and I was just wondering what is the best piece of advice you've ever been
given and how has it impacted your personal or professional lives what did
I tell you that impressed you the most
first time I met Warren we were talking about getting together and doing
something again he pulled out his calendar and the pages were so blank and
I said wow you know you've managed to avoid getting tied into a lot of kind of
meaningless activity and you know Warren said yeah you have to be good at saying
no and picking the things that really make a difference and that's one of many
things I've learned from warm but that's one of my favorites and I can blame it
on him whenever I'm turning things down actually I I told him that was at the
the truth is I don't get invited anyplace I think that and I got an awful
lot of good advice from my dad and he didn't he didn't lay it on me I mean he
just you know you you picked it up from him but there was never any of this you
know do this do that type of thing at all but but I think he really taught me
that it's more important in terms of what's on your inner scorecard than your
outer scorecard I mean some people get in a position where they they're
thinking all of the time of what what the world's gonna think of this or that
instead of what they themselves think about and if if your inner scorecard if
you're if you're comfortable with that I think you're gonna have a pretty happy
life and I think the people that strive too much for the outer scorecard
sometimes find that it's a little Hollow when they get all through yeah well one
thing I will tell you that I didn't realize when I was getting out of school
is how much the unusual person will jump out at you I mean you know and it isn't
because they got 200 IQs or anything like that it's really because it's just
how they behave you know what they bring the energy they bring the commitment
they bring the quality of how they do things how they treat the people around
them all kinds of things but you will jump out much more than you might
anticipate one of the things you would want to be sure to do
is whether you like it or not get very comfortable and may take a while with
public speaking for example I mean that that's a an asset that will last you 50
or 60 years and it's a liability if you don't like doing it and are
uncomfortable doing it but also will ask you 50 or 60 years and it's a necessary
skill but a lot of the skills are just human skills if you get the best out of
people around you that's a rare talent and it doesn't it doesn't correlate what
I acuity correlates with a you know an attitude and then toward the world and
toward other people and it's a talent that if you work at early and you're
really conscious about it you know you don't have to show up other people you
know you're not as smart and they are anything you want to bring out the best
in them it will pay huge dividends what sort of things do you think were made a
big impact on your success what habits did you develop and kind of look what
sort of things could you pass on to us as younger people the habits you develop
and I go back the other thing is have the right heroes I mean I've always been
lucky in that respect and then if you know if you the people you look up to
are going to form your vision of what the world you know how you want to be in
later life and the one tomorrow I'll give you two pieces of advice I'd invest
as much in myself as you can I mean you're you're you're
your own biggest asset by far I mean you've got you've got all kinds of
potential all the people in this room you know you're lucky to be in this
country got a good education but most people go through life using up
a very very small part of their potential and so anything you do that
invests in yourself is that's the best investment you can possibly make and
then I would I would follow my passion I mean whatever turns you on you know I I
found I was lucky I found something early that that turned me on but but you
don't want to take a job just for the money you don't want to take a job for
an organization that you really don't feel good about or work for people that
you don't feel good about you know you really want to be excited when you get
out of bed every morning it won't necessarily be the job that you have ten
years later but you'll be learning so much as you go along and you know I I
took a job with Ben Graham my hero and and that you know I never asked the
salary and I found at the end of the month when I got my first paycheck what
I was earning because I just knew it was the right thing to be to be doing so I
would I would I would follow follow your passion the worst investment I ever made
how long do you have oh I've made some very bad ones but that
doesn't really bother me I may bother the shareholders but that's another
question yeah you know you're gonna make you're gonna make mistakes in life I
mean there's no question about it you don't wanna make them on the big
decisions you know who you marry and some things like that so there's no way
I'm going to make a lot of business and investment decisions without making some
mistakes I may try to minimize them I don't I don't dwell on them at all I
don't I don't look back that the biggest mistakes are the ones that actually
don't show up they're the mistakes of omission rather than Commission we've
never lost that much money on any one investment but it's the things that I
knew enough to do that I didn't do we have we have missed profits of as much
as you know maybe ten billion dollars in things that I knew enough to do and I
