1. 00:00 – Buffett on his decision to stop donations to Gates Foundation<\/p>\n
BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Warren, first of all, thank you for sitting down and talking with us today. I appreciate it.<\/p>\n
WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0It’s always good to sit down. (Laughs)<\/p>\n
BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yes, I find the same thing.<\/p>\n
The last time we sat down and spoke with you, or I guess it was two times ago in March when we sat down with you to talk about what you were doing with your charitable giving, you said that you were going to be watching and waiting, that you were kind of waiting to see what came out about Bill Gates and the Epstein files and what had happened.<\/p>\n
You said you hadn’t determined what you were going to do.<\/p>\n
Today you put out a release saying that you will be increasing the amount of money that you give to the\u00a0Susan Thomas Buffett Foundation<\/a>, your three children’s foundations, but there will be nothing given right now to the\u00a0Gates Foundation<\/a>. Is that your decision?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0That’s correct. That’s correct.<\/p>\n But \u2014 but in interpreting that, I would point out that I’ve read a great deal since January 1 in terms of what happened with Bill and Epstein, and I’ve read his remarks to Congress given under oath, and I’ve read cross examination, and while it’s distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people or choosing friends, and then finding out later that they \u2014 that one way or another, they weren’t what I thought they were.<\/p>\n And so I found nothing in there that that was beyond what I could see \u2014 I could picture myself doing.<\/p>\n And, you know, he ended it. And I’ve had situations where I made mistakes about people or people may have felt they made mistakes about me.<\/p>\n But they \u2014 you know \u2014 life goes on and \u2014 and no one \u2014 no one bats 1.000 in the business of choosing people,<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0 You’re talking about hiring decisions, maybe who you’re associating yourself with, and there were certainly some questionable decisions on that that came up in the release of these files, but there was also other, you know, personal information.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. No. He \u2014 which he admitted to.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. No. And there again, I would say that, you know, I would \u2014 I’ve known some pretty wonderful people, and I still know some wonderful people.<\/p>\n I don’t think they’ve made every decision correctly.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So why, if that’s your opinion on it, why are you no longer giving money to the Gates Foundation?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, I reevaluated my whole situation.<\/p>\n It’s just like I’ve been doing since I was in my 20s, and we’d gotten married, Susie and I, and we didn’t really have any money, but we did know that we intended to live fine, and we intended to have a family, and \u2014 but we did not have aspirations of, you know, having six houses or a 500-foot yacht or anything of the sort.<\/p>\n So even then, we talked about what we would do philanthropically. But my idea, and conviction, was that I would compound money at a better rate than society generally, and that Susie would give it away better than 99.9 percent of the people that were giving it away, and she would get involved personally with the gifts, whereas I like to do things wholesale, and she liked to do things retail.<\/p>\n So we had a plan, but we didn’t have any money. And over time the money started to pile up, and she would say, “Are we rich yet?” And I would say, “No, but we’re getting closer.”<\/p>\n But I was not in a hurry to do anything. We did some small things as we went along. I did it.<\/p>\n I felt the most important threat to mankind was \u2014 was the \u2014 was the nuclear bomb. \u00a0And so I had sort of grandiose plans in my mind about how I could change the probabilities of that happening, and I finally came to the conclusion, after decades, that I could not have a 100th, or 1,000th, of 1 percent chance of succeeding in that.<\/p>\n And, you know, it’s nice to bet on long shots, but betting on things that are essentially \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So you’ve changed your plans?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0So I changed plans.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Why did you change your plans?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, we changed plans because of what I’ve set out here. The money began \u2014 the money began to pile up \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0No, but you changed your \u2014 you changed your plan now. In 2024, you said it was a lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n Now in 2026, you are saying that’s not the case. What happened?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, what happened was that I gave the Gates Foundation a great deal of money \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Maybe 47 billion dollars in total?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. And I had no \u2014 and I thought that was a good decision. I think it was a decent decision.<\/p>\n But I did not think my kids were in any way ready to give away vast sums of money.