加载中…CNBC：Warren Buffett - Keeping America Great（2）
(2009-12-29 15:12:07)
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QUESTION: Hi. My name is Josh
Porter. I'm a first-year from North Reading,
Massachusetts. It's an honor to have you both
here. So we just went through the worst financial
crisis of hopefully all of our lifetime. And I
know it keeps a lot of Americans up at night, you know, worrying
about their future. What, if anything, keeps
either of you up at night?
BUFFETT: I try to live my life so nothing keeps
me up at night. [APPLAUSE] I
don't like to sound, you know, like a mortician during an epidemic
or anything, but last fall was really quite exciting for me.
[LAUGHTER] I don't wish it on
anybody, but there were things being offered.
There are opportunities for us to do things that
didn't exist a year or two earlier. So I really
don't -- I don't want to be in a position where I am leveraged or
something of the sort that does keep me up at night.
I did not worry about the ultimate survival of
our economic system. We were messed up.
Wasn't any question about that.
But the plants haven't gone away.
The cornfields haven't gone away.
The talent of the American people hasn't gone
away. The innovativeness of the next Bill Gates
hasn't gone away. This country was going to do
fine. I knew that. We just had
to get things straightened out. And we're well on
the way to having that happen.
BECKY: Bill, you mentioned --
[APPLAUSE] You mentioned before
that you called Warren and he said, ‘Yeah, we should maybe be a
little worried.’ Did you stay up late that night
worrying about it?
GATES: No. The financial
system, fortunately, good leadership has a lot of self-correction
built into it. I think there are a few things
that could surprise us that are negative. You
know, big terrorist event sometime in the next 20 years, that would
be a big negative. And a pandemic, which we're
actually having in terms of the rate of spread of a new flu, one
right now. And fortunately, its actual impact is
very modest, way less than any such thing. So you
have to keep your eye out for a few outliers like that.
Those are the two that I would point to.
But overwhelmingly, the rest of the system, you
know, there is self-correction built into it. The
long-term thing that I don't lose sleep over but I worry about is
that we do have our education system, particularly the K through 12
part, not improving as much as we should. And
it's an important system for opportunity, it's an important system
for the economic strength of the country, and since it hasn't
improved that much, that's a bit scary and needs a lot more
attention.
BUFFETT: Becky, if you had a wonderful farm and
you knew the next 50 years there would be five droughts but there
would be 45 good years, I mean, you would not become paralyzed
thinking about the five drought years. You would
recognize that you've got a system that works very well over time,
and that's our American economic system.
BECKY: Since we just had the drought year, does
that make it less likely for the --
BUFFETT: No. If you study
statistics at Columbia, you'd recognize that -- [APPLAUSE]
QUESTION: I'm Peter Lawrence, first-year student
from Columbia. And, first of all, thank you both
so much for coming here. Mr. Buffett, the recent
runup in the market has been historic. And it
seems that many people question the sustainability of the current
price level. Do you think the rally is for
real?
BUFFETT: What's going to happen tomorrow, huh?
[APPLAUSE] Let me give you an
illustration. I bought my first stock in 1942.
I was 11. I had been
dillydallying up until then. I got serious.
[LAUGHTER] What do you think
the best year for the market has been since 1942?
Best calendar year from 1942 to the present time.
Well, there's no reason for you to know the
answer. The answer is 1954. In
1954, the Dow … dividends was up 50%. Now if you
look at 1954, we were in a recession a good bit of that time.
The recession started in July of '53.
Unemployment peaked in September of '54.
So until November of '54 you hadn't seen an
uptick in the employment figure. And the
unemployment figure more than doubled during that period.
It was the best year there was for the market.
So it's a terrible mistake to look at what's
going on in the economy today and then decide whether to buy or
sell stocks based on it. You should decide
whether to buy or sell stocks based on how much you're getting for
your money, long-term value you're getting for your money at any
given time. And next week doesn't make any
difference because next week, next week is going to be a week
further away. And the important thing is to have
the right long-term outlook, evaluate the businesses you are
buying. And then a terrible market or a terrible
economy is your friend. I don't care, in making a
purchase of the Burlington Northern, I don't care whether next
week, or next month or even next year there is a big revival in car
loadings or any of that sort of thing. A period
like this gives me a chance to do things. It's
silly to wait. I wrote an article.
If you wait until you see the robin, spring will
be over.
