Berkshire's 2025 annual shareholder meeting: Watch the full morning session

If everyone will please take their seats. Now, this is my u this is my 60th annual meeting and uh and it's the biggest and I think it'll be the best yet. And uh I would uh before I start, I'd like to give you a few figures from from uh yesterday because we set all kinds of records. Uh yesterday we had uh um 19,700 people that joined us in the afternoon between noon and 5:00. And that was up from 16,200 which was a previous record the year before. Uh and uh in every aspect we set records.

Uh sees Candy did uh uh $317,000 against 283,000 the year before. And most of these were limited by capacity. I mean, there were there were lines there throughout the total day. Brooks did 310,000. Uh, it was an all-time record sales day for them. And I think they have close to 3,000 runners lined up for Sunday. Uh, which is a lot of people to get up that I I think we we've had 2,200 or 2400 before, but but 3,000. And, uh, that doesn't count me and it won't count me. And uh I could go up and

down the line. Jazz Jazz wares uh um around 250,000 double the previous years. They they just sell as fast as they can sell. Most of most every every place had had uh people lined up at the uh at the cash register sometimes for a lot longer wait than wish we had. But uh but we'll learn the game eventually. And it goes on and on. Every every company said records and uh and uh there's no way of knowing how many people we have here today. We have people listening in around the world. Uh but uh uh

I think we're setting we'll probably set records in a great variety of ways. And uh I would uh we're going to have in a minute we'll get to the question and answer, but I' I'd like to first introduce our directors and and uh uh I'm I'm Warren Buffett and I was born and bride here in Omaha. Uh we have Greg Ael. He was born and bread in Canada and we have a Jeep Jane who was born and breathe in India. So we we have a very diverse group and uh uh in the audience and I

will introduce them alphabetically and if they'll stand as I introduce them and uh I know it'll be an effort but withhold your applause till the end so that uh so that we can get through the list but we'll start alphabetically uh with Howard Buffett. How I would just stand and uh withhold the applause. It'll go to his head. Uh Susan Buffett, we have Steve Burke, Ken Chanel, Chris Davis, Sue Decker, who's our lead director, Charlotte Diamond, Tom Murphy Jr., Ron Olsen and I'll have a few and when we finish I'll have a few more things

to have about him. Wally Whites and Mel Whitmer. And with that you've got our all-star cast. And Ron, if you don't mind standing, I would like to point out that that Ron, they finally got through an age director thing at at Bergkshire. Uh I think we had five that were over 90 here not so long ago, but uh but we put in the highest uh or Sue tells me anyway that it's the the highest age uh uh limit that any any of the companies she checked out came up with. But uh uh Ron has been

on the board for 28 years and uh been associated with Charlie Munger at Munger Tolls for many years beyond that and has been around at a variety of times of crisis and joy and disappointments and surprises and everything else at Birkshire and has been of invaluable help to us. So, I think I think I'd like to give a special hand to Ron [Applause] Olsson and uh I think I'll do something else that isn't done usually at annual meetings, but I I haven't had a chance. Uh I listened to them on Thursday afternoon. It's the only

It's the only uh It's the only investment quarterly call that I listen to, but uh I listen to Tim Cook and I understand and it'll be tough for me to see him from up here, but Tim Cook, there he is. I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that Jim Cook has made the Bergkshire a lot more money than I've ever made Berkshire Hathway. I uh credit credit should be given to him for uh I knew Steve Jobs briefly and Steve of course did things that nobody else could have done in developing Apple but but uh Steve picked

out Tim to succeed him and he really made the right decision. Steve died young as you know and uh nobody but Steve could have created Apple but nobody could but but Tim could have developed it like it has. So So on behalf of all of Bergkshire, thank you Tim. There's a couple other people I'd like to thank. uh I don't do any work in terms of the show or anything else around Bergkshire, but uh what you see today uh is the product of a lot of people at Berkshire. They forget, you know, that they don't

think of themselves as the one who's supposed to screw a light in and leave for somebody else specialist to come along and do other things. uh the people of Birkshire put on this this show every year and uh uh you know our our our chief financial officer and just everybody pitches in. It's a remarkable organization that way. But it's led this year uh in the last few years by Melissa Shapiro and she's made this whole thing work. Melissa And then we got an idea a while back. Well, many years ago, uh well, I'll take it

all the way back. uh maybe um 65 years ago, I met uh Carrie Sa's grandfather and uh his wife. Well, they had nine children and Susie and I joined a a um playhouse group. and I don't look like the kind of guy that would join a playhouse group, but it was turned out to be a great a great move in many ways. First of all, I enjoyed the plays. Uh but beyond that uh uh I met not only uh not not only Carrie's grandfather who ran an insurance company in Omaha, Bill Kaiser uh but I

uh also met uh the Pumpkin boys uh parents Louie and and Francis. Oh, in in one sort of accident um when I was in my 20s, uh came up with all kinds of good things and in connection with Carrie, her father ran a company called uh Central States and later on we bought that company and then her father ran the company. her sister went to work for Bergkshire some years ago and then uh she decided to have a family and subsequently had four kids. So she left but Carrie moved right in and Carrie uh uh

had amazing talents behind just like a good many people do. they they they they have talents you don't you don't realize till uh you give them some responsibility. And so 10 or 11 years ago, but uh I asked Carrie to do a 50th anniversary book uh about Bergkshire and just use her imagination and and she never she didn't need to check with me or do anything. She just she'd never edited a book. She'd never published a book. She'd never dealt with the printers before, but she just went out and promptly put together this 50th anniversary

book. And then this year, uh, well, then Carrie, of course, got married and had three kids, so she had to leave us. But, but, uh, and we have a we go to a baseball game once a year and we invite some of our distinguished alumni like Carrie to join us. And uh Carrie uh uh even though she was raising three children uh and you may have met one or two of them uh in the last day or so, she volunteered to bring bring together a 60th anniversary book and uh which I I asked for and

uh again she took the whole thing. She just did it. uh she kept doing the things with her kids and every now and then she'd I'd ask her how I was going and she'd tell me how it was going and so she put together the 60th anniversary book and u um got it done by you know maybe a week before the meeting because I I gave her the assignment very late and uh yesterday we sold I think it was 4,000 plus 4 to 4,500 maybe. We we 4,400. Uh we printed 8,000. We intended to print

5,000, but so we sold 4,400 books yesterday and uh we'll have 30 I guess roughly 3,600 left out there today. and it's kind of a whimsical and but but accurate and uh uh uh if she came out with just the book I hope she would come out with and uh and then as we went through uh this publishing experience uh Carrie wouldn't take a dime um but I did get her to name her uh favorite charity and the Steven Center which takes care of homeless people uh and does a great many other things. Uh it's

located about five or six miles from where we are here south has been doing a wonderful job. Her grandfather helped form it. uh her husband's now joined the board and uh we are selling 20 copies of uh this is a commercial place, isn't it? We are selling a uh 20 copies that uh we sold 10 prior to the meeting. That's all we let them sell and we raised a few hundred,000 doing that. Uh, I think we sold one for $100,000 and um, but we limited that to 10. And the only difference in these and the

$25 version is that uh, Carrie and I sound signed them. Uh but we saved six for yesterday and uh the six brought $148,000 which is a pretty good average per book of about 20 odd thousand and I then I had him say four more. So, uh, this afternoon when we disband at 1:00, uh, the, uh, area right behind us that has all the goods in it in the bookstore, uh, they will sell the final four and when we get all through, I'll match whatever we've raised for the the 20 and, uh, and we'll give the,

uh, Steven Center a a boost both in financially, but also in awareness. is uh so anyway [Applause] that and when you look at that book Carrie really did the whole thing. I mean there's a lot of information in there and she dug through it and and she came through a couple times maybe to check a fact or two but she she she got all she got material from the Mer family. She she just did a wonderful job and and and uh I I I I couldn't get her to take a penny for it. So, I'm

going to ask her to do a lot of other things in the future. But okay. Uh with that, I think we've we've covered all the the business. So, uh, we will move to Becky questions that she's received from I don't know how many she's received, but from all over the country and perhaps outside the country and she's picked out a group of them which uh she has not shared with me uh and uh we will alternate questions between Becky and uh the audience which we have by zones and and uh and with that I will

uh turn things over Becky for the first question. Thanks Warren. Um this first cut question comes from Bill Mitchell. I received more questions about this than any other question. He writes, "Warren, in a 2003 Fortune article, you argued for import certificates to limit trade deficits and said these import certificates basically amounted to a tariff, but recently you called tariffs an act of economic war. Has your view on trade barriers changed or do you see import certificates as somehow distinct from tariffs?" Yeah. Well, the import certificates were distinct, but they they their goal was to balance

u imports against exports and so that the trade deficit would not grow in an enormous way. In fact, it would have and it had various other provisions in it to to help uh uh third world countries as that time as they were called to perhaps catch up a little bit. uh and they they had a variety of aspects to them but basically they were designed to balance trade and uh I think you can make some very good arguments for the fact that balanced trade is good for the world and the more balanced trade there is

the better it will continue to be better for cocoa to be raged in Ghana and coffee and Colombia and a few things and and over time the uh American industry has gone from being an agricultural country. This was this was nothing but an egg country. I mean that uh virtually uh and that was only 250 years ago and we have become a very industrial country and uh we did not want to make that a situation uh in my view uh where we ran uh greater and greater deficits building up greater and greater debts against the

country. So I I designed this uh import certificate thing which uh Charlie thought was a little rub too much like Rube Goldberg. I don't know whether that time name is but it's gimmicky but uh it's certainly a lot better than anything I I think than we're talking about now. And there's no question that trade trade can be an act of war. And uh and I think it's led to bad things. Just the attitudes it's brought out uh in the United States. I mean, we should be looking to trade with the rest of the world and