<\/p>\n We’d started \u2014 Susie and I started with them \u2014 I think we gave them \u2014 we may have given them a hundred thousand dollars each.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0This goes back 30 years at this point, or longer?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0That’s about right. Yeah.<\/p>\n But they were growing children. You know, they had children, you know, they had children of their own by that time.<\/p>\n But still \u2014 they \u2014they \u2014 I don’t think they were ready for it. And I certainly wanted to treat them all equally. So that’s always a problem \u2014 is \u2014 if they have unequal talents of something.<\/p>\n Now, I can’t turn them all into musicians, and I can’t turn them all into baseball players or anything.<\/p>\n But I really hoped in the charitable field that they would have common goals and be able to work out among themselves a way where, with vast amounts of money, that everybody felt there was plenty to do what they wanted to do. And I have the \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And you think that’s the case today?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u00a0Pardon me?<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0You think that’s the case today?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I feel the probabilities of that are extraordinarily high.<\/p>\n And \u2014 now \u2014 is \u2014 could something happen to this plan? Of course. I mean, I’ve got three children that are 72 and 71, and look at my age.<\/p>\n I mean, things can happen in this world that cause you to change \u2014 to change.<\/p>\n But I have no expectation of changing. I mean, as far as I’m as concerned, we’ve reached the ideal point.<\/p>\n We \u2014 we kicked. Well, Susie died in 2004, so it’s been more me kicking up the amount they receive annually. And clearly, they feel happy with the job, too.<\/p>\n I mean, there’s no sense sticking people in a job that they \u2014 they aren’t fit for, or that \u2014 where they differ totally from you and your views.<\/p>\n I mean that \u2014 that \u2014 I had different views in life than my dad, who I admired more than anybody in the world, but it still didn’t mean that I joined his church or, you know, did \u2014 did anything identically. And \u2014 and he encouraged that view.<\/p>\n He would \u2014 he would quote to me Emerson, which \u2014 where Emerson said something to the effect that the force in you is new in nature. You know, he’s saying, you know, you’re one of a kind. Find out what that one is.<\/p>\n And I think I found it very young by luck, circumstance, and pretty purposeful pursuit myself.<\/p>\n My kids did not. They behaved like \u2014 like most kids. They \u2014 they flirted with a lot of different ideas. And \u2014 but I feel 100 percent now about what I have seen them do.<\/p>\n My son Howard just published a 100 page or so report explaining what he’s doing, why he’s doing, what it’s costing.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0An annual report for the\u00a0Howard Buffett Foundation<\/a>?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. And it’s better than I could write.<\/p>\n He’s \u2014 he \u2014 he has a sense of stewardship, and \u2014 and he also has enormous empathy for people he sees that don’t have it as lucky as he has.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So then is it fair to say 20 years ago in 2006, when you made this decision, you trusted the Gates Foundation more than your children, and now you trust your children more than the Gates Foundation?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0No, the amounts were different. It isn’t to say that I trusted them differently, but I felt they were capable of handling \u2014<\/p>\n And I was certainly not going to turn something over to my kids and then pull it back from them. I mean, and \u2014<\/p>\n And the Gates Foundation has turned out to earn far more money than they expected to do. They spend more money than anybody in the world that I can think of.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah. They have an endowment of \u2014 north of 90 billion dollars, I think it is.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0It’s around that figure, and Bill has very substantial resources outside, which he intends to give, and I believe \u2014 a hundred percent \u2014 I believe that they will go there.<\/p>\n And I, you know \u2014 I’ve really done the same thing as Bill, in a certain sense. I’m \u2014 except I’m \u2014 when I put it in, I tell the three children that that it is theirs and it’s their responsibility to get it done well.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and you may find this hard to believe, but it’s true. I’ve never looked at their Form 990s, which they file. I \u2014 I’m not judging each action as it takes place, because you take actions where you think there’s only a 10 percent or 20 percent probability of success. It’s not like investments.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But what are your goals for the money? And you kind of intimated that the kids have similar goals as to what you have.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0There’s \u2014 there are all kinds of ways in which the world is as unequal as you can possibly imagine. I mean, just imagine in health, or the luck of birth, or all of those sort of things. And the ultimate goal is to make life better for the people who get short straws.