kids called me and said, "When do we ever need it?" Not kidding. But again, the big thing is he amassed this wealth. And so to not be left with a sense of this is what I'd like to see happen with it. I mean, he thinks things through so thoroughly. From the time he was in his 20s writing a friend saying, "I know I'm going to be wealthy." And I don't want my kids to be, you know, he's known for forecasting what's coming. I mean, in terms of the work he does every day. And really thinking it through. And so to put this out there without giving us any explicit instructions. He's given us some sense of what he would like to see happen in an abstract sense. But there's never been. And that, you know, again, frankly, that's a little bit, "Yeah, we could have a little more guidance." Because it's your money. You know, it's not ours. Yeah, but that's consistent even in some of the things over the years with Berkler. Because he knows things are going to change. Right. And he can't predict everything. Yeah, he can. And so, you know, he provides what he feels confident will make sense at the time. Or at least thinks will make sense at the time. But not, you know, not try to predict it. Not try to. That's, yeah. He said years ago, when he's talked about just about STB Foundation work, he has said, you know, and this is way before there was as much money as there is now. And he has said, you know, this is what I think matters now. My mother obviously was also clear about that. But he's also always said, I don't know if that'll be true in 20 years after I'm dead or 10 years after I'm dead or whatever. And so he's always, I think, not wanted to constrain us with, you know, there's what you have to spend it on. Right. Because he would say that may not matter. Right. And then something else will matter more. Yeah. So what guidance has he given you? The only thing I've heard is what he's also said publicly, really, which is he hopes that the money can go to people, you know, what word do you use? Less fortunate, you know, below the poverty level, you know, whatever it is that it would in some way affect a population that normally doesn't have the same kinds of opportunities that certainly we have and a lot of people don't have. That's all I've got. The biggest challenge will be balancing the fact, but he is provided, when I say this, he's provided some cushion on this. But, you know, balancing the fact that he wants to see this money spent in 10 years, more or less. And then balancing that with how you lose control over Berkshire voting shares. I mean, that's the big challenge. Yeah. That's, you know, and you can't figure that out until you're in that moment and as some time starts to go by because there's going to be the dynamics change. There's going to be things that happen that no one on that board, none of us can try to, you know, anticipate you and we can anticipate some things, some things will be obvious. And others won't be so obvious and you don't know who they are, you know, what they're after. So, you know, that could affect how fast you want to lose or give up, you know, voting power. It feels like you have a little flexibility on that count too, just as well as it has gotten more flexible. What did you think when he said that you three were going to be doing this, doing it together. It had to be unanimous. And you're in charge of all of it. Did you want the job? Nope. Peter, I didn't want it. I didn't want it. We'd say that at all. And understands that it'll put us, obviously, enormous pressure on us. And so the idea, again, like we've been saying around what are we going to do is, there's too many variables. We have no idea what we're going to do in this moment. And that's great that we all know and agree that we can't start this. As a parent and an outsider watching this, the vote of confidence in the three of you, how much he trusts you, is the thing that kind of jumped out the most. Does that hit you too? Yes. And it's very nice. I mean, you know, really, it is. It's a huge giant compliment. I think that none of us, you know, so we have a very different view of it growing up in the environment that we grew up with and how we see, you know, my dad. Now we see my mom. So I think, you know, for us, in a way, it's a surprise and in a way, it's not a surprise. He knows 100% that we are going to try to execute exactly what he asked us to do. And then he knows that we've had a lot of experience now understanding how to figure out the things that we don't know today and how to do those efficiently and effectively in the future. So, you know, to me, in one way, because of how we grew up and the things that we listened to forever from him, it was a surprise. And then in another way, it's like, I don't know, he gave us this opportunity for several decades now to figure out how you give money away, how you do it effectively, how you do it efficiently and how to make those decisions. So in that regard, you know, I would say it's not a surprise because he kind of began preparing us for it. And I would just add the other part of this, I think, is that he knows nobody can do it certainly perfectly and nobody is. So the only reason why it lets me do it. There is the element