Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
I came across a great article today on http://valueinvestingresource.blogspot.com/2008/05/2008-berkshire-hathaway-shareholder.html. In the above link the author shares his experience on the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. I highly recommend you to read the entire article. It is a bit lengthy but very informative.
For the less informed, Berkshire Hathaway is a company owned by Warren Buffet. It is very unlikely that you haven’t heard about Mr. Buffet. Apart from being the world’s richest man, Mr. Buffet is known for his generosity. He has pledged to donate 95% of his wealth to charity. He is regarded as one of the world’s greatest stock market investors. He is popularly known as the Oracle from Omaha.
About the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting: The mass migration of investors to Omaha for Warren Buffet’s annual shareholder meeting is the biggest pilgrimage from this side of Mecca. More than 30,000 people from every state in the Union and dozens of foreign countries go to soak up the wisdom of Buffet and his business partner, Charlie Munger, who sit for hours and answer questions from all comers.
The article mostly is a question/ answer session with Mr. Buffet and Mr. Munger. I found this particular piece of advice on investing from the annual meeting very enlightening:
Most important investment is in you. Potential horsepower is rarely achieved. Just imagine you are 16 years – going to give you car of your choice. But only car you would get for rest of your life. How would you choose? Of course you will read manual 5 times. How would you treat it? Keep it garaged. Change oil twice as frequently; keep rust to minimum because you know it’ll last a life time. I tell students that you get only one body and one mind. Better treat it same way. Hard to change habits at age 50 or 60. Anything students do to invest in bodies and mind is good, particularly in the mind. We didn’t work too hard on bodies around here. It pays off in an extraordinary way. Best asset is your own self. You can become the person you want to be. When I get classes in university I ask them to buy one classmate to own for rest of life. They pick the person who not with highest IQ, but who are most effective, the ones you want to be around. These people are easy to work with, generous, on time, not claiming credit, helping others. There are things that turn other people on, and turning other people off. Those are good habits to develop.
This is so true. How much time do we usually spend on developing ourselves? I am guilty of spending very less. Some things that I plan to do
- Read more books: I love reading books but somehow don’t usually find time. I am taking a couple of days off from work and plan to catch up on some reading. I am planning to read “The Intelligent Investor” by Ben Graham. It’s a pretty lengthy book and written in textbook format. In the annual meeting Warren Buffet suggested reading chapters 8 and 20 in particular.
- Attend seminars: I should invest some time and money in attending seminars. A few which come to mind are real estate, investing and seminars on technical subjects relevant to my job.
- Get Mentors: I feel I am really bad networking with people. I would love to be mentored by people that I admire and want to imbibe good qualities from. I have a few in mind. I have to figure out how to approach them and plan out my mentorship.
Good Resources related to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting 2008,
http://valueinvestingresource.blogspot.com/2008/05/2008-berkshire-hathaway-shareholder.html
http://livingoffdividends.com/2008/05/02/reporting-from-omaha-the-cocktail-reception/
http://livingoffdividends.com/2008/05/10/reporting-from-omaha-2-the-annual-berkshire-meeting/
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May 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
thanks for the link.