<\/p>\n And there’s a lot more people who get short straws than we’ll ever be able to take care of, and \u2014 and my kids will have more insight into certain areas than I would. And I have more insight than \u2014 than they do just because of different interests and exposure.<\/p>\n But the one thing I’m convinced of is that they will be attempting to do something, and they’ll be better at it. And the probability is that they’ve got more years to live than I do.<\/p>\n So, I mean, it really sneaks up on you when you get to be in the 70s or something like that.<\/p>\n But I wouldn’t \u2014 I can’t think of a person in the world that \u2014 30 or under, for example \u2014 I would trust to do it.<\/p>\n I think there’s all kinds of brilliant people that are 30 or under, and they may turn out to be leaders of society and \u2014 and terribly important writers, or whatever it may be. But I do think there’s something to seeing how people behave under different circumstances.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0The kids are going to come under pressure, and probably already have, from a long list of people who think that they should fund their ideas.<\/p>\n I saw something today on X that Brad Gerstner put out suggesting that you give the money to Trump accounts, that there are other great things to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n What do you say to the lots and lots of people who will say this is where you should put that money, or what do you think they should say?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0If you take 8 billion people in the world and feel that everybody should have an equal chance, I mean, you could \u2014 you could spend a thousand dollars or 10 thousand dollars, and you know, to solve everybody’s problems. You’re never going to solve everybody’s problems.<\/p>\n The idea of serving \u2014 solving a societal problem, which is what I started out as, with \u2014 with a nuclear weapon \u2014 I mean, everybody who worked on the nuclear weapon regretted the fact that they had to put together something like that. The most brilliant people in the world, but they never figured out how to put the [genie] back in the bottle.<\/p>\n And, you know, that \u2014 that is not something that society in the first couple hundred million years of existence there \u2014 couple million \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Do any of those plans, though, like the Trump accounts, appeal to you? Do you think they appeal to the kids? Do you \u2014 or do you just leave it to the kids and say, you figure it out?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I leave it to the kids. But I do have this provision in my will, not in these gifts that I’m giving now, but in the \u2014 the bulk of my fortune is likely to be left upon my death, even though I’m stepping up the \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah. I will say right now it’s 140 billion dollars that you have left, based on yesterday’s closing stock price, in terms of the\u00a0Class A<\/a>\u00a0shares you have left.<\/p>\n If \u2014 the money you gave out this year is 6 billion dollars.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. It’ll have to go up.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right, it’s 17 and a half billion dollars, at least, annually, and that’s assuming that Berkshire doesn’t go from here \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 if you want this to be given out in eight years, as you’ve said.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u2014 which is a terrible assumption, incidentally. I mean, that is not a realistic assumption.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0To give 17 and a half billion dollars away, annually?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0No. That \u2014 that an investment produces nothing.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Oh, correct. So \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I get about 5% Treasury bills, you know.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right. How much did you have when you started making these donations in 2006? We were talking about less than a hundred billion dollars at that point, right?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So you’ve given away 67 billion dollars, and now you have 140 billion dollars left to give as of today.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Which is the nature of compound interest.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0That’s one thing I understand. (Laughs)<\/p>\n I may not understand all these other things, but \u2014and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But 17 and a half billion dollars, even if it weren’t to go up, is more money than anybody is giving away right now. And the Gates Foundation gave away, what, 8 billion dollars last year?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, that’s \u2014 that’s about right. And \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0That’s a lot.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0And they did it \u2014 they did it employing, you know, a few thousand people, which almost any foundation would, that had that kind of money.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and I \u2014 I’m impressed by the fact that my kids really want to give the money away rather than do other things with it as they go along. So they \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0You mean rather than spend it on themselves?