of, okay, nobody is going to do this. It's just too much money. It's unfathomable. What we will be charged with. And why not us, who is closer to the source and has grown up and all the things. But we know there's an element of it's a beautiful gesture and it's a convenient gesture to make sure that he would say that. But when you start trying to write $200 and $300 million checks, you know, only institutions can absorb those or governments. And I'm not, I'm not a big fan of writing checks the institutions or governments. So, you know, some ways we're going to have to make some decisions that we typically wouldn't make. But we have to make sure that the money is used and used as well as it can be used. So there'll be, we'll be making decisions that we typically wouldn't have made today sitting here. And we'll make some mistakes. Oh, sure. Yeah. I'm good at that. And that's okay. I do that all the time. Well, I mean, it's just, it's interesting. The way your dad set this up, that it has to be a unanimous vote that everybody has to agree. I mean, it's, it's kind of brilliant, but it's also kind of like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I don't think that'll be a problem. No, and it's really not because they're, you know, social media when that first came out. I'll tell, oh my god, that's gonna be a part of thinking, you're telling us more about your child. Yeah. So there will be a lot of hours. So there will be a lot of time. Yeah. You know, and we'll make some trade-offs with each other. Yeah. I mean, there's so much money. I mean, getting in a fight about it is, yeah. It's amazing. You know, pop culture has succession. Or, you know, these various shows that show all this stuff. And that's what people love to feed on. It's like, where's the problem? Yeah. And we have had no trappings of any of that growing up. So we're just not, we're not that. We grew up expecting nothing to be honest. I mean, to put it simply, yeah, not to, but I mean, you know, we, we were told that we had to figure our own stuff out. And we were allowed to fail and make mistakes. And then we understood the consequences. And so I think, I think Peter's really right on this, that, you know, you want to show -- You say that again? Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, you won't hear it again. But, you know, it's, it's like watching this show Dallas or something. I mean, that's been on air for a long time. But, you know, all this stuff and it's like, we don't even have a drama. We don't have any of that. I mean, it's just, it's not like, it just doesn't happen. And so I think people have this false -- well, not everyone. But, you know, some people have this false impression of what our families like. I think most people, right, have a false impression of what I was like. Yeah, that's true. And so that would then, you know, it would extrapolate that into this whole idea that we're going to give away all this money. How the hell are we going to get along and do that? And I just don't think it's going to be hard. You know, my dad wasn't rich and famous when we were kids. We didn't, we did not grow up like people probably think we grew up. Yeah, for sure. And we didn't. So, yeah. How did you grow up? Describe it. Around the stable. Yeah. Normal. I mean, we grew up, you know, we were certainly very fortunate. We didn't need anything. But, you know, we went to public school. We lived in a regular neighborhood. We hung out with our friends. We didn't, with the exception of a deal how we made with my dad. But we didn't get cars when we turned 16. I read the bus to school, you know, until, yeah, until I got out of high school. We didn't, we grew up in what I would call sort of a normal middle class on the upper side of middle class. But we, you know, we weren't living in the rich neighborhood. We weren't, it was. You didn't even know what your dad did at one point. None of us knew. No, we didn't. None of us knew. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was in first grade when we had to fill out those census cards or second grade. And I wrote, my mother told me to write security analyst. And I thought he checked burglar alarms. Wow. So there's that. And then in my career, most people thought it was related to Jimmy Buffett. But, you know, we used to, I mean, not that there's any big deal. But, you know, we, you know, we turned this allowance for, you know, cleaning out gutters and cutting a lot and breaking leaves and stuff. But, but, but Warren got pretty clever and he started giving it to us in quarters. And then he bought a slot. Dimes. Yeah. Dimes. Yeah. And then he bought it all back. Yeah. And then he bought the slot machine. So we would, he would get most of his allowance back. At least with me, he got a lot of them back. But I mean, we were all the, the neighbor kids would bring their dimes over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's three watermelons when you pull the lever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we never do, I mean, I'm about the most anti gambling version there is. Because you lost all your dimes. Right. Yeah. But we all had jobs too when we were getting, you know, it was pretty, it was pretty