we should do what we do best and they should do what they do best. And uh I don't think it that's that's what we did originally. I mean, we were good at producing tobacco and cotton uh uh 250 years ago and we and we traded it and uh uh we want a prosperous world uh with eight countries with nuclear weapons, including a few that are what I would call quite unstable. I do not think it's a great idea to try and design a world where a few countries say, "Haha, we've won." And uh uh other

countries uh are envious. [Applause] So, so my my my import certificate idea which went no place. Uh uh I think we got extra copies with not a great demand for the copies. Uh if anybody and if you'd like and write the office, I think we could we could probably send you a copy of it. But the main thing to do is not use trade should not be a weapon. And the United States, United States, we've won. I mean, we have become an incredibly important country starting from nothing. 250 years ago, there's nothing been anything like

it. And it's a big mistake in my view when you have 7 and a half billion people that uh don't like you very well and you got 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they've done. And uh uh I don't think it's right and I don't think it's wise. Uh I do think that the more the more the more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won't be at our expense, the more prosperous we'll become and with and the the the safer we'll feel and your children will feel someday. Uh,

so that's but don't ex don't expect my import certificate idea to go to up down there with Adam Smith's wealth of nations or anything. Okay. Uh, let's go to area one. Mr. Buffett U, Mr. Ael, and Mr. Jane. Good morning. Uh, I'm St. J. I'm from Hong Kong. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Monga did a very good and successful investment in Japan in the past five or six years. The recent CPI in Japan is currently above 3%. Not far away from its 2% targets. Bank of Japan seems very determined in raising rates while Fed ECB and

other central banks are considering to cut them. Do you think BOJ, Bank of Japan makes sense to proceed the rate hike? Will is planned rate hike deter you from further investing Japanese stock market or even considering to realize your current profits. Thank you very much for arranging this greatest event every year. Finally, I wish you healthy always and keep holding this shareholding. Thank you. Well, I'm going to extend the same goodwill to Japan that you've just extended to me. I I I I let the people of Japan determine their best course of action in terms

of economics. It's an incredible story. Uh and uh uh five, it's been about six years now as you pointed out. I was just going through a little handbook uh that probably had two or three thousand Japanese companies in it. Um, one problem I have is that I can't read that handbook anymore. The the print's too small. But, uh, the, uh, and here were these five trading companies. They have a special name for them in Japan, but they were selling at ridiculously low prices. And, uh, so I spent about a year acquiring them. And then we

got to know the people better. and everything that Greg and I saw we like better as we went along. So, we got fairly close to the 10% limit that we we told the company we would never exceed without their permission. And uh so we did ask them reasonably whether that limit could be relaxed and it's in the process of being relaxed somewhat. Um, we I I would I would say that I'll speak for Greg beyond me that I'll in the next 50 years. Uh, and I hope he's running things. Uh, we we won't give a

thought to to selling those. I mean they had uh uh and uh Japan's record has been extraordinary actually in terms of that uh uh my guess is that Tim would tell you Tim Cook would tell you that iPhone sales there are about as great as any country outside the United States. American Express would tell you that they sell their product very very well in Japan. Coca-Cola that we do business with another big investment of ours, they do extraordinarily well in Japan. They have a number of habits in uh in a civilization that operates differently than

ours. Uh Japan is by far the biggest uh they this is the container they've always preferred uh their soft drinks and and they have uh have a whole different sort of distribution system there. But we have been treated extremely well by the five companies. They they they talk with Greg primarily. Uh, I went over there year or two ago, but uh, Greg Greg's Greg's more cosmopolitan than I am, so he's he's saying much actually, but uh, very little. And but he is I How many times do you think you've met with representatives of one company,

the other? Yeah, when you think of the five, there's definitely a couple meetings a year, Warren. And I think the thing we're building with the five five companies is one, it's it's been a very good investment, but we are really, as Warren touched on, we we envision holding the investment for 50 years or or forever. But I think we also are building relationships to do incremental things with each of those companies. And we really do hope to do big things with them uh globally. They bring different perspectives and different opportunities and we see and that's

the uh that's why we're building that long-term relationship with them. It's super long-term and and and they have a much they have different customs. They have different uh approaches to business. That's that's true around the world. And uh and uh we're we we don't have any intention in any way of trying to change what they've done because do because they they do it very successfully and uh and our our our main activity is just to is just to cheer and clap and uh and that I can still do it 94. Uh so uh we will

own [Applause] those, you know, we we will uh we we will not be selling any stock. I mean that is just it's that that will not happen uh in in decades if then. Uh and I my guess is that they will find things cuz they cover the world pretty much. Uh the five trading companies, we will find things occasionally that may be very large for any individual company there. Uh they may in some way be assisted by some some help we bring to the situation. Uh but but that will be an expanding relationship. Uh it's

too bad that Bergkshire has gotten as big as it is because we love that position and I'd like it to be a lot larger than than it is. But even with the five companies being they're very large companies and they're large companies in Japan. Uh and we've got at market that that you know and in the in the range of 20 billion dollars invested, but I'd rather I'd rather have a hundred billion than 20 billion. And that's the way I feel about several other investments we have. But uh size is an enemy uh of performance

at Bergkshire. And uh I don't know any good way to solve that problem. But but uh Charlie always told me that having a few problems was good for me. I never quite understood that. If you listen to immoralize, you would understand. And uh and and it's not an impossible problem at all. It uh and the Japan the Japan investment is has just been right up our alley. You want to add anything on that? No, I think uh you've touched it, but um as you said, it's right up our alley and I I absolutely agree, Warren.

I I do believe we'll see some very large opportunities long term and that and that's just been a great plus of that that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. I would say they they they want to they would like to present us with opportunities. We would like to receive them. We've got the money. We both get along well very well with each other. And they have different they have some different customs than than we have. Uh they drink the number one Coca-Cola product they drink over there something called Georgia coffee. Uh so uh I'm I'm I haven't converted

them to Cherry Coke and they're not going to convert me to Georgia Coffee. But it's it's a perfect relationship. I just wish we had could get more like it. Uh uh and I never dreamt of that when I picked up that little wasn't so little. was about that thick and but sometimes two companies to a page and and a couple thousand pages I believe. But it's amazing what you can find when you just turn turn the page there. We showed a movie last year that uh about turn every page and I would say that turning

every page uh is one important ingredient to bring to the investment field. It uh and that very few people do turn every page and the ones who turn every page aren't going to tell you what they're finding. So you you got to do a little of it yourself. Okay. Uh Becky, this next question comes from Advate Prasad in New York. He writes, "Today, Berkshire holds over $300 billion in cash and short-term investments, representing about 27% of total assets, a historically high figure compared to the 13% average over the last 25 years. This has also led

Berkshire to effectively own nearly 5% of the entire US Treasury market. Beyond the need for liquidity to meet insurance obligations, is the decision to raise cash primarily a d-risking strategy in response to high market valuations? Or is it also a deliberate effort to position Birkshar's balance sheet for a smooth smoother leadership transition, providing Greg Ael with maximum flexibility and a clean slate for future capital allocation decisions? And I will add one line from another shareholder, Mike Conway, who asks, "Are you encouraged you may see some fat pitches coming your way?" Yeah. Well, I wouldn't do

anything nearly so noble as to withhold investing myself just so that Greg could look good later on. [Applause] Now, if he if he gets any edge of what I believe, I'll resent it. So, the uh now the the amount of cash we have is we we we would spend well, we came pretty close to spending 10 billion not that long ago, for example, but we'd spend a hundred billion. I mean, and and those decisions are not tough to make. uh when when something is offered that is that uh makes sense to us and that we

understand and uh offers good value and where we don't worry about losing. And the one problem with the investment business is that things don't come along in an orderly fashion and they never will. I mean, it isn't like every day. Uh, you know, the the long-term record is sensational, but that is not a product. And I've been in, let's see, I've had um 200 trading days times 80 years. I'm Yeah, I've had at uh 16 million trading days. been we kind of uh uh I mean 16,000 training days it it would be nice if every

day you got four opportunities or something like that and you know you could and they were expected to be equally attractive you know if I if I was running a numbers racket you know every day would have the same expectancy of that I would keep 40% of whatever the handle was and so the only question would be is how much we transacted. But we're not running that kind of a business. And so we're running a business which is very very very opportunistic. And uh Charlie always thought I did too many things. Uh he thought if

we did about five things in our lifetime, we we could we could uh we'd end up doing better than if we did 50. and and uh and that we never concentrated enough. Uh so that we would rather have if we've got 335 billion now in treasuries, we would rather have conditions that are developed where we would have like 50 billion or something like that. But that that just isn't the way the business works. And we have made a lot of money by not wanting to be fully invested at all times. And uh um we don't

think it's improper actually for people who are passive investors just to make a few simple investments and sit with their life uh sit for their life and them. But we've made the decision to be in the business. So uh we think we can do a little better than that by behaving in a very irregular manner. But if you told me that I had to invest uh well our let's say that we have a roughly 40 billion a year coming in and we start with 335. If you told me I had to invest 50 billion every

year till we got down to 50 billion, that would be the dumbest thing in the world to invest in that manner. Things get extraordinarily attractive very occasionally. The long-term trend is up. Nobody knows. And uh I certainly don't know. Greg doesn't know. Ajet doesn't know. Nobody knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month. Nobody knows what business is going to do tomorrow, next week or next month. But they spend all their time talking about it because it's it's easy to talk about and uh but it it it has no value.