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, or buildings or anything of the sort.<\/p>\n Now, when they’re \u2014 they’ll need more help as they go along. But I \u2014 I think \u2014 I think the foundations employ something between \u2014 there’s three of them now \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Four of them, with the STB (Susan Thompson Buffett) Foundation.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, with STB.<\/p>\n Well, let’s take the kids first, because there they make the total decision as to what they’re doing. And they have between 11 and 25 employees, and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Total? Between the three foundations?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0No, each.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Each. OK.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. \u00a0And \u2014 and they have expense ratios far below that of institutions that are much better known and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Expense ratios closer to one percent or less?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0What they’ve shown \u2014 they’ve shown \u2014 they’ve shown that they’re not regarding it as play money.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right. Right. Meaning that the bulk \u2014 almost everything they get goes back out the door.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, it really all goes out the door eventually, but \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0But yeah \u2014 yeah. They \u2014 they’re not going to build, you know, huge office buildings or hold conferences at esoteric places and all kinds of things.<\/p>\n You know, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. I mean \u2014<\/p>\n But the important thing is whether people that have, you know, a hundred times what they need and don’t pass it along to somebody else for the next generation. And \u2014 and many parts of the world have been doing that for thousands of years.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah, you’re not a big fan of bureaucracy. Berkshire Hathaway was run here, in this office, with 25 people or something in the home office.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Twenty-five people. And we probably went up \u2014 we probably grew in size 10-for-one before we added the last two or three.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Uh huh.<\/p>\n Before we move on, does \u00a0\u2014 does Bill Gates know about this? When we spoke with you in March, you said you had not spoken with him since any of these allegations started coming out.<\/p>\n He said the same thing last month in \u2014 in June when he sat down with this congressional testimony, that he had not spoken with you since January.<\/p>\n Have you spoken with him since? And does this come as a surprise to him?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0No \u2014 no, it does not come as a surprise.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and B), he came by Omaha, I don’t know, three weeks ago \u2014 or \u2014 I kind of lose track on time \u2014 but certainly not three months \u2014 but three \u2014 since we talked. And we spent three hours talking together, and \u2014 and \u2014 and he’s \u2014 he \u2014 he intends to call me. He’s the one that initiates calls, just generally.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and as you can see, I’m available anytime. (Laughs)<\/p>\n But \u2014 he’s \u2014 he’s much more organized than I am, and \u2014 but he already proposed another one, and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Another meeting?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. And \u2014 and \u2014 he is \u2014 we have had an enormous number of good times together since we met \u2014 whenever it was \u2014 what was it, 1991?<\/p>\n And he’s always done more than his share of it \u2014 always more than his share. You don’t see me doing the planning or doing \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0In the friendship, you mean?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. It’s \u2014 it’s \u2014 it’s been a wonderful friendship.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and Bill and I are interested in enough things that overlap that we find plenty to talk about, and then each of us has got his own specialty to some extent.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But you told him three \u2014 three weeks ago or so when you met him that you would not be making any more donations to the Gates Foundation?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, I may have even \u2014 may have been even \u2014 I can’t tell you exactly when I told him.<\/p>\n But \u2014 but at some point, I had read the \u2014 I had read what Congress came up with. I’d read everything.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and all I can say is, you know, I’ve \u2014 I don’t know whether I’ve done dumper things, but I’ve done things that \u2014 I’ve just done many dumb things in life.<\/p>\n I mean, that is \u2014 all I have to do is look at our portfolio. I mean, four out of five of our \u2014 at least four out of five of \u2014 of the decisions I’ve made have not been anything out of the ordinary. But \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But he was OK when you told him \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 that this was \u2014 OK.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So he’s on board. None of this is news to him.