normal, which I'm grateful for now. I think Susie made this point that, you know, we weren't, we weren't, my dad wasn't rich growing up. Yeah. You know, I mean, we, when we grew up, he was trying to Volkswagen for a while. Yeah. He started having a pick business associate's up at the airport. So, you know, he, he upgraded to, you know, a Cadillac, but, you know, I mean, it was only because he had to. It wasn't because he wanted a Cadillac. He didn't care what car he drove. Yeah. And my mom used to drive, catch you and take me to my after school stuff in Uncle Freddie's old beat up station wagon. And I was so embarrassed because it was so, it was like, it was like going to break down anytime. But, you know, she, I think she did it to prove a point to me. Like it just doesn't matter where you show up. What do you think that, that did dull? You know, I would imagine at the time you may not have been super appreciative of it. But what, what do you think, what impact did that have on who you are today? Well, one thing I think that had really a huge impact was just living in the house with my mother in general. Yeah. You know, she was so active, particularly in the North Omaha community, but she was very active in the volunteer thing she did. Also, playing parent had, she was President of Planned Parenthood. And she just, and she lived it. She didn't just write the check. She lived it. What lessons did you learn from your first wife, Susan? Oh, well, I mean, she, she, well, she understood people in life way better than I did. I mean, I, I know a lot about stocks. I know a lot about a lot of things, but she knew a lot about human beings. And she wasn't interested in money at all. She wanted to be sure we had enough. I mean, her, leave it to me to be sure we had enough. But if I told her we were living on 175 dollars a month, which I think was the original sum, I mean, that was fine. But she would occasionally ask me, "Are we rich yet?" And I would say, "Well, we're getting close, but just give me another year or two of composting." But it didn't really mean anything to her. And she would use it for other people, you know, in an instant. And she would not only give her money, but she'd give her herself. And so she really mattered. And fortunately, the kids took after her. What's an important lesson you've learned from your wife, Ostrich? She came from a much tougher life. And she and Susie were very close. And Susie did not want to the life of being the Mrs. Biggin, Omaha or something like that. And so Ostrich moved in and three of us lived happily ever after. But it was a very strange arrangement, but it worked for all three people. But Ostrich would do, she would rather do something for someone else than do it for herself. I mean, it's genuine. It's not contrived that if she looks that way for a week or a month, that somehow it'll benefit her later on or anything of the sort. And she is exactly what she seems to be. And she's the same person that I started living with, you know, but 1978 or thereabouts. And that's who she is and that's who I like to be with. Part of your thoughts on philanthropy evolved over time. You and Susie had some thoughts that you talked about when you were very young. Yeah, if you look at my will from, I've got one will that goes back to when I was 30 or something. Susie and I both only agreed on what should be done with money. And I said that I would compound money better than most people. And so that it made sense for me to be a saver during my life because a typical saver would not accumulate what I was going to accumulate. And that she would outlive me and disperse it. Now, we did some things before that, but that's when the big money would hit. And then she died first. But the idea was that she, along with, she got help in doing it and everything. And we never dropped it, but someone gets so large. But I dropped it, we get a lot larger than she did. And it didn't really make any difference to her. And she would have done it earlier, but she understood that. She understood the math of what I was saying. She just wasn't as impressed by it as I was. How much did you think it would eventually be to give away? Well, I didn't think I'd look to be 94. You know, let's say I died one of my dad, it's 60. I mean, you just don't know what. But I did think that, well, I always thought we would be rich by general standard. But the time I was 30 or thereabouts, which would not be true. But it wasn't super rich at all. But I also know that it would just keep growing. But I didn't, and my dad had died at 60. And if I died at 60, it would have been a fraction of what it is now. But an awful lot of people would be using the excuse, never to give away. And I never, I didn't feel that way. I mean, we were always, you know, the wills I wrote. I mean, that we provided for the foundation we had, which was penis. And we did change our ideas on how much the kids should have. You had to drastically rethink things when she passed away, though. I have roughly 14 and a quarter million shares of B-stock. And by letters which were delivered earlier today, I've committed 12 million and 50,000 shares. They're earmarked, held by me. But every July, I will be giving a