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Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

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Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#41

Post by ProllyInfamous »

>Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.

>I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.

>I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the jerks; it’s never too late to change. Remember to thank America for maximizing your opportunities. But it is – inevitably – capricious and sometimes venal in distributing its rewards.

>Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them. You will never be perfect, but you can always be better.

God speed, dearest Oracle of Omaha.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#42

Post by harry8 »

noname123 wrote: post #31
saalweachter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be 95 years old with a trillion dollars or 25 years old with a thousand?

If picking as a finishing poker position, I'd definitely to end up as the 95 year old with a trillion dollars. When you're 95, life is about reflecting and living more with the past - and I like reflecting about that outcome with its share of certainly many greats and bads it takes to accumulate that kind of fortune. 25 years old with a thousand dollar on the other hand, statistically speaking, is starting and will f…

It's not a poker position. It is everything.

At 95 you're a lot closer to the end of everything than the start, your body is really giving up and it is exceedingly difficult to enjoy anything much.

The speculation is that buffet would likely give up his entire wealth and have his expertise wiped to wind back his biological clock 70 years. Would he? I don't know, ask him maybe.

What can you do with $100m at 95 you would actually enjoy? Again ask him. Or any elderly friend or relative. It is unlike to be a fun conversation, at least in my experience.

At 25 if you have a windfall of only $1000 you've likely got some ideas!

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#43

Post by [deleted] »

saalweachter wrote: post #22
MichaelZuo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 25-30 year old man with all the accumulated wisdom and life experiences of a 95 year old highly successful man… would literally have opportunities worth many trillions of dollars? Because they would literally be multiple times better than the next most competent person on Earth of a similar age, and literally dozens of times better than even the median unicorn founder. So it seems like a given that the relatively p…

Would you rather be 95 years old with a trillion dollars or 25 years old with a thousand?

[deleted]

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#44

Post by kelnos »

tomrod wrote: post #35
Tostino wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other creatures show this kind of hoarding pattern in nature? Storing more of a thing than can (reasonably) be used in hundreds, or thousands of lifetimes? I don't know of any (others) that do so, and then pass the hoard down through the generations.

Chipmunks and Squirrels.

Do they hoard unnecessarily, or do they hoard what they need to get through winter months, without much surplus?

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#45

Post by ufocia »

throw0101a wrote: post #26
nocoiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s literally just saying 6-7. No, I don’t get it either. My kids thought it was hilarious to watch me grapple with it, though.

> It’s literally just saying 6-7. No, I don’t get it either. A linguist goes into the meme and it's history: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZpTO7IFtA You not getting it is the main point of the saying: it's slang term that young folks (in-group) are using to differentiate themselves from the not-young folks (out-group).

Not the out group, but the unc group.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#46

Post by kelnos »

saalweachter wrote: post #22
MichaelZuo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 25-30 year old man with all the accumulated wisdom and life experiences of a 95 year old highly successful man… would literally have opportunities worth many trillions of dollars? Because they would literally be multiple times better than the next most competent person on Earth of a similar age, and literally dozens of times better than even the median unicorn founder. So it seems like a given that the relatively p…

Would you rather be 95 years old with a trillion dollars or 25 years old with a thousand?

Well, both, obviously.

But in all seriousness, if I had to choose, I think I'd rather be 25 with $1k.

I really don't need a trillion dollars, at any point in my life (and certainly not with too few years left to do anything with but the tiniest fraction of it). I don't need a billion dollars, even. I figure $20M would allow me to do anything I wanted to do, with a healthy cushion in case anything went wrong. (Well, with $20M, even if I were to triple my spending habits, I'd likely still die with more money than I started with.)

I'm not sure that I fear death, but I do recognize at middle age that time is finite, and there are so many things to do in this world. Even with close to nothing as a $1k-holding 25-year-old, I could strive to make things better for myself, and likely look forward to a lifetime of experiences. At 95 that would nearly all be behind me.

Put another way: if I was 95 and had a trillion dollars, and there was some highly advanced, crazy-expensive procedure I could undergo to reduce my biological age down to 25, even if I'd only have $1k left over afterward, I expect I'd do it.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#47

Post by kelnos »

conception wrote: post #27
saalweachter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be 95 years old with a trillion dollars or 25 years old with a thousand?

This is actually a pretty hard question for me because you’re basically asking. Do you want the power to be able to change the world in radical ways by giving up your life? Suicidal Brewster’s millions..

I'm not sure I'm convinced a trillion dollars in one person's hand could radically change the world. Money is a big deal, to be sure, and money gives you a lot of power, but there's so much else when it comes to politics and power that I expect there would be many roadblocks in your way.

And on top of that, it's possible -- perhaps even easy -- to deploy vast sums of money in well-meaning ways that turn out to have disastrous unintended consequences. I don't think I'd want that kind of responsibility.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#48

Post by SoftTalker »

kelnos wrote: post #44
tomrod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chipmunks and Squirrels.

Do they hoard unnecessarily, or do they hoard what they need to get through winter months, without much surplus?

They hoard instinctively. They can't count; they don't have a sense of "this is enough."

They hoard until it gets too cold, then they hibernate/hunker down until it gets warm.

Re: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

#49

Post by squigz »

throw0101a wrote: post #26
nocoiner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s literally just saying 6-7. No, I don’t get it either. My kids thought it was hilarious to watch me grapple with it, though.

> It’s literally just saying 6-7. No, I don’t get it either. A linguist goes into the meme and it's history: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZpTO7IFtA You not getting it is the main point of the saying: it's slang term that young folks (in-group) are using to differentiate themselves from the not-young folks (out-group).

And hasn't that been the point of slang since forever?
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