Uh I've never found anybody I wanted to listen to on the subject. And uh the on the other hand, I found the leafing through things like that big Japanese book that I can't read anymore. Uh the uh it's it's a that's a treasure hunt. And every now and then you find something and occasionally, very occasionally, but it'll happen again that uh I don't know when it won't. It could be next week. It could be 5 years off, but it won't be 50 years off. You will have we will be bombarded with offerings that that uh

we'll be glad we have the cash for. And it'd be a lot more fun if it would happen tomorrow, but it's very unlikely to happen tomorrow. Very very unlikely to happen tomorrow, but it's not unlikely to happen in five years. And then it gets the probabilities get higher as you go along. It's kind of like death. I mean, if you're 10 years old, the chances that you're going to die the next day are low. If you get to be 115 or something like that, it's almost a cinch. Particularly if you're a male. I mean, all

the records are held by females in terms of age. And the I tried to get Charlie to have a sex change so he could test out whether it [Applause] uh he did pretty well for being a male. I'll put it that way. Okay. Station station two. Good morning, Warren, Greg and Ajit. My name is Jackie Han. I'm from China and now work in Toronto, Canada. This is my eighth Birkshshire house meetings at this point. I've probably spent more time with you than most people spend on Netflix. As you might guess, coming from a Chinese family,

we always had a soft spot for real estate. So the your question isn't why don't you own a house, it's why are you still buying stocks instead of more property? So here is my question. With today's high interest rates and global uncertainty, do you still believe in being greedy when others are fearful or the value investing facing new challenges in today's environment? Thank you. Yeah. Well, in respect to real estate, it's so much harder than stocks in terms of uh negotiation of deals, time spent, the involvement of multiple parties in the ownership. Usually when when

when real estate gets in trouble, you find out you're dealing with more than the equity holder. Uh uh but there have been times when uh large amounts of real estate uh have changed hands at bargain prices, but usually stocks were cheaper, but they were a lot easier to do. So uh Charlie did more real estate. Charlie enjoyed real estate transactions. uh and and he actually did a fair number of them in the last 5 years of his life. Uh but he was, you know, he was playing a game that it was an interesting game to

him. Uh but I think if he you'd asked him to make a choice when he was 21, he had to either be in stocks exclusively the rest of his life or real estate the rest of his life, he would have chosen stocks for the second. the there's just so much more opportunity at least in the United States. There's so much more opportunity that presents itself in the security market than it does in real estate. And in real estate, you're dealing with a usually dealing with a single owner or a family that owns maybe a large

property they've had a long time. Maybe they've borrowed too much money against it. Maybe the population trends are against them. But but to them, it's an enormous decision. When you walk down to the New York Stock Exchange, you can do billions of dollars worth of business, totally anonymous, and you can do it in 5 minutes. And the trades are complete when they're complete. In real estate, when you make a deal, a big deal with a distress lender, it, you know, when you sign the deal, then you go into another phase. I mean then people start

negotiating more things and more things and it's it's it's a whole different game and a different type of person to some extent enjoys the game. Uh uh we uh we we did a few real estate deals that came our way in 2008 and n but the the amount of time that they would take us compared to doing something intelligent and probably better uh and securities uh there was just no comparison. I mean, in a real estate deal, every every sentence is as important to the person and and in stocks, uh, if somebody needs to sell

20,000 shares of Berkshire or something and they call us and the price is right, it's done in 5 seconds and and it closes all the time. that uh uh people who you certainly wouldn't want to have marry your daughter or they behave well actually um in in in in socks. Partly that's because that they're probably having their their wires or phones or whatever it is uh recorded as to what they've said and everything. But but the the completion rate for working on anything in stocks is if assuming you're got a meeting of the minds on

prices essentially 100% in real estate. It just begins when you agree on deals and then they they take forever. So that for a guy 94 it's it's not it's not at the most interesting thing to get involved in something where the where the negotiations could take years. uh and uh we we have the capability. There have been some huge failures in in in fact it uh if you go all the way back to Zackorf in the 1960s he was going to change the world and Century City out in California is a product of his and

and if you go to uh Urus if you go to he was sitting on top of the world with the earth buildings and uh so people tend to get in trouble in that business. Uh the banks usually don't want to recognize it, but that takes a long time to go through the through the bank processes. They just got through redoing the Musk cologne that he made did when he was buying it three years ago. uh uh the company that's now X and you know 3 years to work out a transaction that uh where you've got

parties on both sides that aren't ready to act that we find it much better when people are just ready to pick up the phone and you can do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business in the day I've been spoiled but I like being spoiled so we'll keep it that Okay, Becky. Um, this question comes from Sam England in San Francisco and it's for Warren and A. As AI systems become more capable and harder to interpret, how do you see that affecting the insurance industry's ability to assess, price, and transfer risk? Are there parallels

to past disruptions Berkshire has navigated in underwriting or capital allocation? Okay, Becky. And G's got about a 100 points of IQ on me and he's just going to be here this morning, so I'm going to let him answer the question first. Well, uh there is no question in my mind that AI is going to be a real gamecher and it's going to change the way we assess risk, we price risk, we sell the risk and then the way we end up paying claims. Having said that, I certainly also feel that people end up spending enormous

amount of money trying to chase the next new new fashionable thing. We uh are not very good in terms of being the being the fastest or the first mover. Our approach is more to wait and see until the opportunity crystallizes and we have a better point of view in terms of risk of failure upside downside. So right now the individual insurance operations do dabble in AI and try and figure out what is the best way to exploit it. But we have not yet made a conscious big-time effort in terms of pouring a lot of money

into this opportunity. And my guess is we will be in a state of readiness and should that opportunity pop up we'll be in a state where we'll jump in promptly. Yeah. And I was just add I wouldn't trade I wouldn't trade everything that's developed in AI in the next 10 years for for a G. So if you gave me a choice that uh uh gave me a choice of having a hundred billion dollars available to participate in the insurance property casualty insurance business for the next 10 years. and a choice of getting the top AI

product out of whoever's whoever's developing it or having a Jeep making the decision. I would I would take a Jeep [Applause] anytime and I'm not kidding about that. Okay, station three. Hello, I'm Sean Seagull from Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for investing your time to you and the executive committee for putting on this meeting and for bringing together a diverse group of people in attendance under one roof. Out of all the companies that Birkshshire Hathway owns, there was one that you acquired. the Chicago based company Portillos Hot Dogs. How did you know that this would be

a good fit for the overall company's portfolio? Well, I'll have to ask Greg about that because I don't know anything about it. So, maybe he bought it when I was looking the other way. But I think I got to call a friend on this one. Uh, yeah. I I um I we own a lot of companies, but I do like to think I know most of them, but but the uh uh and maybe a subsidiary of a subsidiary in some way, but but I I really don't know a thing about it. I'm sorry, but that

that may be a good thing. I do know something about hot dogs, though. So, and and we do have a lot of companies in Chicago, Warren. Yeah. through Marman and that's been a great opportunity where we've accumulated a a variety of uh excellent companies under that portfolio but as you noted uh I don't believe Portillos falls under that you know no I I look at I I look at the financial statements of about yeah perhaps 50 or 60 of our companies uh every every month. Uh but in the case of Marmon for example, Marman itself

owns over a 100 companies and uh yeah it uh it was the creature of it was created by Jay Pritsker and uh and his brother Bob and it was a remarkable company when we bought it but but it was highly diversified already and then we've diversified it further. So it is it is something of a Birkshire within Bergkshire and uh uh we found we found that that's working uh very good as arrangement. It it was interesting. Jay Pritsker was a uh uh remarkable manager and there's various branches of the Pritsker family. So you you'll it's

it's really goes back to an end pritker before J and so on. But in in 19 54 they changed the federal tax code very dramatically in the United States. It was quite a blow to me because I'd been at Columbia and I'd been reading a JK Lasser book about the tax code and then they went and changed the whole damn thing. So it but 54 was a big year of big change. Those years come every now and then like 1986 and uh and you may see a big one one of these days. Uh, and there

was a company called Rockwood Chocolates in in U Brooklyn and they made Rockwood Chocolate Bits, which we used to sell at the Buffet grocery store and people made chocolate chip cookies out of them and everything. And uh then it turned out that cocoa, which lately has had a big run too, cocoa was 5 cents a pound in 1941 when LIFO was first allowed for for insurance for for tax purposes. And the Rockwood chocolate company went into on the LIFO message. So they they owned like 30 million pounds or thereabouts of Coco. And then Coco took

a run in 1955. And I had just moved to New York. And uh uh there was a provision in the new tax code that if you were in two or more companies uh and you did certain things and you've been in them for 5 years and you got out of one of them that there would be no capital gains tax on LIFO inventory gains and tax rates were around 48% maybe 52% and so you there was this huge profit cuz cuz u uh the cocoa had gone up in price, but that made it terrible for

them in selling Rockwood chocolate bits because the price of retail of of the chocolate bits did not match what was going on at wholesale. Something almost identical's been happening in the chocolate business recently. Hershey chocolate just came out said they're going to have a bad quarter and we're paying $4.50 a pound for chocolate that from co because things are going on in West Africa that that make uh cocoa prices go up dramatically. In any event, Jay Pritsker bought control of Rockwood the chocolate company. And like I say, I was 24 or 5 years old. And

they called the meeting to split off the to uh one one of the chocolate businesses in a way that would then enable them to to recognize the gain on this these cocoa beans without paying 50% roughly 50% federal taxes on the gain. So I went to the meeting which was in Brooklyn and nobody was there. This is in the turn every page category except one guy and I was 24 and he was 29 and it was Jay Pritsker and nobody had showed up at the meeting and it was kind of a crummy building they had

but they had a lot of coco there and Jay just gave me a lecture or a lesson really I should say on on the tax code and I mean it would I I could have gone to graduate school for years and never learned as much as he did. And then later we actually bought the company that Rockwood Company after he did some other things became the basis for Marman. and Marman among other things uh developed the car that uh won the first Indianapolis Speedway race and uh it invented the rear view mirror which I'm not