BECKY: But at the same time --
[APPLAUSE] Warren, you have
repeatedly said over the last year that investing in American areas
is a bet on the future of America. But you have
also invested overseas, companies like BYD. You
both spent some time in China. Are there more
opportunities overseas or right here in America?
BUFFETT: I see more opportunity in the United
States. We're the biggest economy and we're
looking for big deals. But I am delighted to find
something, you know, whether it's in China or whether it's in
Israel, like Iscar or whatever it may be. There
are more opportunities in the United States than anyplace
else.
BECKY: Bill, you agree with that?
GATES: Well, yes. The U.S.
benefits as the globe benefits. You're not going
to have a case where the rest of the world does poorly and the U.S.
does well. Our fate is tied to open trade,
innovation everywhere. You know, even the
Burlington, some of the stuff that's on those railroads might come
from other countries.
BUFFETT: I hope so.
GATES: It's exciting to see what's going on in
China. It's great for us. If we
had a choice for all the people in China to be as rich as we are
versus be as poor as they were back in 1979, we'd be way better off
to say, you know, let's have them be consumers and inventors just
like we are. They are a long ways away from that.
But they are a large enough population that great
things are happening there. And, you know, many
countries that we thought of as basket cases and we sent lots of
aid to, like Brazil or Mexico or Thailand, are now big
contributors. So it's good for the world that
it's not as dependent just on the U.S. But the
U.S. is where the energy revolution is likely to happen, the IT
revolution will continue. We are expected to lead
the way.
BECKY: All right. We're going
to be back with another question in just a moment.
[APPLAUSE] And by the way, if
you have the chance, how would you like to have Warren Buffett or
Bill Gates as your career counselor? Well, we're
going to have that when we come right back.
[APPLAUSE]
BECKY: Welcome back, everybody.
We have more questions for Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett. And we are running through them, but
let's keep them going. Got a question right over
here.
QUESTION: My name is Erica Braley and I am a
second-year student. My question is for Mr.
Gates. What is the most important thing you do
every day?
GATES: Hmmm. [LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE] Well, I do a lot of
variety. I think reading a lot, you know, and
continuing to learn. I'm in a lot of new areas in
the Foundation, education, health. And I love
reading a lot. So I think, you know, arming
myself with that knowledge and sitting down with people who live
the topic and brainstorming with them, that's what helps me back
the right people and make sure I know what's going on.
So I guess I'd say learning is what is the key
thing. [LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
BECKY: What was that? Let's get
to another question.
QUESTION: Mr. Buffett, Mr. Gates, thank you for
being here today. My name is Justin Heyman, I'm a
second-year MBA, as I get ready to graduate, I was wondering,
what's the one thing that your MBA didn't prepare you for when you
got out into the real world?
BUFFETT: Well, I was -- it prepared me very well,
not the whole degree, but specific professors prepared me very well
for what I wanted to go into. I knew I was
interested in investing, like I say, from the time I was six or
seven years of age. So I was lucky that I found
what turned me on early on. And I had these two
marvelous professors here at Columbia that just being around -- I
had read all the stuff they had written. So it
wasn't I was acquiring lots of incremental knowledge but I was
getting inspired. They were terrific for me.
They treated me like a son.
They would take me out to dinner.
Ben Graham did the same thing for me.
So it gave me confidence in myself.
It just propelled me into a field I already love
with a terrific tailwind from these professors that believed in me.
[APPLAUSE] But let me add one point because -- to
the MBA situation. Right now, I would pay
$100,000 for 10% of the future earnings of any of you.
So anybody that wants to see me after this is
over -- [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] If that's true, you
are a million-dollar asset right now, right, if 10% of you is worth
100,000? You could improve -- many of you, and I
certainly could have when I got out, just in terms of learning
communication skills. You know, it's not
something that is taught. I actually went to a
Dale Carnegie course later on in terms of public speaking.
But if you improve your value 50% by having
better communication skills, that's another $500,000 in terms of
capital value. See me after the class and I'll
pay you 150-thousand. [APPLAUSE]
BECKY: Warren, you bring up your time here.
I don't know if you can see the monitors back
here, but we did take a look at your yearbook and steal your
picture from 1951 year.
BUFFETT: Uh-oh.
QUICK: I think we have a picture in the back.
There you are. [APPLAUSE]
BUFFETT: I don't think I'd pay $100,000 for 10%
of that guy. [LAUGHTER]
BECKY: Another question right here.