didn't do now the fact they didn't by Microsoft way back is not a forgone
opportunity because I didn't know enough to make that decision but there have
been other investments where I did know enough to make the decision and for one
reason or another I either didn't do it at all or I did it on a small scale I
was sucking my thumb when I should have been writing checks you know basically
and and you know those don't show up yeah there's no place where it shows
missed opportunities but I've I've missed some big ones the triumphs in
life are partly trying to you know that everything isn't going to be a triumph
and and and I would never get too hung up on mistakes I know a lot of people
that really agonize over them and and it it just isn't worth it I mean tomorrow's
another day and you live it forward and just go on to the next thing a lot of us
are pursuing higher education because we want to leave the world a better place
than the one we found it and as one person at the end of the day who can
actually affect tremendous amounts of people and ideas how do you make your
decisions you're you're changing the world every day I'm
if it's nothing but the children you have I mean you know you are forming
their view of the world and everyday and you do it every day so you are a teacher
but with the people around you one of the best things in life to do is to
surround yourself with high grade people because you will behave as the people
around you do but they in turn are getting it from you it's kind of like a
planetary system and and you will try promise you you know you will change the
world in some way and then my guess is you'll change it very much for the
better and and but you can't expect to see something dramatic I mean it's not
it's not one of those Shazam move you know that moments or something of the
sort but you you by how you're behaving are are affecting other people setting
an example for other people that you will find ways to leave a better world
than you and ergo you'll always say well who should I go to work for when I get
out then I've got a very simple answer we we may elaborate more on this as we
go along but you know the real thing to do is to get going in for some
institution or individual that you admire I mean it's crazy to take
in-between jobs just because they look good on your resume or because you get a
little a higher starting pay I was up at Harvard while back and very nice young
guy picked me up at the airport Harvard Business School attendee and he said
look he said I went to undergrad here and then I worked for x and y and z and
now I've come here and he said I thought it would really round out my resume
perfectly if I went to work now for a big management consulting firm and I
said well is that what you want to do and he said no but he said that's the
perfect resume and I said well when are you gonna start doing what you like and
he said well I'll get to that someday and I I said well you know I said your
plan sounds to me a lot like saving up sex for your old age you know
it just doesn't make a lot of sense I told that same girl I said you know go
to work for every admire the most and I said you can't get a bad result to jump
out of bed in the morning and you'll be having fun Dean called me up a couple of
weeks later said once you tell those kids he said they're all becoming
self-employed so you've got a you've got a temper that advice a little bit play
one game a little bit with me for just a minute and then we'll look then we'll
get to your questions and I'd like for the moment to have you well have you
pretend I've made you a great offer and I've told you that you could pick any
one of your classmates and you now know each other probably pretty well after
being here for a while you can think you have 24 hours if they get over and you
can pick any one of your classmates and you get 10% of their earnings for the
rest of their lives and I ask you what goes through your mind in determining
which one of those you would pick you can't pick the one with the richest
father that doesn't count I mean you've got to got to do this on merit but you
probably wouldn't pick the person against the highest grades in the class
I mean that nothing wrong with getting the highest grades in the class but that
that's not that isn't going to be the quality that but that sets apart a big
winner from the rest of the pack think about who he would pick and why and I
think you'll find when you get through you'll pick some individual you've all
got the ability you wouldn't be here otherwise you've all got the energy I
mean you've got you know the initiative is here the intelligence is here
throughout the class but some of you're going to be a bigger winners and others
and it gets down to a bunch of qualities that interestingly enough are self-made
I mean it's not how tall you are is not whether you can kick a football 60 yards
is not whether you can run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds it's not
whether the best-looking person in the room it's a whole bunch of qualities
that really come out of Ben Franklin or the boy scout coder so whatever it may
be I mean it's it's it's integrity is honesty its its generosity it's it's
being willing to do more than your share it's it's just all those qualities that
are self selected and then if you look on the other side of the ledger because
there's always a catch to these you know free gifts and Geney joke so you also
have to and this is the fun part you also have to sell short one of the your
classmates and pay 10% of what they do so what do you think is going to do the
worst in the class this is way more fun yeah and think about it again and again