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n Bill, unlike me, more or less, I think wants it to end when \u2014 when he dies. Then of course he doesn’t know when he’s \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0His foundation?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0The Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n Whereas, I hope that my kids live a lot longer than \u2014 than I do, and I hope all three participate. And I think all three will be better off for doing it.<\/p>\n But that \u2014 that’s not a decision that was made \u2014 well, when Susie and I started giving them \u2014 I think we moved it up to, maybe, 30 million a year, and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0To the kids’ foundations?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0No, actually to \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK: Oh.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u2014 to \u2014 but \u2014 to their foundations. I don’t remember the exact figures at all.<\/p>\n But we gave it to them when we were 99 percent sure that \u2014 that they \u2014 well, we knew they were willing and \u2014 and in some cases, in a certain way, eager, to do things for other people.<\/p>\n They \u2014 they’ve had a good life. They haven’t \u2014 they haven’t \u2014<\/p>\n Well, they’ve followed that rule that somebody told me a long time ago, but \u2014 which I get credit for, but I didn’t think of it myself \u2014 which is that if you’re the child of some very rich family, that you should have enough \u2014 you should be given enough to do \u2014 to do \u2014 to do something, but not enough to do nothing.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0And that’s \u2014 that’s exactly what’s been going on at an increased scale, but \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Just to \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0But I have to step it up now, because, you know, at my age, you know, the probabilities really get against me.<\/p>\n So that the last will I wrote is \u2014 is very likely to be my final will. Whereas the wills that I was writing when I was 30 or 40 or 50, I knew they would change.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right. Let’s \u2014 let’s talk about that.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 \u00a0 21:23 – Accelerating the pace of donations<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0The other thing that you’re announcing in this is that you would like to see the money go out at an expedited \u2014 and the shares go out \u2014 at an expedited rate.<\/p>\n To this point, it had kind of been 10 years after your death, you thought the shares would all be disbursed to charity.<\/p>\n Now you’re saying that you would like all of those shares to be disbursed eight years from now, by the end of 2034.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0What \u2014 what changed your mind on that, and what does that mean?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, it certainly means that I had \u2014 I had two purposes in \u2014 in all the philanthropy, and \u2014 and in particular with all \u2014 essentially, a hundred percent of my money in \u2014 in Berkshire \u2014<\/p>\n You know, that’s my painting, and \u2014 and I like the painting, I like the people associated with it, and it’s been refined over time. You know, I’ve added an (inaudible) over here or something. (Laughs)<\/p>\n And \u2014 and I don’t think \u2014 I don’t know of 10 people in the United States that I would trust to hand it over to. I don’t know \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Your company? You’re talking your company?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0The company.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I don’t know of five people, and I know a lot of people. And \u2014 now I have a very high standard in terms of what I’m looking for in \u2014 in that person. And clearly, we’ve \u2014 we found him with Greg Abel.<\/p>\n So \u2014 and that becomes more evident by the day. Even this year, there’s been added things that, so \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So you don’t think you need to hold on to the shares, or have your family have voting power over those shares, for as long because you think Greg Abel is \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0He is the choice. The only question is \u2014 is \u2014 he’s not immortal, either, you know.<\/p>\n I mean, you always have this mortality question, you know, and nobody gets away from it. I mean, it \u2014<\/p>\n People can be in marvelous health, or seem like it \u2014 and you know they \u2014<\/p>\n Who died the other day? Wasn’t he \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Lindsey Graham.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 71 or something?<\/p>\n So there’s an enormous variety and variation from \u2014 from being lucky to not being lucky.<\/p>\n And I’ve \u2014 that’s \u2014 that’s the bet I made with Greg.<\/p>\n I do not have a list of 10. I mean, it isn’t \u2014 I don’t have 10 kids, either. But \u2014 even \u2014 I don’t have a list of three.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0In terms of who you would trust the company to \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 at this point?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n Now, I’ve got directors that I trust to be imbued with the \u2014 the \u2014 they like the concept of Berkshire Hathaway. They would like to keep it going.