million shares to the Bill of Melinda Gates Foundation. And I say 10 million, I admit to say 10 million. And a million shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 350,000 shares. Each to the three foundations, headed by my children, Susan Howard and Peter. And that will continue throughout my lifetime. What has your, I mean, your dad has evolved over your whole lives with them in terms of, the basic ideas of what he wanted to do, which was to give the money away. But how he wanted to go about doing that has sort of evolved. At one point it was the Bill of Melinda Gates Foundation, where he's funneling a lot of this money. What's your view of this evolution and his thinking through this? What's it been like from where you all sit? This seems natural to me to be honest with you, I mean, it's not. Yeah, don't you think he's, I think he's really, he's mellowed, he's evolved, he's grown. I'm trying to think what are their adjectives, but since my mother died, I think. I keep saying to people, you know, he turned out he was listening that whole time. Yeah. It was just fascinating to me how you could kind of see the wheels turning in his head in various ways after she died. I think he knew he needed to step up. But it was forced into the chain. Yeah, and he needed to step up. And he had to, he mom wasn't there to be the person who was the buffer. The buffer, the person talking to us, I always say the governor. I just think it's been so interesting to watch him evolve through all this. And also, you know, she died in 2004, so 21 years ago. And I think his thinking about things comes from a lot from her. And now, well, with the gates, when he gave the money away in 2006, we were, how many years younger, almost 20, horrifying, but true. And we had very little experience, and I think he's watched us over the last 20 years. The other thing that I think has helped, first of all, it's easier to get along when things are set up the way they are with three separate foundations. I've encouraged friends of mine who have a lot of money, who have their kids in a foundation, to split it up. You know, because some people have said to me, "Oh, but I think it'll help them get along better." No, it'll help them not get along better, is the truth. So I think that was really smart on my dad's part to do it. Well, I guess mom was alive when that happened. I think that was a really smart thing to do, and I think that's helped us, because we've all been able to do what we want to do. And I think it's safe to say we all get why each other likes and cares about the things we all care about, and we all respect it. You guys have done this for a long time. It's not as easy as it looks. Tell me a lesson, something you've learned along the way, that people on the outside would be surprised to hear. Well, things sometimes don't work out the way you think they will. Sometimes that's a good thing. That can be a good thing. Even better than you thought. We call those successful failures. You learn enough from it, and sometimes you just learn that it didn't work, and you couldn't have done anything else. But sometimes you learn it didn't work, and here's why, so you change it. We did a complete end report about our failures one time, maybe 10 years ago or something. You should have seen what it took to get information from our partners. I want every bit of bad news, if there's bad news. And it makes the nonprofit nervous, and the evaluators think, "Oh, if I tell them it's bad, I might not get hired again." You have to get super clear with people about, "It's okay. We want to hear everything." And also, what Susie's saying, the performance aspect of all of it can just be something to navigate and figure out where all the distortion is, because people are telling you things they think you want to hear, or you'll say something, and they'll just be listening for that word that they need to use to get the thing. And I would even say, in Omaha with, you know, my staff has said to me many times, it's so refreshing to be in a place where we can screw up, we can make a mistake. I mean, one thing you have to do, I think, to develop leadership within your own organization is to give people enough space and enough responsibility to make mistakes. And then how you react to that is super important. Not you're fired. If you're going to build a competent staff and people who can learn the kind of judgment you want them to have, and you're sort of charged with taking risk, so you're bound to. And at the end of the day, you know, and they've probably done this too, but, you know, I have been in places where I've made a $50 million decision right there after a two-hour meeting. And, you know, it's like, we want to do this, we're going to spend the money, and people are like, okay, let us know when you make the decision. No, I'm making the decision. It's going to happen now. You have to follow our rules in terms of, you know, how we give the money and all that, but usually that gets done. That's the other thing that's unique, I think. It's a huge luxury. Because most foundations, the staff isn't allowed to, you know, make any decisions or even say, we're interested in this, we might want to do this. And