sure is a great great advantage in economics or anything but but uh the guy that would they used to have on the Indianapolis 500 they had two people in the car. One guy was to look back and see what the other people were doing and the other guy was to drive the car and our guy got sick and uh so they invented a rear view mirror. So if you want to look at the kind of you know what's going on in the laboratories of Berkshire Hathaway and we we got people working on things like the

rear view mirror. Hey a war. Yep. I'm happy uh a friend did call. Um so that's that still works. Um Peter Eastwood, who runs uh one of our Berkshire subsidiaries and does a great job of running it, uh tracked down that Portello's is owned by a private equity firm called Berkshire Partners. So that was the basis of the question, but it's not associated with uh with Bergkshire. So, we got we got to the bottom of that one. Yeah. Thank you, [Music] Peter. That's just a sample of the way we operate [Laughter] around. Okay, Becky. All

right. This question comes from Jessica Pune who says, "You've long been a strong believer in the American tailwind and the resilience of the United States, and history has proven you correct. Today, the US appears to be undergoing significant and potentially revolutionary changes. Some investors are now questioning the concept of American exceptionalism. In your view, are investors being overly pessimistic about the US economy or is the country indeed entering a period of fundamental change that requires a reassessment from a new perspective? Well, I would say that Jessica, who I believe is it sounds as if she

is the uh stepg granddaughter of one of our managers that I I mentioned in the annual report, may not be the same one. But in any event, uh America's been America's been insignificant and revolutionary changing really ever since it was developed. I mentioned that, you know, we started out as an agricultural society. We started out as a society with with high promises and we didn't deliver on them very well. And we we said all men were created equal. And then we wrote a constitution that said blacks get three counted as three-fifths. And and in article

two, you you'll find male pronouns used 20 times and no female pronouns used. So, you know, it took till 2000, I mean, you know, 2000 or 1920, I should say, uh, till the 19th until the 19th amendment was passed, saying, "Oh, yeah, we promised the women this back in 1776, and now we'll do something about it." And then we didn't do something about it for a long time. So, we're always in the process of change. will always find all kinds of things to criticize uh in the country but the luckiest day in my life is

the day I was born you know because I was born in the United States and at the time about 3% of all the births in the world were taking place in the United States and uh I'd like to say that I had something to do you know listen so sent messages out to My parents for God's sakes moved to the United States before I born or anything. But I was just lucky and I was lucky to be born. I was lucky to be born white. I was l all kinds of things. But it's been if

you don't think the United States has changed since I was born in 1930. It's been we've gone through all kinds of things and gone through great recessions. We've gone through world wars. We've gone through the development of a atomic bomb that that uh we never dreamt of, you know, at the time I was born. So I I would not get discouraged about the fact that that never doesn't look like if we've solved every problem that's come along. And uh uh if I were being born today, you know, I I would just keep negotiating in the

womb until they they said you can be in the United States. So it uh we're all pretty lucky. Do you want to give any We've got two non United States guys here just to get the other side. So who now live in the US. Okay. Station four. Hi, Mr. Buffett. My name is Daniel and I'm from Tennifly, New Jersey. First of all, I just want to say how grateful I am for getting the opportunity to ask you a question. When it comes to your principles of investing, you often talk about how important it is to

be patient. Has there ever been a situation in your investing career where breaking that principle and acting fast has benefited you? Thank you. Well, that's a good question and uh there are times when you have to act fast. In fact, uh we made a great deal of money because we're willing to act faster than anybody around. Uh Jessica Tombs is I I think she's the stepdaughter of of um our stepgranddaughter of Ben Rosner, a manager of ours. And in 1966, I got a call from a fellow named Fel Steiner in New York, and he said,

"I I represent uh Mrs. Annenburgg. Uh, and there were there were actually nine Anenburgg sisters, I believe, before Walter Anenberg came along as the son. But he said, "We have a business we'd like to sell you." So, I called Charlie up and uh I got a few details and it sounded very interesting and uh uh Charlie and I went back to the office of Will Felsteiner in New York was a marvelous guy. Never met him since but but uh he was handling things for Mrs. Uh well, ace a Simon Butchu and her name was Annenburgg

and her husband had been the partner of of Ben Rosner, but he had died and uh and Ben got kind of tense about working with her. Uh and so he u offered us this business at a bargain price. He offered us a business for $6 million. It had $2 million of cash. It had a $2 million piece of property in a 900 block of of um what's the key street in Philadelphia down there? Market Street. And uh and it was making 2 million a year pre-tax. And the price was 6 million. and Charlie and I

went back to this place and uh Ben Rosner was there and he really he just was upset about doing business with his his partner's widow. He was she was extremely wealthy and uh and he just didn't he wasn't enjoying it. He was very nervous about selling it. And he he said to me and Charlie, he said uh um he said, "I'll run this business for you until December 31st and then I'm out of here." And I got Charlie. We went out in the hallway. And I said, "If this guy quits at the end of the

year, you can throw away every book on psychology I've ever read." I believe and so that began a wonderful we bought the company and had a great relationship and did I know that morning when I got a phone call uh from Will Felsteiner there was background about it uh uh I' I've had a couple of times and that was one of them where people in the East felt that they had a a stereotype in their mind of what people from the Midwest were like. And uh Ben had been married, his first marriage was to a

woman from Iowa. And he just figured that anybody from the Midwest was okay. And uh the trick when you do when you get in business with somebody or get in a room with somebody like that and they want to sell you something for $6 million that's got 2 million of cash and couple million of real estate and it's making 2 million a year. Uh you don't you don't want to be patient then you want to be patient and waiting to get the occasional call. My phone will ring sometime, you know, and with something that, you

know, wakes me up. I may be sleeping in there or something, but it it you just never know when it'll happen. And that's what makes it what makes it fun. I mean it it uh uh so patience it it's a combination of of of patience and a willingness to do something that afternoon if it comes to you. You don't want to be you don't want to be patient about about acting on deals that make sense and you don't want to be very patient with people they're talking to you about things that will never happen. So,

uh, it's it's not a it's not a constant asset. It's not a constant liability to be patient. Greg, you Well, Warren, I was going to add, uh, as you're being patient, I I happen to know, and I think that goes for uh, Ajit also and all our managers. uh very patient when we're looking at opportunities and as you touched on we want to act quickly but while we're being patient um never underestimate the amount of reading and work that's being done to be prepared uh to act quickly because we we do know be it equities

but I would include a variety of of private companies that when the opportunity presents itself we're ready to act and and that's a large part of uh being patient is is using it to be prepared. Yeah. And and of course it it doesn't come in anything like an even flow. I mean it's the most uneven sort of activity you could get into. And uh uh the main thing you have to do is you have to be willing to hang up after 5 seconds and you have to be willing to say yes after 5 seconds. Absolutely.

And and uh uh you can't you can't be filled with self-doubt in the business. You just forget it isn't going to work. That uh uh go into some other activity. uh uh but you also I mean one of the great pleasures it is the great pleasure actually in this business is having people trust you and that's that's really the why why work at 90 when you've got more money than anybody could count you know if they started today and had machines there helping them and everything else it and that it means nothing in terms of

of uh how you're going to live or how your children are going to live or anything else. Uh, and uh, but it it it but both Charlie and I, we just enjoyed the fact that people trusted us and they trusted us 60 years ago or 70 years ago and and and partnerships we had and uh, we never sought out professional investors to join our partnerships. Among all my partners, I never had a single institution. I never I never wanted an institution. I wanted people and I I didn't want people that were sitting around and having

people present to them every three months and and tell them what they wanted to hear and all that sort of thing. So, and and that's what we got and that's why we've got this group here today. So, it it's all worked out. But that uh it it's you don't want to be patient when things are going your when when the time comes to act. It uh you you want to get it done that day. Okay, Becky. This question is from Flavio Montenegro, a shareholder from Guatemala. Um a couple of years ago in this meeting, Mr.

Jane outlined the significant challenges GEICO faced in modernizing and integrating its IT systems. It was also mentioned that competitors were ahead in their pricing strategies because of the use of telematics. Today, Geico's turnaround is evident through strong pricing and operational improvements. Could you provide more details on the specific actions taken under Todd's leadership and how those changes will help sustain a long-term competitive advantage in the coming years? Yeah. Uh Todd has done a great job for us in terms of turn turning around the operations. When he took over uh there were two major issues that

Geico was behind its competitors on. Firstly, the term we warren used and we all have been using is matching rate to risk and secondly telematics. We were at the bottom of the list in so far as telematics are concerned about five six years ago. Uh since then we have made rapid strides and telematics which used to be a source of competitive disadvantage to us is no longer so and I would argue that our telematics at Geico is about as good as anyone else's today. So that's been one huge catch up. Secondly, in terms of matching

rate to risk, there again, I think we have caught up with our competitors and we're as good as anyone else in in the field. All this together with the cost reduction effort that Geico and Todd gets a lot of credit for, he has basically reduced the workforce by 20,000. Starting with something close to 50 odd,000, he's brought it down to 20,000 and that translates to uh I guess at least $2 billion per year. So all this has allowed Geico to become a much focused competitor. So much so in the last seven quarters, Geico has shown

a combined ratio that has a eight in front of it. And I never thought I'd live to see the day when anyone could have a combined ratio at so low as it is right now. So I think Geico has done a great job. uh it's 80 combined translates to the the largest profit anyone is making on the underwriting side in the personal automobile business. So you know we've achieved a lot has achieved a lot but I do not want to be so arrogant as to say that mission accomplished. Uh we've achieved a lot but I

still think we need to do a lot more in technology. AI as we talked about is going to be a big force and we need to play catchup there. Not catchup but we ought to be in a state of readiness. So I think Geico is in a great shape right now. Uh did I Warren you want to add anything? No, I it's it's it's a fascinating case study, but and that's what's so interesting about the whole game of business, but particularly about our businesses is that that each one is a little different. Uh but they're

