Full Q&A morning session from the 2003 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting with the world’s richest man and most successful investor, Warren Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger.
Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc
AM 2003 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Warren Buffett Charlie Munger FULL Q&A
Transcript
We promise not to sing. Good morning. And we're delighted to have you all here one of the things that makes it fun to run Berkshire is that we see real shareholders that we have. We probably have a larger proportion of our shares held by individuals and not by institutions than virtually any large company in America. And that's the way we like it. And that's why we love it when you come. We get to see you buy our products. There's still a few things left downstairs so feel free to leave anytime during the meeting when Charlie is talking it out and make a few purchases. Now we're going to do as we've always done. First of all I'd like to I would like to give very special thanks to Sandy Hayward Andy would you stand up if you will please. Andy is the man that areas and he does those cartoons he he recruits Walter Cronkite and Bill Gates said he does the script he he gets Charlemagne to do the recordings. And that's just wonderful the the production he's put on. And for those of you last year I mentioned a program that's on public broadcasting called Liberty's Kids. It's running consecutively there's like 40 episodes. It tells the story really of the founding of the country and it's a marvelous. So marvelous way to learn history. I've watched a number of the sessions myself and it kind of comes back to me from my early days in grade school and high school and Andy's done.
I think the parents of America and the country are a real service in producing this and I will predict that 100 years from now people will be watching Liberty's Kids so I really salute Andy Hayward and be sure to catch it on public broadcasting and Andy thanks for a wonderful production. Now we're going to follow our usual procedure of leisurely proceeding through the formal part of the business in three or four minutes and then we will I'll have a few comments actually on our business. And then a couple of acquisitions. And then we will spend the rest of the day until 330 with a break for lunch. We will spend here to answer any questions you have. We have microphones in various zones. We will proceed around and try to get every every and any subject that's on your mind. Fire away and I'll answer the easy ones and Charlie will answer the tough ones. So now we will go through the formal part of the business. They've written a little script for me and I will go through this. The meeting will now come to order. I should introduce Charlie over here not that he needs an introduction but Charlie Charlie and I have been partners of one sort or another since 1959. We both grow up here in Omaha but we didn't know each other at the time. We both worked at the same grocery store. We had a similar experience. We found that neither one of us liked hard work and if you go down to the Western Heritage Museum they just opened an exhibit of that grocery store. It's a permanent exhibit and naturally I loved it.
Charlie work there a few years before I did in the past but we didn't actually meet until I was 28 or 29 and Charlie was a few years older as he still is and we have worked together now for in one way or another for 44 years. We've never had an argument and we disagree sometimes on things. He you have to learn to calibrate Charlie's answers he went to ask him whether he liked something. If he says no that means we put all our money in it. I mean that is a huge if he says that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. That's a more moderate investment that we make. And you have to calibrate his answers but once you learned we have our we have our directors with us and I'll introduce them. We have. If you'll stand please as I call your name and then you can it will be hard to do but you can withhold your applause. Diller all standing. Susan Buffett. Howard G. Buffett Malcolm G. Chase Ronnell L. Olson and Walter Scott Jr.