then they have to have a board meeting. Right. And then the trustees have to look at it, and they vote on it and decide if it's going to happen. And it just, it drags everything out. It slows the process. A lot. And the performance. Right, it just changes the whole way, everything works. The people are always amazed that we just do it just like how I said. It's like, yeah, we can do it. It's fun, actually. Yeah, it's fun. Hearing you all describe that, it just occurs to me that it sounds an awful lot, like the philosophy that your father and I guess your mother used with you. There's way more of that of work than I think people. And it's also the philosophy I think he uses a Berkshire. Yeah, I mean, he makes decisions like that. What I just heard from you three, I cannot believe how much you all are so much like your father and how you do this. It's really so much like your father and how you take these operations. It's the same way he does. We taught him a lot. Yeah. But it never occurred to me until I was sitting there listening to it. Wow. And then you threw our mother in there and you've got a pretty potent kind of work. Well, I always say, if it weren't for my mom, I'd be in jail, so I think like, you know, good people. If it weren't for my mom, then my dad would be in jail. Yeah, so if it weren't for my mother, I wouldn't be here. I didn't realize until sitting down with them how similar they are in terms of how they think about things, all different areas of interest and expertise. But how similarly they view things in relation to how you view things. I was actually very surprised. Well, that surprises me a lot. Well, they would disagree with me on a lot of minor points, but they don't disagree with me on major points. I mean, they were raised in a household that behaved generally and consistent with what their parents lived. They didn't have to watch high-progressive. There's a lot of things that they were affected by favorably, that they didn't see. Now, they had all kinds of gripes with. I was tougher with them than I should have been probably looking back. But I just couldn't imagine how well they would all three of them would turn out. Of course, I didn't imagine that they would be the ones that would dispose of the money I thought Susie Singer would be doing it. I guess some of the things that struck me as being so similar to you is how your children view running their organizations. They are all running large charitable organizations that give away a lot of money with very small staffs. But a lot of personal involvement. And a lot of personal involvement. They're on the ground making every one of those decisions. They don't like bureaucracy, I think, any more than you do. No, no, that's one thing that they've seen it. Now, they hadn't seen it when they were 20 or 30. You know, I mean, you should be wiser in the second half of your life. I should be, my kid should be. There's nothing that really is important with money that they can't do. And I mean, they can't sit around doing nothing. And that goes back to the line that I think the King Graham may have said this to me. But you know, if you're super rich, you should live your kids enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing. I get credit for that line. It was not original with me, but I don't know who said it first. Still ahead. There's nothing magic. You just have to think a little and use a little discipline. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? One of my favorite pieces of advice. Think about what your boss's boss needs. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Borsten hosts CMBC Changemakers and Powerplayers. You know, Warren, over time, you became so much more than the CEO of Berkshire. I can think back to times like after the financial crisis. When you would come on our air and basically try and calm people down. They were worried about what the stock market was doing. They were worried about what was happening to their money. They were worried about what was going to happen to their jobs. They weren't just worried. They were scared. They were scared stiff. That happens periodically in civilizations. It doesn't happen to me in terms of making business decisions. I mean, where else, when you can buy something cheaper, you get upset about it? I wonder when it occurred to you that you could be the voice of authority that could come on the air and calm people down. A fireside chat sort of. I mean, that's much more than just being a CEO. I always like to talk. And I always like to talk to older people. I can't find older people anymore, but that's another separate problem. But I used to, you know, when I'd go over to choir practice or something at the Dundee Presbyterian Church, I'd have a kind of a little round of women who were washing dishes or doing things that they had to do in those days. And I would just make stops. And I would do most of the talking. [LAUGHTER] And then, for one reason or another, something happened. I still was the same way privately. So I was terrified of public speaking. And so I took a course one. I actually took the course one. I was 21, I guess. I'd actually signed up for the course one. I was a Columbia, the Dale Carnegie