all they all have challenges of certain sorts and but they also many certain numbers have opportunities. We we paid $50 million for half of Geico in 1976. What turned out to be half of Geico. 50 million. 50 50 uh we now own 100% but 50% of two billion that we earned in the first quarter is a billion dollars which on a $50 million investment is you know 20 for one in a quarter. Uh so it now that takes years to develop but the interesting thing is the auto insurance policy which didn't even exist 100 years

ago. I mean you you didn't you just well I should say 120 years ago. Uh but there it's by far the largest item in the property casualty insurance business. It's it's huge. The only thing I'd like to add is in addition to the underwriting profit, Geico provides $29 billion a float. Oh yeah. In addition, yeah. And that's not unimportant when you paid $50 million to get the businesses giving you $29 billion to work with for nothing. And on top of that, gives you a billion dollars of of profit in a quarter. Uh the interesting thing

about auto insurance is that that we are the company was started in 1936. We're selling the same product as 1936. We're we're being more sophisticated about pricing it than we were then. Somebody just made the judgment. a fellow that came from USAA uh made the judgment that that government employees the name Geico stands for government employees insurance company that government employees were better drivers than average and uh I don't think he was an actuary or anything else but he just made an observation and uh so he left USAA which is still a very successful company

and he started Geico for a few hundred,000 and he made money the first year from my underwriting. He made money the second year. This is not a public offering type thing deal, you know, use phony accounting for 10 years and all that sort of thing. Hey, just price it to make money and uh that's exactly what's been done since 1936. The policy really, you know, your insurance, your auto insurance policy looks a lot like the one that you had then. And this huge field has sprung up uh around us and it's still growing and and

of course nobody likes to to buy insurance but they sure like to drive and and and uh uh Geico is a fascinating story and about three times over the years the company has gotten sidetracked one way or another and uh and then it gets back to its basic and and it's a wonderful wonderful business and and uh we showed at this annual meeting one time a a uh message from Ror Davidson and Lauren Murdavid Davidson and in January of 1950 was the only person in the building that uh I'd gone down on a Saturday to

visit, but turned out they didn't work on Saturdays in Washington and I pounded on the door till finally a janitor let me in and I said to the janitor is there anybody I can talk to here except you and he didn't take it personally and he said well there's one guy up on the sixth floor and a fellow named Lero Normer Davidson did wonderful things for me you you get a few breaks in life in terms of people you will meet who would just change your life dramatically. And uh if you if you you need

a handful of those and uh and when you get them, you treasure them. And we've had them on on this board of Bergkshire, we you know, if you take Tom Murphy and Sandy Goddisdman and Walter Scott and Bill Scott, we we one thing we've done is we've held on to to human assets. We've made lifelong assets out of people that that that are the right sort and uh with incredible talent, but also just lots of fun to work with and always doing more than their share and you know to get a chance to talk to

Lauren Davidson on a Saturday afternoon, you just listen carefully. Uh, and that comes in the uh in the category of turn every page. You know, some of them you want to turn pretty fast, but but uh uh you just get lucky in life and you want to take advantage of your luck. Okay, station five. My name is Benjamin Graham Sanderson from Pasadena, California. Warren, thank you for all you've taught us over the years. Earlier, you said nobody but Steve Jobs could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim Cook could have developed it like he has.

Warren, nobody but you could have created Bergkshire. And I presume you view Greg as an outlier among outliers, but he seems so normal. Sorry, Greg. Yeah, that's a nice way of saying not normal actually, but I appreciate it. So, I was hoping you could share what specifically about Greg makes him your preferred successor. And Greg, we're excited to get to know you more over the next few decades. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you you've hit on the most important question and know in terms of the business. We've got a wonderful group of businesses.

We've got a uh we've got an ability to do things that nobody else can do, which is hard to get in the capitalistic system that's been developed as fully as as as the United States has been. I mean, imagine being able to create something that is and in a very very very big playing field. I don't think you'd really be very very hard to develop anything like it. I don't think you could develop the people around it that let alone the capital position, you know, and the history and everything else. And the answer of course

is it it it does take a a long long time and it takes getting around you a small cadre of people which then spreads out somewhat. But uh where you've got mutual trust uh where people do more than their share and I've been around a lot of businesses over the years and by nature I'm somewhat critical of everything. I mean, I I I'm looking for what's wrong in things because that's part of investing is is looking, you know, what aren't you what are you missing? Uh but we have uh you know, we've got people that

if they're asked to put on a show like this, instead of doing whatever their regular job is, they they participated. I went around the groups of people who were exhibiting yesterday for an hour and a half and these are people that are thanking me, you know, and totally enthused about coming and doing a lot of work for which they don't get paid anything extra. I I don't know anything about the arrangements the individual companies make but they they work hard and they enjoy their work and uh you know you really want to work at something

you enjoy. I've always had I've had five bosses in life and I liked every one of them and they were all interesting. I still decided that I'd rather work for myself than anybody else. But but if you if you find people that are wonderful to work with, you know, that's the place to go. And I've I've told my kids that basically that you don't get lucky like I did when I found it seven or eight years of age. what really interested me, you know, it could have taken a lot longer, but but uh uh you

want to uh find the song, find the sound is uh there's a movie called The Glenn Miller Story, and Glenn Miller went on from having a broken down band for 15 years to to uh turning out the first he found the sound and and uh and created the first gold record. I don't know whether any of you know what it was, but it was the Chattanooga Choo Choo in 1941, I think it was. Uh, and he turned around from being a a nothing in with a band that he had till he found the sound. And

uh I always have told my kids ever since that their their their sound isn't my sound, you know, but uh and you don't find it necessarily on the first job you take cuz you got to eat, you know, and but if you get lucky like I did, you you find it be you find it when you're very young and then, you know, just keep doing it and uh And don't worry don't worry too much about starting salaries and don't worry about about uh and be very careful who you work for because you will take on

the habits of the people around you. So there's certain certain jobs you shouldn't take and uh but you've got the greatest country in the world and you got the greatest time in the world. So, uh, I would say that that, uh, well, I while I'm handing this over to Greg that, uh, that, you know, you can't even dream all the dreams that you could have about a place like Berkshire. But big thing you have to do though is always is to be sure you can play the next day. I mean in terms of in terms

of financial activities on a meaningful scale uh you know you you don't want to go you don't there was a a book about what was the name of that book you only have to get rich once I mean you don't you don't want to do anything that risks uh what's been created. So you don't you if if very stupid things are happening around you, you do not want to participate. If people are making more money because they're borrowing money or they're participating in in securities that are really pieces of junk, but but uh but they

they hope to find a bigger sucker later on. You just have to forget that and it uh that'll bite you at some point and and the basic game is so good and you've been so lucky to be born now. I mean, if if I've been born in 1700, I'd say, I want to go back in the womb. What the hell with this? It's too hard. And but now I've come along to do something where I can just play around all day with things I enjoy doing. and uh and uh it's really uh it's a pretty

wonderful life. Anything Greg you want to add or subtract from that? nothing to subtract. But um I I would always just say I couldn't be more, as I've said in the past, more humbled than honored obviously to be in this role, but to to have actually been part of Berkshire for Warus now 25 plus years had the opportunity to be part of Bergkshire and to to work with you and Ajit and our our board, but many other people in our company. And as you touched on, um, when you find something like that and you find

something like that like Bergkshire that's so special, it's it you fall in love with it and it's it becomes just what you want to do every day and it's just an incredible opportunity. So, thank you. [Applause] And to the gentleman who asked the question, if if you don't find it immediately, you know, uh don't starve to death or anything in the meantime, but but but uh you will find it and and you'll you'll find it in in the right individual in in a sense. It's somewhat like finding the right person in marriage. I mean that

uh probably the first some of you married may have married the person you made met on your first date although I guess they don't even have dates anymore but but the uh uh but you know it's it's uh sometimes it pays to wait too. Okay, Becky uh this is a question from Mark Bonnke and Helen Friedrien in Rapid City, South Dakota. As the US dollar quickly loses value in relation to other foreign currencies in 2025, is Berkshire Hathaway taking steps to minimize this currency risk and its impact on quarterly and annual earnings? If so, please

explain. And I I'll just add from Mary Chang, another shareholder. Berkshire currently borrows in Japanese yen to offset its currency risk and its Japanese stock investments. In the future, will you invest in foreign currency denominated assets unhedged? Yeah. Well, we always have um pretty much uh the Japanese situation is different because we we do intend to stay so long with that position and the funding situation is so cheap that we essentially have have attempted to some degree to to match purchases against yen denominated of funding. Uh but that's not a policy of ours. In fact,

that's the first time we we've we've done that. And and we've owned lots of securities of uh of of in in foreign currency. So uh we do nothing in in u in terms of the question about its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. uh we don't do anything based on its impact on quarterly and annual earnings. I mean, there's never been a board meeting I can remember where I or a conversation I had with Charlie when I said where I say if we do this our annual earnings will be this you know and therefore we

ought to whether it's accounting or whe anything uh we just you know the the number will turn out to be what it'll be what counts as where we are five or 10 or 20 years from now and and if you start focusing on what number you're going to produce. Uh you will quickly get tempted, at least based on the experience I've seen from viewing 20 companies, you will get so you'll one way or another uh play around with the numbers and sometimes seriously play around with the numbers. and uh uh I've seen people that that

you know I trust him in all kinds of other ways but they regard playing around with numbers is perfectly okay and that's just not something you know we just don't think about that. So uh actually then the uh the end um um uh relationship of the end behavior of the end in the last quarter you know resulted in certain gap charges and uh but it doesn't make it it doesn't make any difference. it'll change next, you know, next month or next year. And and obviously, we wouldn't want to be owning anything that we thought was

in a currency that was really going to hell. And that's the big thing we worry about with the United States currency. I mean it the the tendency of a government to want to debase its currency over time is there's no system that beats that. You you can pick dictators, you can pick representatives, you can do anything. But but the people there there will be a a push toward weaker currencies. in the courts. That is I mentioned very briefly in the annual report that that the that fiscal policy is what scares me in the United States

