Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 83 posts

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#11

Post by onion2k »

kibibu wrote: post #8
pokoleo wrote: post #2

I had a chance to read the letter - I went from knowing nothing about Buffet's businesses to knowing a lot, very quickly. On a related note, I wonder if Gates writing this praise was spurred by something, maybe some news about Buffet. He's relatively senior (84), and has been running Berkshire for a while now. Maybe he's getting ready to give up the reins. In fact, he builds up the reputation his menagerie of "very e…

Love it - one of the world's richest people, and his site is built using Word

A website is a marketing operation. BerkshireHathaway don't really need to do marketing because they're more a legal entity for the purpose of organising things efficiently rather than a business with customers.

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#12

Post by learnstats2 »

I read this letter.

> The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Two comments about this: I don't think Buffet has a good concept of financial disaster. Having or not having an extra $5b today makes little difference to the scale of Buffet's and Berkshire Hathaway's wealth. This does not materially change their financial position and cannot have precipitated a crisis situation.

Does Buffet really begrudge the fact that somebody else got rich from a fair deal? Perhaps I am misreading this section, but I feel very disappointed by this.

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#13

Post by Spearchucker »

learnstats2 wrote: post #12

I read this letter. > The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Two comments about this: I don't think Buffet has a good concept of financial disaster. Having or not having an extra $5b today makes little difference t…

He amassed that fortune by paying that kind of attention to detail. He keeps his fortune by paying that kind of attention to detail. All great artists are great because of attention at the macro- and micro-level. To you it's disappointment. To him it's a missed opportunity because of a bad decision. An opportunity missed, whether great or little, is something the man clearly dislikes.

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#14

Post by slaxman »

learnstats2 wrote: post #12

I read this letter. > The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Two comments about this: I don't think Buffet has a good concept of financial disaster. Having or not having an extra $5b today makes little difference t…

I do not think that's the point. For Buffet, allocating capital perfectly is extremely important.

I used to read his letters regularly until a couple of years ago. In all his letters, he always seemed to blame himself for investing in bad companies. But at the same time, gave all the credit for profits to his CEOs. IMHO, there is a lot of humility in that.

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#16

Post by akx »

sebastianavina wrote: post #9
kibibu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love it - one of the world's richest people, and his site is built using Word

as far as we know, it could be written in emacs org mode.

Well, then they've gone to some lengths to make it look like it's not.

>

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#17

Post by sumedh »

learnstats2 wrote: post #12

I read this letter. > The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Two comments about this: I don't think Buffet has a good concept of financial disaster. Having or not having an extra $5b today makes little difference t…

> I don't think Buffet has a good concept of financial disaster.

Buffett's brain is not wired like the rest of us. He even takes losing small amount of money very seriously.

I remember watching Buffett's old video where he bought a gas station when he was young and then sold it as loss of $2000. He said that that the opportunity cost on that money is about $6 billion in early 2000.

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#19

Post by slaxman »

I love Warren Buffet's quote on hiring:

“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”

Often we tend to focus too much on intelligence and too little on integrity.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76790-somebody-once-said-tha...

Re: Warren Buffett Just Wrote His Best Annual Letter

#20

Post by sumedh »

pokoleo wrote: post #2

I had a chance to read the letter - I went from knowing nothing about Buffet's businesses to knowing a lot, very quickly. On a related note, I wonder if Gates writing this praise was spurred by something, maybe some news about Buffet. He's relatively senior (84), and has been running Berkshire for a while now. Maybe he's getting ready to give up the reins. In fact, he builds up the reputation his menagerie of "very e…

> I wonder how they will run things when Warren isn't around.

Most probably Ajit Jain would take over as CEO. A significant part of the investment portfolio is already handled by two other managers.

Post reply on HN