course. And I'd written them a check, and I stopped payment on it. And I just-- I was terrified of speaking in public. I couldn't breathe. I said everything was fine, I just couldn't breathe. And I don't know what caused that. I obviously had-- I've got a theory. But obviously, I had some-- something that happened that I got-- I mostly got embarrassed in front of-- because I could still talk to people individually. And couldn't stop talking to them practically. But that happened. And then I knew that if I didn't start talking in front of people, I knew I would revert back to where I was. And I didn't want that to happen. So I went off to the University of Omaha, which is now University of Nebraska, Omaha. And then I classes and different things. And I just said, I'd like to teach here. I said, well, you don't have a PhD. And I said, well, I barely have a master. But I still like to teach. And fortunately, I didn't know it at the time. But the three judges of whether I would be allowed to do this with Dean Thompson, who was-- who was going to marry his daughter a little later. And he read it like me. And Dean Helmstetter. And his daughter was the first girl I kissed. And Dean Lucas, he liked me too. And I liked his daughter too. But I was not doing that. So I think I probably got a unit out of his boat there. And then I kept teaching every year, essentially, for 67 or 68 years, something like that. And I did it with college students. And I did it with groups of women that Crate University got together. I did it with a Scarce Dale adult school. I just couldn't stop talking. And you felt the need to teach because? I loved it. And it appealed to my dad, that style. And I liked my own ideas. And I just had fun teaching. And I still do, except I ran out of gas a few years ago. Is that-- you think what made Warren Buffett-- I mean, becoming Warren Buffett-- you are more than just the CEO of Berkshire. You are-- I've been a teacher. You've been a teacher in a national idea. And when you talk about teaching, that's what you've done with the shareholders for years. And probably why you have 40, 50,000 of them show up for these annual meetings. Yeah, in the 2008 and '89, everybody was terrified. And it was a scary time, I understand. But actually, George Bush got it. I mean, he went out there on the lawn. And they said, I don't know what the hell's happening, but are they good? And he said it more colorfully than that, even. And so he turned it over to guys that were very able to him, Geithner, but probably Hank Paulson more than anybody else. And he gave him a lot of authority. He was restricted in how much authority could give, because he had a Congress that really had the power of the person. And luckily, and Hank, he had somebody that just needed to ignore the rules. He found something to hang it on. But he did what was necessary. He's kind of like Paul Walker was at the Federal Reserve, saying the exact type, except Hank made a lot of money and Paul Walker never made anybody. But the thing that has always struck me is, anytime there's a crisis, you're getting calls from the government. You're getting calls from the players who are in big trouble when the financial systems in trouble. You're going on and trying to calm down investors and make them realize that this is-- Probably, but I won't say anything, I don't believe. You always just speak very honestly. And I think that's why people listen. But that's why people listen. And why they listen. Yeah. This is a mantle that's developed over the last 60 years. Was there a point where you realized that this was a mantle you were carrying? Well, it became evident after quite a while, though, because I started investing. Well, I was a stock broker. I didn't want to work for Graham. And then I came back to Omaha. But then I actually-- I had seven members, basically, the family that said we wanted them. We want to know what to do with our money. Wasn't that my $10,000 and $5,000 in total? And they said, I said, well, I'll do it on these terms. And I wrote out something. It was all in a partnership agreement. And then it sort of inched along. We never had a single institution. I mean, it's just a different game than that. These were people, you know, like my dentist and the dental assistant that was there, you know, put in $5,000 and then I got out of it. In 1970, but the people stayed with me a lot of them in terms of work sharing. So life takes funny turns. You don't know what they're going to be. So if somebody-- your dentist and your dental assistant put $5,000 with you when it was just your partnership and they stayed with you through it, what would that be worth today? A lot. [LAUGHTER] A whole lot. And some of them had it. And they had it to take the Davis family that introduced me to Charlie, you know what I mean? I told them I wouldn't tell them what I owned. And they could get out twice a year or once a year. And not to ask me how things were going. [LAUGHTER] Because I didn't want to be under pressure trying to do something I couldn't do. So I ran out like my own money. Warren, I think people come to you because you've seen so much of experience, so much, and you're so willing to share what you've learned