because it's it's made the way it is and uh and uh all the motivations are to doing a lot of things that will cause can cause trouble with with money. But that's not limited to the United States. It's all over the world and some places it gets out of control regularly. I know they know they know know they uh they devalue it rates that are breathtaking and that's con that's continued. I mean, and you people can study economics and you can have all kinds of arrangements, but in the end, if you've got people that control

the currency, uh you can you can issue uh paper money and you will or you can engage in clipping currencies like they used to centuries ago. Or there will always be people and it's the nature of their job. I don't I don't I'm not singling them out as particularly evil or anything like that, but the natural course of government is to is to make the currency worthless uh over time and uh and that's got important consequences and it's very hard to build checks and balances into the system to keep that from happening. And uh we've

had a lot of fun here in the last either the first 100 days or the last 100 days, whatever you want to call it. the uh uh watching what happens when people try to make sure that they aren't running fiscal risks and uh that game isn't over and it never will be over, you know, in finality. If you look if you look up in in search the great inflations of post World War II, it's just a list that goes on forever and the same names keep popping up and everything. So currency is a the value

of currency is a scary thing and and uh uh we don't have any great system for beating that we do in this particular Japanese position because we expect to hold it for 50 or 100 years or more and we will be owning something as denominated in the end and easily predictable and we'll just as long as the the carry on it is right and everything will will uh will attempt to issue uh Japanese denominated liabilities but that that's not because of anything we care about in terms of quarterly or annual earnings. Greg, do you have

anything to say on that? I was just going to say that relative to the question that there's no question we were fundamentally very comfortable with investing in the five Japanese companies and recognizing we're investing in yen. The fact we could then borrow in yen was a almost just like a nice incremental opportunity. But we were very comfortable both with the Japanese companies and with the currency we would ultimately realize i.e. in the yen. Yeah, we we only made as I referred to earlier one big currency play which was connected a little bit with when I

wrote that article for fortune and we got long 12 other currencies as I remember only four or five of them are really big currencies but when when I say we got long it that means we're short the dollar and uh so we held that position for a couple years and we we made several billion dollars on it which was significant to us then, still is. uh the uh Charlie always felt that if the if he had to pick an area outside of stocks in which to invest and he knew a lot about bonds, he knew

a lot about real estate, he knew a lot about a lot of things, but he he said the he thought he could he he thought he could make a lot of money out of being in foreign currency. But uh uh we just we've done it once. It's not inconceivable we would do it again, but it's unlikely. Uh but there could be things happen in the United States that would make us want to own a lot of other currencies. And I I suppose if we if we made some very large investment European country or some there

might be a situation where we would do a lot of financing in in their currency, but it's it's not a it it was something that just was sort of obvious to do in the Japanese situation where we had the ability to borrow we had a very very low carrying uh carrying cost and uh and we felt very good about the income we'd be receiving from these securities and we and if the present condition which it won't I mean it never does but pre prevail for decades and decades we would probably keep doing the same sort

of thing but uh things change in the world too. So don't take that as a prediction. Okay. Section six. Uh good morning Warren and Greg Ajit. Thank you so much for hosting this event. Good to be here. My name is Dash Boyar and I'm from great country of Mongolia. A little bit background about my country. Mongolia is an emerging market and landlocked country sandwiched between Russia and China. But we are rich in history and minerals and have full democracy and growing economy. Last week, we hosted our second annual Mongolia investor conference in New York to

attract investors like yourself. I know you meet and give advice informally to government leaders such as South Korea, China, and India. What advice would you give to government business leaders of emerging markets like Mongolia to attract institutional investors like yourself? It'd be great if you have long-term plans for exposure to emerging markets as a hedge or an opportunistic investment. Lastly, I welcome all of you to Mongolia and my country folks would be very happy if you can make it to our economic forum this July. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I I have trouble planning a trip

to Council Bluffs, which is just a few miles from there, but takes an optimist. Uh actually I met a fellow here at the annual meeting um oh probably 20 years ago or more who did a lot in Mongolia and uh uh it he's he did very well in Mongolia and uh actually moved there for quite a while. Uh I would say that if if you're looking for advice to give the government over there, it's to develop a reputation for for having a solid currency over time. I mean that we we we don't really want to

go into any country where we think that there's a a chance I mean a significant probability of runaway inflation. It just it's too hard to figure. People other people have figured out ways to make money in in hyperinflationary situations, but uh that's not our game. and I I I don't think I'd play it well. So, uh we wouldn't be that that would be that would be a factor with us. The chances are and we won't find anything in Mongolia that fits our size requirements aside from that. But I but like I say, I uh I

think my friend that I met here 20 years ago has done very well in in uh Mongolia. And if if the country develops a reputation for being businessfriendly and currency conscious conscious uh and I think that that bolds very well for the the residents the residents of that country particularly if it has some other natural assets that uh it can build around. Uh, I don't know that much about the minerals there or anything of the sort, but but uh uh I mean who would have bet on the United States in 1790? But uh um we

we we didn't we didn't have to have perfection. We just had to have be better than the other guy for quite a while. And we started out with nothing and we ended up with close to 25% of the world's GDP and faster growth rates and generally sounder currencies and all kinds of things. But uh so uh I wish you well. Okay, Becky. This question is from Peter Shen in New Jersey. It's for Mr. Buffett and Mr. Jane, in recent years, large private equity firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR have aggressively expanded into insurance, raising permanent

capital, managing float, and aiming to replicate the model that Berkshire pioneered decades ago. Given that these firms are now directly competing for insurance assets, often using higher leverage and more aggressive investment strategies, how do you view their impact on Berkshire's insurance operations and underwriting discipline? Do you believe that the qu private equity model poses risks to policyh holders in the broad financial system and has this competition made it more challenging for Berkshire to find and price insurance opportunities safely and profitably today? Okay. Yeah. Part of the question is very easy. There's no question the private

equity firms have come into the space and we are no longer competitive in the space. We used to do a fair amount in this space. Uh but in the last 3 four years, I don't think we've done a single deal. Now you ought to separate this whole segment in two separate segments. One is the property casualty end of the business and the life end of the business. Uh the private equity firms that you mentioned are all very active in the life end of the business, not the property casualty end of the business. uh you are

right in identifying the risks in these private equity firms are taking on both in terms of leverage and in terms of credit risk and while the economy is doing great and credit spreads are low these pe the private equity firms who've taken the assets from very conservative investments and I won't say high octane but they've certainly invested these assets in situations where that where they get a lot more uh return on the investment and as I said as long as the economy is good and credit spreads are low they will make money they'll make a

lot of money because of leverage uh however there is always the danger that at some point the regulators might get cranky and say you know you're taking too too much risk on behalf of your policy holders uh and that could end in tears is we do not like the riskreward that these situations offer and therefore we put up the white flag and said, you know, we can't compete in this segment right now. Yeah, I think there are people that want to copy virtuous model, but usually they don't want to copy it by also copying the

model of the CEO having all of his money in the company forever. And uh I mean they've got a different equation. They're they're interested in and and you know and that's capitalism, but they have a whole different uh situation and then they probably have a somewhat different fiduciary feeling uh about what they're doing. And uh and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, they go on to other things. And if I what we do here at Bergkshire doesn't work, I spend the end of my life regretting what I've created.

So it it's uh it's just a whole different personal equation. And uh there is no property casualty company that can basically replicate Birkshire. That that wasn't the case at the start. I mean at the start we just had national indemnity a few miles from here and anybody could have duplicated what we had but uh but that was before a G and and the G came with us in 1986 and and at that point the other fellow should have given up. [Applause] Yeah. Station seven, please. Hi, my name is Marie. I'm from Melrose, Massachusetts. Thank you

for the time today. As a young person interested in investing like myself, I would love to hear your insights, Mr. Buffett. What were some pivotal lessons you learned early in your career? And what advice do you have young for young investors who are looking to develop their investment philosophy? Thank you. Well, those are good questions. I wish I I thought of them myself earlier in my life. Uh the you know who you associate with is just enormously important and don't expect that you'll make every decision right on that. I mean, but you you are going

to go into you're going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends. Uh I mentioned a few fellows that that have died in the last couple years. Well, all of those people were people that that that that uh you know, if we were working together on something one 10,000th of size of Burkshire, I mean, they'd be the kind of people you choose. You just they're they're people that make you want to be better than you are. And you want

to hang out with people that are better than you are and that you feel are better than you are because you're going to go in the direction of the people that you you associate with. And uh and that's that's something you learn. And of course, you learn it late in life and that uh you you uh it's hard to really appreciate how important some of those factors are until you get much older. But when you've got people around you like Tom Murphy and and like like well like just name him Sandy Goddisdman that uh Walter