BUFFETT: Hi. My name is Oleg
Cheesh. I'm a second-year MBA student here.
My question is for Mr. Gates.
You obviously worked very hard to get to where
you are. Could you reflect on what role pure luck
played in your success?
GATES: Well, I was lucky in many ways.
I was lucky to be born with certain skills.
I was lucky to have parents that created an
environment where they shared what they were working on and let me
buy as many books as I wanted to. And I was lucky
in terms of the timing. The invention of the
microprocessor was something profound. And it
turned out only if you were kind of young and looking at that could
you appreciate what it meant. And then I had been
obsessed with writing software. It turned out
that was the key missing thing that would allow the microprocessor
to have this incredible impact. So in timing and
skill set, in some of the people I was lucky enough to meet, you
know, meeting Warren and talking to him, learning from him, it is
unusual to have so much luck in one life, I think.
But it's been a major factor in what I have been
able to do.
BECKY: All right. Another
question right here.
QUESTION: Hello, my name is Ugin Quinn, I'm from
Deerfield, Illinois. And I'm a first-year student
at Columbia Business School. I'd like to direct
my question to both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates. In
the context of both your professional relationship and unique
friendship, what do you admire most about each other?
BECKY: OK. Who wants to take
that one first? [LAUGHTER]
BUFFETT: My athletic ability.
Say that. [APPLAUSE] Well, I
would say what I really most admire about Bill is the view he has
about what he should do with the wealth he's accumulated.
I mean, as he said, he was very lucky.
He was born in the right country, at the right
time, with the right wiring and all of that sort of thing.
In the end, he knows he's a beneficiary of a
terrific society, and not everybody gets the long straws like he
and I did. So he is -- and he has this view that
every human life worldwide is the equivalent of every other human
life, and he's backing it up not only with money, but backing it up
with his time. And his wife, Melinda, is backing
it up with her time. And they are really going to
spend, you know, the last half of their lives or so using both
money, talent, energy, imagination, all improving the lives of 6.5
billion people around the world. That's what I
admire the most. [APPLAUSE]
BECKY: Bill.
GATES: With Warren, there are a lot of things you
could pick, you know, his integrity as an example for the world.
His sense of humor. But I think
I'd pick his desire to teach, his desire to teach things that are
complex and put them in a simple form so that people can understand
and get the benefit of all his experience, all his models of how
the world works. He loves to teach.
And he does it meeting with students.
He does it in his annual newsletter.
He does it when he's talking to me on the phone.
It's a real gift that I admire incredibly.
[APPLAUSE]
QUESTION: Mr. Buffett, Mr. Gates, thank you for
being here tonight. I am Ibrahim Dolly, first
year here at Columbia. I came from Portugal.
I have a question for both of you.
You both knew early in your careers what you
wanted to do in your life. What advice do you
have for those of us who are a little bit
unclear?
GATES: Well, finding the thing that you are
passionate about and that you are good at can sometimes take a
period of years. I think Warren and I were lucky
we kind of ran into it. I wasn't even sure it was
software. I was kind of obsessed with it but then
it wasn't clear it could be a career. When that
happened, it was great. I think most other people
get into their 20s and have to try out some different experiences.
And some things will expose you to a lot of
different businesses, a lot of different work opportunities.
And I think you can make your first few jobs
optimized for getting that exposure. And then
when you want it, see the thing that you want to be fanatical about
and just jump on to that.
BECKY: All right.
BUFFETT: First of all, I'd say marry the right
person. [LAUGHTER] And I'm serious about that.
[APPLAUSE] It will make more
difference in your life. It will change your
aspiration, all kind of things. It's enormously
important who you marry. Beyond that, I would say
that do what you would do if you were in my position, where the
money means nothing to you. At 79, ... I work
every day. And it's what I want to do more than
anything else in the world. The closer you can
come to that early on in your life, you know the more fun you're
going to have in life and really the better you're going to do.
So don't be driven where you think the last
dollar is presently or anything of that sort. And
then also go to work, if possible, for an organization or an
individual that you admire. I mean I offered to
go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more
in the business than him. I didn't care what he
paid me. When he finally did hire me in 1954, I
moved from Omaha to New York and I didn't know what I was getting
paid until I got my first paycheck. But I knew I
wanted to work for Ben Graham. And I knew I would
jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do
and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning.
Go to work at a job that turns you on and a
person that turns you on and institution.
[APPLAUSE]
BECKY: Stay right here. We will
be right back.
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