<\/p>\n So I’ve got the right group that’s the intermediary in \u2014 in making that choice.<\/p>\n But things don’t always work out perfectly with the world.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So your \u2014 your hope is that the shares will be dispersed by the end of 2034, just over eight years from now \u2014 eight and a half years from now.<\/p>\n But I take it if \u2014 if you’re not here and the kids are the one making the choices, you would leave it to their decision making at that point?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. And eight \u2014 eight years from now, you know, my daughter will be 80 \u2014 very close to 81.<\/p>\n You know, another will be seventy \u2014<\/p>\n And it’s not just a question of mortality. It’s a question of keeping your marbles, too. You know, and \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0(Laughs)<\/p>\n Have they heard you say it like this?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well \u2014 well, I mean \u2014 I’m losing marbles \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 at this point.<\/p>\n I accumulated marbles for a longer time than I deserved, and that’s just a matter of luck.<\/p>\n I mean, I’ve \u2014\u00a0 I’ve seen so many managers of our companies that \u2014 well, I think I’ve mentioned it at a few annual reports \u2014 annual meetings, I mean. We had guys cutting out paper dolls, and there’s you know, and their assistants covering for them.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, just to \u2014 to clarify at this point, you are saying this of your right mind while you’re making these decisions, correct?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I hope so. (Laughter)<\/p>\n But actually, I wrote the will a couple years ago, so that \u2014<\/p>\n And I will not knowingly \u2014 I mean, I will not change that will, except for extremely important decisions, because there’s no question that I had my marbles when I wrote it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 \u00a0 25:40 – The family foundations<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, so let’s talk a little bit about what happens now, because you’ve talked about how this is really your children making the decisions, but in the announcement that you’re putting out now, you increased each of your children’s foundations, the amount you’re giving them, by about 50 percent \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 from what you gave them last year.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0But I’ve increased the Susan Thompson Foundation, but \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But it’s the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation that really is seeing the outsize gains in what they’re going to be giving away.<\/p>\n They’re \u2014 \u00a0they’re \u2014 the amount of shares they receive this year is tenfold what it was last year. Basically they’re getting all the money that would have gone to the Gates Foundation. Why?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0They’re \u2014 they’re getting all the money that would have gone to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 and then some.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u2014 if my first wife would have survived.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right. And then some.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But basically the payout they’re going to be getting this year, in terms of what they can disburse, is four and a half billion dollars. That’s how much the Gates Foundation got last year.<\/p>\n Why so much more to the STB Foundation than the other three foundations, relatively speaking?<\/p>\n Everybody gets more, but \u2014 but why that outsized amount?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, the SCB Foundation is what \u2014 and I would say, totally, my wife would have \u2014 my first wife would have created \u2014 and I would have approved it.<\/p>\n I mean, we were on the same page in all kinds of questions that aren’t even questions anymore, in terms of women’s rights, civil rights. I mean, we were \u2014 we were in sync.<\/p>\n That \u2014 now she \u2014 she took an interest in listening to everybody’s story. That would be the last thing in the world \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 I would want to do.<\/p>\n She \u2014 she saw every individual as an individual, but she also saw them as a group. I saw them as a group, and I had other things that fascinated me more.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0This money that goes through, is this what you will anticipate seeing from \u2014 from this point on? In years past, at Thanksgiving, you’ve given additional disbursements to the three kids’ foundations.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Do you plan to do that again this year?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, I’m almost sure I will. But \u2014 but regardless, the other \u2014 the other goes on.<\/p>\n You know, I mean \u2014 if I, you know \u2014 I could, I’m \u2014 I’m more probable to die before Thanksgiving than any of my three children, and probably the probability of all three combined. But \u2014 but \u2014<\/p>\n But I also enjoy explaining why I take actions, just like I do in the annual report on Berkshire.<\/p>\n I \u2014 I’ve got a didactic streak, which my partner Charlie Munger had, and to us \u2014 the money wasn’t \u2014 well, the money was important, in terms of what it could actually do for other people.