Scott but uh you're just going to live a better life than than uh you do if you just go out and look at somebody that's making a lot of money and decide you're going to try and copy him or something of the sort. uh uh so I would I would I would try to I tried to be associated with smart people too where I could learn a lot from them and I would try to look for something that I would do if I didn't need the money. I mean what you're really looking for life is

something where you've got a job that you'd hold if you didn't need the money and I've had that surely had it for a very very long time. In fact, all the fellows I named uh had it and uh and they also every one of those ones I named, they always did more than their share and they sought they never sought more than their share of the credit. They just behaved as the way you you'd like anybody you you work with. And when you find them, you treasure them and and when you don't find them, you

still keep doing whatever causes you to eat uh or enables you to eat. But uh but you don't you don't give up on on looking around and you will find you'll find people do wonderful things for you. I mentioned I mentioned uh uh earlier the you know going down to Geico and knocking on the door when the door was locked. I mean, who knows what was behind that door. I went in, but but know in 10 minutes I found that I had a man that uh was going to be just wonderfully helpful to me. And

of course, if somebody's going to be helpful to you, you want to try to figure out ways to be helpful to them. So, you get a compounding of of good intentions and good behavior. And unfortunately, you can get the reverse of that in life, too. and uh and you know with a lot of I I was lucky in having a a good environment for uh living that kind of a life and and other people you know have a whole different environmental situation. have to overcome it. But don't be don't feel guilty about your good luck

if you've got if if you know if you've got uh well if you live in the United States you you know you you you've you've uh there 8 billion people in the world and there's 330 million United States you've already won the game uh to a great degree and then just keep making the most of it. But you you don't want to you don't want to associate with people or enterprises that ask you to do something that or tell you to do something that you shouldn't be doing. And uh that's one of the problems. I

mean the different professions select for different types of people and uh uh there's it's interesting to me that in the investment business uh uh so many people get out of it after they've made a pile of money that that uh uh it it you really want something that you'll stick around for. you know whether you need the money. Greg doesn't need the money or G doesn't need the money uh remotely and they but they enjoy what they do and they're so damn good at it. It's it it's uh you know it just well I've had

the advantage of seeing how that works over time. the best manager I ever knew and there's a lot of contention for who that would be but actually was Tom Murphy senior that uh who lived the the almost 98 and uh I've never seen anybody that could get the potential out of other people uh more than than uh Murf. I mean, if if if you wanted to if you wanted to become a better person, you want to work for for Tom Murphy. And uh uh there are all kinds of successful people that really don't have that

sort of don't bring that to the party. And and I'm not saying that's the only way to succeed, but I think it's I think it's the most pleasant way to succeed for sure. And uh uh and I think that you know the the Bergkshire experience is pretty dramatic. I mean to to operate with Sandy Goddisman from 1963 until he died a couple years ago. And um Walter Scott 30 years and Clayton operated with him for 25 years or so, whatever it was. Yeah. 30. Yeah. And and uh you know, you really can't miss it. Uh

and you know, you you'll learn all the time, but you'll you'll not only learn how to be successful at business, you'll learn how to be successful at life. And uh uh so that's that's that's my recommendation and that u and uh and for some reason I apparently you live longer too because it's pretty amazing. I mean, these people I'm talking about, including myself, I mean, I mean, you know, you can I like to attribute it to this and a few other things, but I I I think a happy person lives longer than somebody that that

that's uh doing some things that they don't really admire that much in life. Okay. Uh let's move on to I guess it's Becky next. Um the first quarter ended March 31st and it did show that Bergkshire's cash pile expanded from the end of the last year. But the greatest market turmoil came in April. Martin Devine, a shareholder from Scotland who is attending the meeting today wants to know, has the recent market volatility presented Bergkshire with opportunities? And Martin just wrote in an addendum in the last 40 minutes or so pointing out that you mentioned Berkshire

almost invested10 billion dollars recently and wanting to know if you could talk more about that. Well the I can give you a good answer to the second part which is [Laughter] no but 10 billion wouldn't have done that much. You know that's the other side another side of it. Uh what has happened in the last uh 30 30 45 days, 100 days, whatever, whatever you want to pick up, whatever this uh this uh period has been is is it's really nothing. There's been three times since we acquired Bergkshire that Bergkshire has gone down 50%. Uh

in a fairly short period of time, three different times. Nothing was fundamentally wrong with the company at any time. But but this is not a huge move. Uh the Dow Jones average at 381 in September of 1929. they got down to 42. So that's by going from 100 uh to 11. Uh this is not this has not been a dramatic uh bare market or anything of the sort. I mean it uh it it you know like it uh pointed out if I've I've had 200 and 50 trading days a day, you know, for however many

years I've been old enough to trade stocks. Got 17 or 18,000 days. There's been plenty of periods that that uh uh just are dramatically different than this. I mean, when the day I was born, the Dow Jones was at 240. And my first that was August 30th, 1930. And between that and the low, it went from 240 to 41. I mean, so if people think that it made a really major change, it it didn't if it if it gone up 15% instead of down 15%, people think they take that with remarkable grace. But uh but

uh if it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you you're you're you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy because the world is not going to adapt to you. You're going to have to adapt to the world and you will see a period in the next certainly in the next 20 years. You'll see a period that that that we'll be in. But somebody in the market described one time as a hair curler compared to anything you've seen before. I mean that just it just happens periodically. The world

makes big big big mistakes and surprises happen in dramatic ways. And the more sophisticated the system gets, the more the surprises can be out of right field. That's that that's just that's part of the stock market and that's what makes it a good place to to focus your efforts if you got the proper temperament for it and a terrible place to get involved if if you get frightened by markets that decline and and get excited when stock markets go up. I don't mean to sound particularly critical. I mean, I know and people have emotions, but

you got to check them at the door when you invest. Okay. Station 8, please. Good morning, Mr. Muffet, Mr. Greg, and Mr. A. My name is Peter Chen. I'm from Shanghai, China. This is my first time attending this shareholders meeting. I would like to ask a question about the wisdom of life. Have you ever encountered any major setbacks or or low points in your life and how did you get through and overcome them? Thank you very much. Yeah. Well, everybody gets setbacks and uh and some people have particularly bad luck in that respect and others

get through it with fairly minors. But Charlie, you know, but uh he had setbacks, I had setbacks. I mean, it it it's it's part of life and uh and they're not any fun. I don't have any great advice for you about about uh you know having the time of your life while you're having some major setback but but uh it it you know it it comes with lifetime you know but uh you certainly have a setback when you die and so everybody's got that setback guaranteed to them and uh but some people get and I

mean It isn't a laughing matter in a sense because I mean people get extraordinary bad luck and other people get extraordinary good luck. Usually the people who get good luck don't really think it was so much luck as themselves but but you're just going to have it. I think you're going to I think that you're less likely to have it in terms of medical problems in terms of you know various things in life. I mean, you were born at a good time. I mean, you if you look all the way through the history of China,

when when would you rather have been born? You know, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, thousand years ago, or now, you know, it it it's just hands down, you'd be lucky. I mean, you know, if if I came from 20 generations of shepherds, I I I think I get kind of tired of, you know, my life just looking at these sheep every day. But, uh, you know, we can sit here and I can I can watch Nebraska not quite played the same game of football that we played 20 years ago. But, but I mean, everything

in life has been made so much better. uh that you've got to figure that you do a lucky story straw by, you know, staying in the womb for a couple hundred thousand years and then just emerging at at the right time. Uh so I would I would focus on the things that have been good in your life rather than than than the bad things that happen because bad things do happen. But but uh it it it it's uh it it it can often be a wonderful life. You can get terrible breaks in it. I mean,

you know, it uh uh so far that really hasn't happened with me, but it's happened with some of my friends, but you get some bad breaks from time to time. Uh uh but for 94 years I've been able to drink whatever I want to drink. And you know they they predict all kinds of terrible things for me but it hasn't happened yet. So and it's true. I mean, if you look at what pro football players are making now and everything compared to what they were making 30 or 40 years ago, you can say, "Well, isn't

that wonderful?" But if you look at the if you look at the lifespan of professional athletes, after a while, you get used to really decide that you're better off if you uh if you really weren't the first one chosen to be on the baseball team or the basketball team or anything. anything else. The uh the human body uh well Charlie and I and I think I speak for the others to some extent that and we we never didn't we never really exercise that much or did anything. We were we were carefully preserving ourselves for the

years. So, but look at the bright side of things to the extent that you can and that uh and you know, you're lucky enough to you're here today, you're healthy, you come from a long distance and and uh and you're getting a chance to learn more about something that interests you. And uh compare that with the situation couple hundred years ago that you would have been offered. So anyway, that's enough moralizing. Okay, Becky. Uh this question comes from Himmanu Bendal for a Jeet and Warren. Um, autonomous vehicles are already driving across roads in American cities

with no driver involvement. How do Warren and Ajet think about any disruption risk from these autonomous vehicles to GEICO's auto insurance business, which is built around understanding and underwriting human drivers? Wouldn't what we call auto insurance today just become product liability for autonomous vehicles and autonomous software companies? Well, a Jeep. Yeah, there's no question that uh insurance for automobiles is going to change dramatically once self-driving cars become a reality. Uh the big change that we will see is what you identified. Most of the insurance that is sold and bought revolves around operator errors and how

often they happen, how severe they are, and therefore what premium we ought to charge. To the extent these new self-driving cars are most safe and are involved in fewer accidents, uh that insurance will be less required. Instead, it'll be substituted by, as you mentioned, product liability. So we at Geico and elsewhere are certainly trying to get ready for that switch where we move from providing insurance for operator errors and be more ready to provide protection for product errors and errors and omissions in the construction of these automobiles. Yeah, we expect we expect change in all

our businesses and uh good thing we didn't. Charlie pushed me into it, but but uh if I'd settled for being in New England textiles, you know, and even though it worked well for 70 years or so prior there too, you know, it the world changes and and if the game didn't change at all really would be very interesting, you know, it uh uh if every time you if ever every time you know, swung at a baseball, you hit a home run, the game wouldn't be interesting. If every time you hit a golf, a golf ball,

you had a hole in one, it wouldn't be interesting. So, it the fact that there will be things you have to think about all the time as you go along and you'll make mistakes and all that. And that's really part of the fun. I mean, that your your your brain would turn to mush if you didn't have a few problems now and then. So um I I uh you know auto insurance will change although it's remarkable how little it has changed but it's only been around since you know relatively small time and who knows what

we're doing to move in transportation a 100 years from now if you go back a couple hundred years ago who could have predicted the United States would look like what it does and people would move like they do and people would enjoy enjoy themselves like they do. But I mean, it's just it it it's it's a it's a dynamic world. And the biggest thing we have to worry about, unfortunately, is that that uh we've learned how to destroy the world, too. and in in in in recent years. And so we've got this wonderful world which

