Mindy and I just got back from attending the Berkshire Hathaway (BH) meeting with a couple of friends. BH is the conglomerate famously run by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
The meeting consists of a 30 minute movie followed by a question and answer session.
The event is quite the spectacle. Over 50,000 people travel from all over the world to attend.
Berkshire Hathaway 2023
I take a lot of notes during the meeting. Here is what I thought was interesting.
Investing
Mandatory diversification is ridiculous.
-Charlie
This is great advice if you have Charlie’s investing skills and temperament. Everyone else should stick to indexing.
We are not smart, but we know where the edges of our abilities are.
-Charlie
Know your circles of competence and don’t leave them.
People from MIT should not be in wealth management.
-Charlie
This is something I think a lot about. Many of the best brains in the world work in fields like high-speed trading. Too bad they aren’t trying to solve nuclear fusion or Alzheimer’s instead.
I don’t understand the iPhone, but I understand consumer behavior. Many would give up their second car before they’d give up their iPhone.
-Warren
Technology
A couple people asked about artificial intelligence:
AI can’t replace Ajit.
-Warren
I think old fashioned intelligence works pretty well.
-Charlie
I think that Warren and Charlie are underestimating AI.
Geico is taking the bull by the horns.
-Ajit
Ajit was talking about GEICO embracing telematics. In the past, Warren has dismissed the technology stating that GEICO’s strategies could compete. Whoops. They are late to this bus too.
EVs are coming on big time, but there are huge capital costs and big risks.
-Warren
BH will not be investing in electric vehicles any time soon.
On the state of the country
Partisanship has devolved into tribalism.
Japan has a cohesive culture and we don’t.
-Buffett and Munger
Warren and Charlie are clearly concerned about the divisions in America.
China-US tensions
Both sides are guilty. We need as much free trade as possible. Reciprocate stupidity with kindness.
-Charlie
I don’t like its location and reevaluated…
-Warren
Warren was referring to BH’s sale of Taiwan Semiconductor shares months after buying them. This is scary. He clearly isn’t optimistic about China and Taiwan.
Random
Create your obituary and then reverse engineer your life.
-Warren
I like this one a lot.
Your best defense is your own earning power.
-Warren
I’ve known billionaires who die with no friends.
-Warren
Get toxic people the hell out of your life and do it fast.
-Charlie
I can’t pretend to like some of the boyfriends and girlfriends I don’t like. I just stay silent.
-Charlie talking about his grandchildren’s choice of partners
The best road to happiness is to expect less because the future won’t be as good.
-Charlie
Whoah.
Two Takeaways
Is Berkshire falling behind?
- For the longest time, Buffett dismissed telematics insisting that Geico had enough data to be competitive. Ajit acknowledged this was an error.
- Buffett and Munger dismissed AI.
- BNSF has been late to adopt precision railroading.
I can’t help but think that Berkshire is falling behind due to its failure to acknowledge and adapt to new technologies.
Pessimism
My biggest reason for attending the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in the past was Warren and Charlies’ optimism. This meeting had a darker tone. They spoke at length about how tribalism is dividing America. Buffett is clearly concerned about a China invasion of Taiwan. Munger came right out and said that the future won’t be as good. Oof.
Omaha
Meeting aside, I like Omaha a lot. I went there as a kid often to visit relatives. Also, the Midwest is where I grew up, so I’m a bit biased.
I’m not sure if I’ll be back to another Berkshire Hathaway meeting, but I will be back to Omaha.
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Thank you summarizing all the quotes. I have not seen any video yet. But I get it. WB is usually very optimistic but when he sold all airlines stocks during pandemic, I thought it was premature. And people travelled a lot in last 2 years.
Thanks for all the pictures.
How did you do at 5K?
5K was a bust! I was hoping for a new personal record (under 29 minutes), but I finished in 32 instead. Oof.
32 minutes is great! I probably cannot do that now. Next run, 29 minutes.
Just ran today! Yay!
I’m not sure what dates you’ll be here, but:
What about the speaker who was arrested?
Hmmm, I must have missed that part. We left after the Q and A.
How interesting to hear about their change of tone on world events. Stuff *always* sounds scary out there if I read enough about it, but then strangely enough, the world keeps finding ways to accomplish things. And hopefully there are still enough of us optimists out there to make the future good, since it’s really a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the case of Warren and Charlie, unfortunately their own future is pretty brief either way even though I wish we could keep them around forever. I wonder if that factor ever weighs upon their optimism – it seems like it takes energy to be optimistic, and that would be in shorter supply in one’s 90s and 100s.
Yeah, optimism is a self-fulfilling, tail wags the dog kind of thing. If they think their time is up soon, then it must be harder to muster the energy to be optimistic in spite of the bad news tide. Even if it is an ugly little epoch the world is in, things will change and improve eventually.
Did anyone else find it incoherent how bullish Warren is on Apple while being bearish on TSMC? If TSMC’s operations are disrupted, where is Apple going to get all its custom-designed CPUs made?
I didn’t think of Apple v. TSMC. Also, according to Google, more than 95% of Apple’s products are made in China. That’s going to be a very uncomfortable situation should we go to war with China.
Another thought: One reason that I’m optimistic about the future is because I believe AI has the potential to solve many of the issues that face us humans. Since Charlie and Warren underappreciate AI, it makes that they’d be a little more pessimistic.
I also wonder why Warren pulled out of TSMC so fast. China relations with Taiwan (and the US) didn’t change much (always shitty) over the 5 month time period in which he bought and sold. I’m wondering what specifically he heard that scared him off.
I currently don’t hold any BH shares, but always wanted to attend one of those shareholders meetings. Although this one would have been disappointing with the lack of optimism. Maybe this is one of those things I will never get to do, but checking out Omaha and going to the restaurant where Warren and Charlie have their steak dinners is on the bucket list once FIRE’d.
Thanks for the summary and photos. The event posters look like a throw back to the 60-70’s
The Berkshire Hathaway meeting in 2023 was a total blast! Warren Buffett had everyone hooked with his epic insights into the company’s investments and what’s coming up. The dude knows how to keep it real, stressing the need for long-term gains and smart choices. Shareholders left the meeting stoked, ready to ride the Berkshire Hathaway wave to success with Buffett at the helm.
Unfortunately, I think the phase “past performance is no guarantee of future returns” might now apply to these two. We certainly didn’t expect to live forever, did we?