along the way. If you go to the annual meeting, people might ask you about what happened at the BNSF last quarter. They might ask you about GICO insurance. They might ask you about your thoughts on US treasuries or they might ask you what's the most important lesson to life. You get a pretty wide variety. Those philosophical questions come out pretty fast. Yeah, but they asked me that last one. I'll need help, so. [LAUGHTER] No, in the end, you're talking to one person that asks the question. And we know that somebody wants to sandbag it in some way. But over time, you learn how to handle that basically. But those people aren't coming to sandbag me or that. They came because they wanted to hear your advice and Charlie's advice on how to live. They come and ask about it. Who do I marry? Right. And they say, well, Charlie's the expert on that. But Charlie, I mean, those are important questions. And Charlie answered, you know, you marry the best person that'll have you. I mean, that was a very practical answer. So what do you tell these people who come to you looking for advice on these things? What's the toughest question you've ever got and what's maybe the best answer you've ever given? That's good. That itself may be the best. That's the toughest question. No, I mean, I have the ability, to some extent, because of where I am in life, that people will listen to me. And they'll hear the same damn thing. They would hear from somebody else. But they just pay more attention to it. You know, they know I don't have an extra grind. I'm not selling them time by the hour. I'm not doing anything. And I've got this didactic streak. So if I like them, I will talk to them. And I like to talk to big groups. That's why the college students, I just love the idea that we had 200 schools, that wanted to come every year. And they would ask me great question. And they'd all have a good time and I'd have a good time. But one of the things I would tell them, it's kind of simple with advice. But I would say, you know, let's just take the class year and back at whatever school it may be. And maybe there's 300 students at it, you know. And you could get 10% of the earnings for the lifetime of 5/0. Which would you pick and why? If you're one with eyes to IQ, you won't pick the best athlete. Then you won't pick the best looking, you know. All kinds of things. And just examine that. And then I would tell them, you know, now let's say you got to sell short. This is more fun. And five of them would sell short. And then, of course, I'd explain at the end. You can be the person that you would buy. You know, I mean, there is nothing impossible. Because it isn't whether you can throw football 60 yards and it doesn't, you know what? There's all kinds of, there isn't one with the highest IQ. You can be one with the five and why not? So you want to be on that list. And I just have fun. If there's-- Giving advice. It's kind of obnoxious. But it's-- You've got a long line of people waiting to ask you questions like that. But if there was one word, maybe two words on what it is that creates success, what is it? It's not IQ. If it's not your athletic abilities. If it's not how much homework you've done, what is it? Well, it depends how you find success. But if you define it as-- You know, many people, it's how much they earn, you know, and that determines awful lot of things that happen with their family and everything. And, you know, it's a lot. A lot of it. And if you choose the right parents, you're rich when you come out. I mean, you have won the lottery. The Ovarian lottery. And if you're born rich, your father's established a trust fund for you already or if you're creating a dynasty, you don't have to do one thing in this life. And you can live better than all kinds of people who work their tail off. And I don't like that, you know, myself. But that is a reality. So the easiest way to become rich is to pick the right. Right, won't to come from. But awful lot of luck. But when you're telling students who come to see you, hey, you can be that student that you would like to bet long on by doing what? Well, you can do it by being a good person, by reading a lot, by spending less than you take in. I just tell them, you know, you can spend 110% of what you earn once. And then you used it up. I mean, the rest of your life, you're underwater. And why in the hell you want to be underwater? And why do you want to borrow money on credit cards? And we own credit card companies. I mean, you know, people love spending beyond there and come a lot of people. And just forget it. And nothing wrong with a mortgage on a house that when you're at some point. But even that would be careful. You know the people that aren't worried about money. I'm balanced or quite a bit happier. People are worried about money. And there's nothing magic. And of course, who's inclined to use a lot of discipline when they're teenagers or in college? I mean, you know, I understand that. But I will tell you that don't get in debt. And you know, I used to sell stones back many years ago. But I could make $150 a month delivering papers in the morning. What did I take an extra hour and a half? Just get up an hour and a half earlier and have $150. Charlie used to sell himself the best hour of the day. He was charging $20 an hour for a legal advice. And then he just decided that his best hour was from six to seven in the morning. So he was just going to sell himself that hour. And that's not crazy. And, you know, your future is your future. And you can't expect anybody else to do it. And be on a certain point. If you get in the hole or anything, it is difficult to dig out. It's impossible and I give credit to people to do it. But do it the easy way. One of the things about you is that you have stayed so much the same over the years. You're still living in the house that you bought 60 years ago? Yeah. 60. 