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Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

berkshirehathaway.com

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

#71

Post by glitchc »

bawolff wrote: post #64
SilverElfin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask the railroad workers of BNSF about Buffet’s “integrity”. He’s responsible for them being rampantly abused. If you’re not familiar look up interviews with actual workers. They are asked to work insane hours and with little scheduling, and are unpaid when they’re waiting around. The (local) monopolization of the rail industry and constant lobbying against regulations by Buffet’s minions have let this continue to th…

> Let’s not forget Buffet also funded BYD significantly and is responsible for their growth, What is this weird nationalism? Investing in a company from a foreign country does not make you a bad (or good) person. There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.

> There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.

No? Then why do we ask people to give their lives to make it a safe one?

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

#72

Post by pests »

glitchc wrote: post #71
bawolff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let’s not forget Buffet also funded BYD significantly and is responsible for their growth, What is this weird nationalism? Investing in a company from a foreign country does not make you a bad (or good) person. There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.

> There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one. No? Then why do we ask people to give their lives to make it a safe one?

Safe isn't the same as economically powerful.

Look at Bhutan with their Gross National Happiness as an alternative.

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

#73

Post by johnnyanmac »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #40
neilv wrote: post #23

If only more billionaires would start sounding as aware as this 95 year-old one: > But Lady Luck is fickle and – no other term fits – wildly unfair. In many cases, our leaders and the rich have received far more than their share of luck – which, too often, the recipients prefer not to acknowledge. Dynastic inheritors have achieved lifetime financial independence the moment they emerged from the womb, while others hav…

I have found that it's incredibly hard to get successful entrepreneurs to acknowledge that a lot of their success is down to luck. I think it's got something to do with the Protestant Work Ethic - that if they were smart and worked hard then they "deserve" their wealth , but if they just got lucky they don't "deserve" it. So acknowledging that luck played an important part in their success gives them bad feelings, an…

Yeah I've noticed it even in games. It's an industry known for being high risk and very fickle in success, but you'll still see so many devs profess that "you just have to make a good game the audience wants!" If only it was that straightforward.

Luck is the crossroad of opportunity and preparation. The "opportunity" here is basically "luck" with a tiny bit of sway. Sometimes opportunity is missed or never comes from no fault of your own. If more people saw it this way they may not cast it off purely as happenstance.

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

#74

Post by johnnyanmac »

Mistletoe wrote: post #14

If you are younger than 95, you are richer than Warren. Time is our finite resource and I'm sure he would give anything to trade places with you. Spend your riches wisely.

Time is a finite resource and his billionaire class has spent billions making sure to get as little time to myself as possible. And now even that fell through as I can't even grab a job to cover rent.

Time is valuable and they are taking it from us.

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

#75

Post by johnnyanmac »

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?

95. I'd spend what little time I have left un-screwimg the system I clearly helped break.

25 with a thousand is out on the streets unless you have good famili connections. I'll be long dead before that money starts making money for me anyway.

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

#76

Post by FireBeyond »

adventured wrote: post #55
ralph84 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah he’s not quite Jack Welch level of dissonance between reality and his fanboys, but he’s hardly some superhero for profiting from the great financialization of the US economy. He made sure his book got bailed out during the GFC. He cheered on Wells Fargo while they opened up a bunch of fraudulent accounts. And so on.

And when he found out about Wells Fargo's behavior, he liquidated the position and has remained out of it. I fail to see the problem with what he did in that case. As a ~5% holder he (Berkshire) had no special control over the company in terms of micro-audits to surface such fraudulent behavior promptly as it was happening.

> As a ~5% holder he (Berkshire) had no special control over the company in terms of micro-audits to surface such fraudulent behavior promptly as it was happening.

Apropos of this particular scenario, acting like an individual shareholder with your 5% of a company's stock is helpless to exert influence on the board is not at all accurate. Realistically, at that scale, anyone who holds even 1% is someone you better listen to (not necessarily follow, to be clear) when they pick up the phone.

And that's when its someone who is also not someone who opens their mouth and has millions of followers who also hold stock, like Buffett.

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

#78

Post by johnnyanmac »

harry8 wrote: post #42
noname123 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wou…

>What can you do with $100m at 95 you would actually enjoy?

At 95 with 100m, it's less about what I can do with that time left and more about how to make the world better off by the time I croak. I lived my life, as far as I'm concerned.

Putting it another way: I'm out the door in 2 weeks, some people would spend it relaxing. I'd make sure to document as much as I can and keep the transition as low friction as possible.

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

#79

Post by johnnyanmac »

kelnos wrote: post #47
conception wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

The world, no. An 9industry, yes. That's more money than many industries make in years. Of course injecting that into any stage can impact the fate of the sector.

Or you can waste it on a year of AI development. It's not ironclad.

>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.

Given my current life, I'd rather try something different than have decades more of statis quo.

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

#80

Post by Aeolun »

harry8 wrote: post #18
bfkwlfkjf wrote: post #10

Here's a person with integrity. They're very rare these days, especially amongst the wealthy.

He definitely wants us to think that about his integrity, his fans even more so and in fairness, he's pretty good. Not quite the sunday-school capitalism perfection that some would have us believe. Which can grate a bit if you've looked in detail at his career.

Maybe, but I’m not perfect either. The scale is just different. It’s clear that the standard for rich people isn’t all that high, so in the company of the remaining 1B+ crowd he looks pretty decent.
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