<\/p>\n It wasn’t important for what it could do for me. I \u2014 I have not denied myself anything in life.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0If something happens that you’re not here to make these decisions, does it revert to what you talked about last year in your will, where there is a new foundation that is created?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, there’s a new foundation \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And the three kids are in charge?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Because it has to be \u2014 to be \u2014 because it does have slight variations. One being unanimous consent among the three for anything they do.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Does the STB Foundation or the kids’ foundations, do they have to spend the money in this fiscal year as was required of the Gates Foundation, or is this something where they can take their time and make their plans?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0They know \u2014 they know my views on it, but they can they can do what they want. But if they \u2014 if their wants get away from the basic principles far enough, you look at it again, but that isn’t going to happen.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Warren, you’ve spent most of your adult life thinking about philanthropy. How have your views changed over time? What would you like to see happen with this?<\/p>\n I think about the Giving Pledge and what you all did. What’s your perspective at this point?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, the perspective I have is out of eight billion people, you know, I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world. (Laughs)<\/p>\n So I’ve been lucky and healthy to get to 95. I’ve been lucky in that the field that intrigued me, and where I had some natural ability, happened to be one that paid off in a way that was \u2014 nothing paid off like it.<\/p>\n I’ve \u2014 I could have been a great violin player, you know \u2014 anything else.<\/p>\n I \u2014 it requires more talent than I have, but a different form of talent. And \u2014 and fortunately, I got exposed, partly accidentally, to what I liked to do very early on, and that was just an accident.<\/p>\n If my father had been a plumber, I would not have \u2014 I would not have had the same advantage I had.<\/p>\n So I was incredibly lucky. And \u2014 and then, as life has gone along, I have seen how unbelievably unlucky some people have been.<\/p>\n And it is luck. I mean, you know, we \u2014 you know \u2014 we had accidents with \u2014 with the kids when they were young, and all kinds of things can happen. And they just didn’t happen to us.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0All right, let’s talk about a few other things while we have you, here.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0 Is there more you want to say?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Let me add one more thing on that, though.<\/p>\n I mean, the idea, the whole idea, of kings and queens and everything, where you pass along, for thousands of years, the ability to live in any manner you wish, you know, while you say “let them eat cake” \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 to the rest, it \u2014<\/p>\n That \u2014 that is not the way the system should \u2014 would be, if I had my way of designing the world. And I can’t — I can’t change the design of the world, but I can make \u2014 I can level at the edges.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And those are the same values that your wife, Astrid, and your kids all have, too?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0A hundred percent. And I’m glad you mentioned Astrid, because she feels \u2014 she’s as extreme in this field as you can imagine. And she \u2014 she’s actually experienced more hardship in life than either Susie or I did, because she was \u2014 she’s Latvian \u2014 and you know, and came over in a boat in Ellis Island, and \u2014 and didn’t know who she was being assigned to. Lived in foster homes, all kinds of things.<\/p>\n So, the \u2014 the accidents of birth are just so extreme. And I’ve seen people that use those accidents to justify positions that are just ridiculous \u2014 (laughs) in my view.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and that’s the reason for encouraging philanthropy.<\/p>\n You can’t mandate it. It isn’t even \u2014 it isn’t philanthropy if you mandate it. But people, most people, are a combination, you know, of lots of good instincts and lots of not so good instincts \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 and including me. And the \u2014<\/p>\n If you do things that appeal to their better instincts, they \u2014 they respond, sometimes.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And by the way, your \u2014 your point with the\u00a0Giving Pledge<\/a>, when you founded that with Bill and Melinda Gates, was to encourage people to give to anything, but not to try and tell them what to do with their money.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Exactly. Exactly. And \u2014<\/p>\n And also decide when they would do it. I mean, a family that’s got a family farm they’ve had for a hundred years, and they’re \u2014 you know, within the family, they’ve all worked out and everything \u2014 they’re going to have a different view toward capital.