Seiko and JiYoung making Tacoyaki in their new fangled machine… yummy!!!

Warren, not Jimmy.
The second richest man in the world say down with some Emory Business school students for a chat and it was pretty insightful. For a guy who doesn’t really believe in Internet stocks, he also has a surprisingly refreshing approach to life, business and making millions of dollars. From diversification vs. concentration to happiness vs. wealth… it’s a nice read. a quick excerpt below, with link to the full interview at the bottom. Enjoy!

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Austin:

Why do you think that despite making your methods publicly available, that relatively few people have been able to emulate your success?

Buffett:

I asked Graham the same question. Everyone took his class at Columbia Business School. He used current examples, and by the end of the semester you would have a portfolio that would’ve made you money. Graham lived a life of sharing. He may have had more money hoarding, but lived happier because of it. The money’s just a figure in the paper, perhaps he would’ve died with 86 million instead of 42 million, but it doesn’t really matter. 90% of the people that took his class ended up doing something else.

At age 11 I started investing, purchasing three shares of Cities Service Preferred. I had read every book on investing in the Omaha library. I was really into charting and technical analysis. I loved it, but didn’t make any money from it. At 19 I read Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor” and it changed my world. Did Ben lose because I read his book? Maybe we competed and he made less money, but it didn’t matter to Graham.

The philosophy either takes immediately or it doesn’t at all. The reason gets down to temperament. People want to make money fast, but it doesn’t happen that way. Graham’s philosophy doesn’t promise enough for many people. You don’t know when it will happen, but you just wait for the fat pitches within your circle of competence. It’s not as exciting as guessing whether the stock price will go up the next day. Most investors in internet companies didn’t know the market cap. They were buying because they thought the stock would move, but if you asked them to write “I would buy XYZ company for $6 billion because”, they wouldn’t get halfway through the sentence. It’s the classic tortoise versus hare, bound to work over time. Charlie and I have educated competitors. Most don’t compete with us, though. It’s fine, we have more than enough money.

Full Interview