now we we know that there are eight countries that and probably a ninth coming on that can destroy and and uh uh and we don't have what I would consider the necessarily the perfect people leading each of one of the nine or or some of the nine countries. And uh you know when Einstein came up with the equals MC² back in 1905 he uh he didn't dream of the fact I mean then that energy could really be converted or uh mass could be converted into energy and the way that we change the world. When I

was born in 1930, they had known about the law of physics that that Einstein had come up with uh 25 years earlier. Nobody to my knowledge had thought what can this do to change uh warfare in the future. And literally uh it just wasn't thought. Einstein didn't think about it at at that point. And uh and then in 1939 Roosevelt got a letter around month before Germany moved into Poland got around August 1st. It's the most famous letter in history from from Leo Zard. Leo Zard couldn't get his letter in front of Roosevelt because who

ever heard of Leo Zard? But he got Einstein to sign it. And uh Roosevelt probably understood about as much about physics as I do. So he he didn't understand it, but he understood that Einstein signed it. So he calls in General Rover, may not have been general then, and said, "We should do something about this." And and all we did was learn how to destroy the world. And uh we needed to do it. and and uh Germany had Heisenberg and he looked like he was he was ahead of us and uh uh we can't put

that genie back in the bottle and it's the world does change and we've got all these one we've got wonderful things but u but we also have you We have a guy in North Korea. If you if we criticize his haircut, him, you know, who knows what he might decide to do with what is what does North Korea need uh nuclear weapons for? I mean, it uh can that be a good thing in the world? But they're not going to go away. So, it's a it's it's a world of change. And we are enjoying incredible

change that's contributed everybody in this room living so much better than people were living a couple hundred years ago. But we haven't been able to to avoid we haven't changed human beings very much so far. We've we've certainly changed weapons of mass destruction and and uh but we haven't made much progress with the human race and and uh we'll see what happens with that. But in the meantime, we'll see changes in auto insurance too and cars and and uh that that will be be more in it be easier for us to deal with it than

it was when we had to deal with the problems of of turning out textiles in New England. And uh you know, you deal with the world as it develops. And like I say, everybody here is living in the luckiest period, but but you know, enjoy your luck and uh and uh and you still try to figure out the answers to what's going to happen. Yeah. In all insurance as we go along and we've we've done pretty well actually adapting to the answers. There's a few big problems in insurance and uh I don't know how the

insurance industry adapts to them particularly, but but that makes the game interesting. You really don't you wouldn't want to go out and play golf if you know you're going to hit the ball in the hole on every hole. Uh I'd just like to add we talked about the shift to product liability and to protection for accidents that take place because of a error in terms of how the product was designed or supplied. Uh the only thing I want to add is in addition to the that shift I think what we'll see is a major shift

where the number of accidents that take place and need to be provided for will drop dramatically because of automatic driving. But on the other hand, the cost per repair, every time there's an accident, the cost of repairing and bringing everything back to where it used to be would go up very significantly because of the amount of technology that's going into the uh into the car. How those two variables interact with each other in terms of the total cost of providing the insurance, I think, is still an open issue. I'll give you two interesting figures to

ponder. When I walked into a guy's office in 1950, the average price of a policy was around 40 bucks a year. Uh it varies all over the lot depending on location, everything, but but uh uh you know it's pretty easy to get up to $2,000 and depending on how urban your areas are and uh everything can get considerably higher. During that same time, the number of people killed in auto accidents uh have fallen from roughly six per 100 million miles driven a little over one. So the car has become incredibly safer and it costs 50

times as much down or thereabouts to buy insurance policy. So, uh, when people talk about the developments in car driving and all that sort of thing, it it's a lot easier sometimes. I mean, the the Buck Rogers aspect of it. People look at, but they don't actually think of what really happens to the math of the business. The insurance auto insurance industry has been a huge growth industry. And for that matter, uh, homeowners insurance prices in Nebraska have doubled in the last 10 years, adjusted for general inflation and uh, convective storms, you know, have just

gone on a tear and it's still unprofitable to write a home b homeowners insurance in Nebraska after doubling the in the last 10 years. So, it's very hard to predict what these big changes mean. And you just have to keep thinking all the time. But you don't want to read some research report that says the world's coming to an end or the world's going to be wonderful because of this or that because there's about 50 other developments going on at the same time that you uh that you need to think about that uh and that

you needed to keep observing as you go along. You don't re you never reach an answer in this business. you reach a point of action that you take. But but but uh we try to get into as high probability things as we think we can do and play the game in the same way. But but it will be different than you think and and you should wake up every morning and think about that too if you're if you're in the business of of managing businesses. Hey, Warren, as we approach the break, uh would you like

to address the operating earn? Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's put up the uh we released our 10 Q this morning and um uh we always try to do it on a Saturday so nobody gets a jump on other people and we we just have three simple um charge. you'll see that uh our insurance underwriting income was down dramatically for the first quarter and last year was as good a year as you'll see in insurance that uh uh and it's always unpredictable insurance but everything broke our way uh or the insurance industry's way last year. Prices are

down this year. Risks are up this year. So you don't have to be a genius to figure out what the answer is on that. So uh but we have we do have unusual advantages in the insurance business. Uh that can't really be replicated by our competition. That doesn't mean they aren't trying to get advantages. We don't have that. But we'll try to replicate anything that seems better. In fact, we'll try and top it. But we I wouldn't talk about our insurance business as much as I do it unless I really thought we had some really

permanent advantages in a very very large industry. We just announced within the last 24 hours that we and Zurich and Shub have arranged a joint operation to be the uh writer of of really large sums that that very few people can do. And of course, we got to write them at the right price in terms of liability, but but we can do that sort of thing without blinking. and anybody that wants to do it wants to get us in it. I mean it uh so anyway our investment income uh did not change that much because

we have a float that grows a little bit which gives us more money for investment and then we have retained earnings which grow. So we would expect in any year to have like 40 billion or more that that we'll build up investments unless we find things uh to do with it. So the investment income rates on treasuries are less than they were or short-term bills I should say are are less than they were before. So you had that negative effect pulling it down but not that much and we had more money. So we came up

with a little more earn in the way of earnings. The railroad is earning a little more than than last year, but it's not earning what it it it should be earning at the present time. And but that that's solvable and uh and and is getting getting solved. Uh and it's it's still an incredible asset for Bergkshire. The energy company last year was having particular problems and those are absent this year. So those earnings are up and uh and then uh among our range of general businesses they were pretty much a push and I think I

think you did a little calculation the other day on how many were up and how many were down did you Greg? Yeah of our uh 49 that we measure closely uh 20 21 were up and 28 were down. So you can tell it was really a a mixed quarter when you go go across uh the operating the non- insurance operating businesses. Yeah. The next slide uh I'm getting a fivem minute warning here. The uh we'll throw the long ball now. the uh uh shows our financial condition which continues to hold a lot more in cash

treasury than I would like but I but that's simply a question of when opportunities occur and and if you get real opportunities every five or six years you're you know you have to be patient. Charlie always pointed out that we made most of our money out of about eight or nine ideas over 50 years and u and we talked about it every day and we read every report and we did everything else. But but if you think you can get an idea a day from listening to your Frederick book or or doing a lot of

reading of the of the financial information published or uh forget it because every now and then you get extraordinary opportunities and most of the time you don't have much of an edge. Uh so uh we also have on that thing our float which continues to build. I don't think any there's no company that has property casualty company that has our fold is their achievement and yeah clearly we are heads and shoulders above anyone else. Yeah, it uh so that is money that as long as we're writing it and underwriting profit is absolutely free money. But

um and and we would expect that over a 50 or 100year period that that we would be able to say the same thing. But uh there will be there there will be years when you have a very bad underwriting record and and it'll lead into the float earnings. But so far in the last 20 years, I think uh we've only had what one underwriting loss of any. Yeah, I think if you look at the entire range including life insurance, our cost of float is 2.2 negative. That means we've got the float plus somebody's given us

2.2% of that of cash to Yeah. It's like running a running a bank where people leave their money with you and and you pay a minus 2.2% and you don't have any check clearing or anything else to do and it's included in that. So it it but we run our business actually with a different mindset than than than any other PC company I think probably in the world and and and I wouldn't be talking about it if I thought they could duplicate it. And then uh the final the final pages on share repurchases and clearly

we haven't made any we have not made share repurchases so far this year and uh share repurchases if if Bergkshire buys Bergkshire shares and repurchases we've now pay more than you will pay if you buy Berkshire shares. I don't think people generally know that, but but there is a a tax that was introduced here or so ago. Uh where we pay 1% and that not only hurts us uh because we pay more for it than you do. It's a better deal for you than for us. Uh but it actually hurts some of our investy companies

quite substantially. And you know, Tim Cook has done a wonderful job, I mean really wonderful job running uh Apple, but he spent a hundred billion dollars roughly in a year repurchasing shares and there's a 1% charge attached to that now. So that that's a billion dollars a year that he pays when he buys Apple stock in, which we like compared to what you pay. and and it doesn't sound like much, but well, a billion dollars sounds like a lot still in order, but uh there are people that want to increase that that particular rate dramatically

and and uh and you you won't read about it or anything like that, but it does make it's slightly less attractive uh than than it was before. And we will only buy in our shares if we think that they are almost certainly underpriced as valued very conservatively. And and uh uh we get that opportunity occasionally, but the higher that charge goes that the federal government charges us for doing it, the less we will be able to do over purchases. So on that happy note, we will rejoin uh at 1:00 and uh uh we will I'm

sorry correct that correct that to 11:00 and then we will yeah 11:00 and then we'll continue till 1:00 and then in the meantime enjoy yourself and uh uh and I think all our stars Doors are still open. So bring the cash register.