Dear readers,
The annual shareholder event of the investment company of the largest investor in the history of the planet is a dream for any financier. I would finally have my opportunity to make it a reality.
However, what I didn’t imagine is that at the age of 94 Warren Buffett were. He will deliver the command of Berkshire Hathaway NA, which has been in the company for over 20 years and will be the successor of the “Omaha Oracle.”
We applauded Buffett for many uninterrupted minutes standing, we just stopped because he asked us more than once. We were a few meters from Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft; Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State; and the children of Buffett.
It was exciting, I will tell my children and grandchildren what I saw right now…
In addition, he had a special personal weight, as he covered the event for years and was almost there last year. He marked the farewell of Henrique Esteter, who brightly presented the last 3 years beside me, and became one of my best friends.
Of course, the surreal lucidity of an almost centenary man is a highlight, his clear and stuffed ideas with historical contexts as well. However, that’s not what arrested my attention…
When he started the retirement announcement, I remember looking at the “H” (affectionate nickname of Esteter) and saying, “Dude, I found it very smart what he did,” and he agreed. It really made the ticket at the best possible time.
Berkshire has more than $ 330 billion dollars in cash, a company’s “Serie A” stock costs $ 800,000. What began as a bankrupt textile industry, an investment “error”, became the largest and most victorious allocation franchise in the world’s capital.
The “good old man of Omaha”, fifth richest in the world, accumulated more than $ 153 billion of equity. If he had donated absolutely nothing to charities, today he would have more than $ 400 billion and would shoot the richest man in the world.
But he doesn’t care about that …
I visited his house. It’s a good home, but for local standards, a middle -class person could easily live there – like Buffett neighbors, who live at home more pompous than his, for example.
No cars, airplanes, clothes. A can of open Coke Cherry and a light humor, he joined over 40,000 people from around the world in Chi Health Center (outside the logs) to hear his ideas for four hours.
My learning was this:
Warren Buffett’s greatness is to be humble at a point that no one is able to understand. Everyone usually criticizes, to say that he lives miserable, that they do not agree and find the way he lives his life absurd.
Honestly, I find that the biggest bullshit.
Buffett took the stage of this event for 60 years, and he would definitely not need, but that’s what makes him happy. Money? They are like the numbering of the game that he has created passion since he was 11 years old: investing in stocks and becoming a partner of good companies.
The real heritage for him is knowledge, and this one shows infinite greed. There seems to be no limit to this search. And it was precisely this detachment of the rest of society that allowed it to build its legacy. It was this humility that made it possible for a formidable staff, which, incidentally, different from the rest of the successors who are usually familiar, was a Canadian who, for Buffett, is the best name to play the company from now on.
He didn’t even sell any action. He said it was an economic choice, that Greg was more capable than he himself to lead Berkshire and that it would materialize in better results.
I was already a fan, I had it as a great reference. I left that floorless arena and played in a way that will change a lot in my simple and proudly humble life.
Thanks for everything, WB.
