Warren Buffett CNBC Interview All Videos

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sell our interest. so it has no connection with the private equity people that essentially buy then resell businesses. so we are not in the buying and reselling of businesses which private equity is. we are not charging anybody a fee of any kind. there’s no 2%, there’s no 20%, there’s no nothing. we are getting no cut on anybody else’s investment. the people at 3g, most of that money is probably their own money. so it is not primarily designed to get a return on other people’s money. it’s a design as a place to put their own money and if you know georgeny paolo lehman he has plenty of money to put it in. so it is a partnership. and it we put 18 billion of equity in and there’s 12 billion of debt basically. it has no relationship to the kind of enterprises where people take funds, have to get the money out or getting two and 20. imagine if we were getting 2% on our twelve 12, you know,t we’re investing $240 million a year just for staring at ketchup bottles. that is not what we’re doing. we’ve got our own money up. getting no carry on anybody else’s money. we’ve got some other questions that have come in. some of these are general business questions. just some of the things we’ve been happening in the headlines. david from puerto rico writes in. i’m a big fan and a regular attendee to your shareholder meeting in omaha. last year i made an investment in jcpenney stock and bonds despite being aware you once said when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with the reputation for bad economics it’s the reputation of the business that remains intact. what’s your take on the new ceo ron johnson? is this a turnaround or a fuel your? i work for jcpenney. i sold men’s clothing. i sold men’s furnishing. i sold children’s. i’ve worked there in high school and college, got the minimum wage, 75 cents an hour. but, you know, when you start arguing with your customers about what they want, it’s not a good idea, and, you know, it’s, they’ve got a very, very tough game to play from this point forward. they obviously turned away a very significant percentage of their customers, and the thing about retailing is your competitor’s always moving. so it isn’t enough to just catch up from, you know, some distance behind, because he’s moving all 9 time. amazon is — they’re moving all the time. and so i think it’s a very, very tough game ahead of them. that quotation, incidentally, when i met the ceo of bill johnson runs heinz that’s the one quote he remembers from — i wrote that 30 years ago. every business person remembers that quote, because it just gets demonstrated time and time again. okay. another question came in on twitter from@matt solen who says what are your thoughts on the decision by mar us yeah mayor to end telecommuting? i read about how she’s got her own nursery there right next to her — i — you know, i don’t know the specifics of how yahoo! operates. almost all of our people would work in the office. i mean we’ve got 24 in our home office. but on the other end, ted wexler could operate from charlottesville. he’s there three days a week or two to three days a week with us. i do not care whether charlie is in the office or not. he’s thinking about berkshire all the time. how often do you talk to charlie, by the way? not as often anymore. about once a week. we’ve been married so long that we know each other’s thoughts. we used to talk every day for hours. but now we just grunt at each other and that takes care of hings. let’s get to another question that came in from camilo ramirez who asked if you could travel in time to when you were 20 again starting to build your partnership and you could meet yourself and tell him that you would be successful in business as you dreamed at some cost what aspects or decisions of your personal and professional life would you advice young buffett to change? i wouldn’t change much. it worked pretty well and it worked well for the family. i feel very good about my three children, and so i certainly worked fine for me. so i do not think i would change. okay. another viewer on twitter wrote in, this is @rbridge4 have you ever been fired or laid off and if so, how did you bounce back? was i fired? i wasn’t fired from pennies. i when i worked for graham newman, they were closing down the place to some extent. but i quit there ahead of time. i wanted to come back and i mainly work for myself and i don’t fire myself. you’re pretty good at staying in with that. i really like my boss. warren, we’re going to take a quick break. when we come back we’ll have many more questions. joe? so he wouldn’t change anything. he’s only number four in the richest man in the world. no mistakes, warren? you — well — nothing you could have done better? nothing you could have — if i had to give — if i had to give it away the 18 billion i’d be a little higher i guess. and then becky that question from sorkin was the same — didn’t we have that exact question in the 6:00? did he

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