it isn't the Pitt isn't the person with the lowest grades or anything anything
of the sort it's the person who just doesn't shape up in the character
Department we look for three things when we hire people we look for intelligence
we look for in for initiative or energy and we look for integrity and if they
don't have the ladder the first tool will kill you because if
you're going to get somebody without integrity you want a lazy and dumb you
don't want to get a smart and energetic so is that third quality and but
everything about that quality is your choice you know you you can't change the
way you are wired much but you can change a lot of what you do with that
wiring and it's the habits that you generate now on those qualities or those
negative qualities I mean the person the person who always you know claims credit
for things they didn't do that always cuts corners that you can't count on I
mean in the end those those are habit patterns and the time to form the right
habits is when you're when you're your age I mean it doesn't do me much good to
get golf lessons now if I've gotten golf lessons when I was your age I might be a
decent golfer but what if someone once said the chains of habit or two are too
light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken and I see that all the time
I see people with habit patterns that are self-destructive when they're 50 or
60 and they they really can't change them there
by that but you're not imprisoned by anything so when you write down the
qualities of that person that you'd like to buy to ten percent of look at that
list and ask yourself is there anything on that list I couldn't do the answers
there aren't there won't be and when you look at the person just sell short and
you look at those qualities that you don't like if you see any of those in
yourself you get tells them whatever may be selfishness you can get rid of them I
mean that is not ordained and if you follow that
yeah and Ben Franklin did this and my old boss Ben Graham did this early ages
and their young teens they'd just been grant looked around and he said who do I
admire you know and he wanted to be admired himself and he said you know why
do I bother these other people and he said if I admire them for these reasons
maybe other people will admire me if I behave in a similar manner and he and he
decided what kind of a person they wanted to be and if you follow that at
the end you'll be the person you want to buy ten percent off I mean that's the
goal in the end and it's it's something that's achievable by by everybody in
this room the important thing you know is not how it's nice to have a huge
circle of competence it's much more important know where the where the
limits are of it you can do very well if you only understand 5% of the business
system in the country and find plenty of Aubertine you know which five but you've
got the five percenter in that circle I also remember Warren showing me his
calendar and I love you know I had every minute packed and I thought that was the
only way you could do things and you know the fact that he is so careful that
there's nothing on that there's no this is the week of April of which there are
only three entries for a week
biotechs so what did not to crowd yourself too much and give yourself time
you read and think and write you control your time and that sitting and thinking
may be a much higher priority than a normal CEO who you know there's all this
demand and you feel like you need to go and see all these people it's not a
proxy of your seriousness that you've filled every minute in your schedule
we're gonna wanna watch your time yeah yeah it's the only thing you can't buy I
mean I buy anything I want basically but I can't buy time and so to
have time is the most precious thing you can have it I better be careful with it
okay there's no way I will be able to buy more time
what brings you the most satisfaction beyond family well most satisfaction is
just staying in good health so you you're in good health
every day I enjoy what is it that you enjoy well I enjoy running Berkshire
something if you get right down into my psyche I mean ya know it's it's you know
it it's been my painting for 50 some years I get to paint what I want I don't
have to I don't have to do you know follow what Wall Street is telling me to
do next quarter or something I got so I own the brush I own the canvas and the
campus is unlimited and that's a that's a pretty nice game and I get to do it
every day with people I like I don't have to I don't have to associate with
anyone that causes my stomach to churn you know if I were in politics I'd have
to smile a lot of people that I want to
them it's really I've got a good deal
I often repeated the story Brooklyn once said to me I spent too much of my life
worrying about what people thought of me and then I only care about what I think
of them people that I like yeah and my business is I'm lucky that way I mean
business business is so much easier than philanthropy fly to be human may be a
whole lot more important but in business you're looking for kind of easy choices
you're looking for people that you can that you like to associate with and I
mean you're to an extent I can create the world around me saying I mean if
somebody walk in your door and they offer they want you to buy their company
and you saw it as a golden golden goose with a farmer I would say no you'd say
no even though you knew it would Charlie marrying for money is probably a bad
idea under any circumstances but if you're already rich it does not make any
sense at all