65? 67 years ago. Yeah. 30% of the life of the country or something like that. Why haven't you changed? Why haven't you? Wouldn't be happier or anyplace else. And so he was going to be happier and all more. And that likely meant that our kids were going to be happier and all more. What are you proudest about with your kids? Oh, I'm just the fact that they took it after their mother. No, they really -- it was a good thing. Probably a good thing that -- well, we weren't rich early. They never saw us behave like we were extremely rich or anything. Although they saw us fly off to New York and do different things. I know we have plenty of fun. They saw me very intense about investment management and obviously proud of the results and all kinds of things like that. But they didn't see us craving money just to show other people that I've got money and you don't -- you know, type of stuff. And they didn't see any dynasty building, whereas they saw it some places, some other places and in all mall. They had a good feeling of about what life was about. But there's still a lot of crazy things, but of course I did too. You're going to do crazy things when you're one thing you should -- it's a difficult thing because you should be very forgiving of yourself. But not totally, because you're yourself. But there's no sense looking back and saying, you know, if I hadn't done this, if I hadn't done that, everything. It just forget it in life. You know, nobody cares. I mean, this is history. You can't change it. You can change your behavior going forward. But -- and your second half of your life should be better than your first half. The problem is you don't know what -- it's a half of what. But you should be wiser when you get over. And I think my kids have all become quite a bit wiser. And I think they were always -- towers. They all showed the same kind of things. That's a good kid show. I mean, my dad was always very forgiving of my misbehavior. He just said, "I know you can do better." And that's pretty -- that was very powerful stuff. I mean, because I could do better. I mean, I knew what he'd do it. And I was being like a jerk for a long time. And it's nice to have somebody have faith in you. If you want to have good children, be a good -- I mean, you just care about it. But you don't expect -- you don't give them lectures about doing bad things. When you're doing the bad things in there, actually just acting like teenagers. You're still -- you feel good. I feel terrific. Yeah. But I don't want last forever. But I know never of what's last forever. And in '94, I have won a game I didn't deserve to win. Well, that's fine. I accept that. You know? This is our kind of world, folks. But, you know, the one quality that I measure people by enormously. Because everybody can do it. And that's what other people are kind. I mean, that is something that really doesn't cost you anything. So it is an act that doesn't belong to any religion, doesn't belong to anything. And why in the world wouldn't you be kind? I mean, and some people aren't, some people aren't. But you feel better if you're kind of, I think, too. Johnny, Johnny Añoli, one time. I only met him one time. Johnny Añoli, you know, the fiat grew up in a bad -- he was really -- he was quite a guy and I met him one time. And he said, you know, when do you get old? He says you got the reputation you deserve. He says you can get away a long time with the other. And he was reflecting, you know, on me. But it's true. I mean, if you look at those people, I named them, you know, whether Tom Murphy or Sandy God of Thunder, Warner Scott. They had the reputation they deserved in the end. But of course, somebody dies at 40 or 30 or 40. You know, I mean, that's a different situation. But if you look a long time, you've got it. And kindness is -- it just doesn't cost anything. You haven't given up anything. It's just so easy. And you get it back with interest. Warren, we've covered a lot of ground. Is there anything that you feel like we've missed out on anything? No, I would -- I would just ask anybody to challenge me on whether being kind could hurt them in any way. And whether than that happiness of the world wouldn't be better if they just -- if every morning they said to themselves, you know, all the things that are good and bad that happen to me today. But I can't be kind anybody. Life is short. And you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boursten hosts CNBC Changemakers and Powerplayers. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.