<\/p>\n They’re all going to work hard, but they just \u2014 going \u2014 they’re going to have a whole different view than some guy that is \u2014 is writing options on Wall Street.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 \u00a0 33:45 – Buffett says he initiated big Alphabet investment<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, let’s talk about a few other things that have happened, maybe since we got the chance to sit down last in May.<\/p>\n The first that I can think of is the massive position that Berkshire has \u2014 has developed and grown in\u00a0Alphabet<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 in Google shares.<\/p>\n That’s something that a lot of people have looked at and said, OK, this is Greg’s mark on how he’s going to be changing the portfolio. How did the Alphabet position come along?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I initiated it.<\/p>\n I mean, I normally wouldn’t give you an answer on something like that, but I will because \u2014 but we \u2014 I am not doing anything that he doesn’t approve of. He’s not doing anything I don’t approve of. We talk all the time.<\/p>\n He’s, you know, he’s \u2014 well every day, I mean. And \u2014 and \u2014 but it \u2014 he is the decider.<\/p>\n And getting back to Alphabet, or Google, it’s probably number five or six.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Well, I thought it was number three if you consider the 10 billion dollar private placement that would go along with that, because that would put it north of 31 billion dollars.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, but we \u2014 we’ve got \u2014 we’ve got the Burlington Northern railroad \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0which is certainly worth far more money than that.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, so you’re counting \u2014 you’re counting fully owned companies.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Absolutely. You know, I mean, we are always making the choice between whether we’ll buy marketable securities or the company. We look at them the same way.<\/p>\n There’s \u2014 there are some minor exceptions to that. We can’t \u2014 we can’t set dividend policy, for example, if we don’t own it.<\/p>\n But the chances of those being material \u2014 the important thing is to buy a good business and to buy it on the right terms, and to get the right person to run it.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, but you’ve quickly grown a north-of-thirty-billion-dollar investment in Alphabet. That puts it, in terms of those companies that you own pieces of, behind only\u00a0Apple<\/a>\u00a0and \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0American Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And American Express. So\u00a0Coca-Cola<\/a>\u00a0would be smaller. Bank of America would be smaller.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well, it’s \u2014 it’s kind of close, and \u2014 and it\u2014<\/p>\n But \u2014 but if you take Coca-Cola, which we’ve owned, you know, 45 years, whatever it may be \u2014 you know, we \u2014 we don’t have a thing to do with running that business, and \u2014 but it’s a very good business.<\/p>\n And I \u2014 when I say a very good business, I mean something that you can expect to own, earn high returns on capital, over a long period of time.<\/p>\n Now the question is, when you get into Google, is \u2014 or any of the AI companies \u2014 you’re putting out huge amounts of money. And I can put huge amounts of money into government bonds and get, you know, 20 or 30 or billion dollars a year, in terms of payments from them.<\/p>\n So, a good business is one that earns a lot more than \u2014 than \u2014 and has prospects of continuing to earn a lot more than the \u2014 the returns on \u2014 on essentially riskless investments, which you could define as Treasurys.<\/p>\n But if you take something like American Express, you know, there are \u2014 most of the banks earn 13, 14 percent on \u2014 on capital.<\/p>\n If I asked everybody to guess what American Express would \u2014 they would \u2014 they would \u2014 they would come up with some figure similar. But it’s so different that it earns 30 percent-plus on capital, and does not incur more risk in doing so than the banks that earn 13 or 14 percent.<\/p>\n And the \u2014 the trick in life is to find \u2014I mean, in investing \u2014 is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n And that’s what happened with \u2014 with Berkshire for a long period of time.<\/p>\n A long period of time gets to be very important because those doubles later on are of very big numbers.<\/p>\n But Charlie \u2014 Charlie Munger \u2014 my partner for many \u2014 for decades \u2014 he just \u2014 he just pounded the idea that it wasn’t a good business just because it \u2014 it was doing sexy things, or whatever it might be.<\/p>\n But if it wasn’t earning real cash that it would \u2014 or be expected to do it in a very short period of time \u2014 and \u2014 and to be able to distribute it if it wanted to \u2014 better yet, if it could reemploy it as a business \u2014 \u00a0it was even better than one that had \u2014 had the ability to earn high returns, but you couldn’t deploy the excess capital of those returns.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0OK, let me ask you, though.<\/p>\n Forever, people have thought of you as somebody who doesn’t invest in technology. And by the way, you’ve described yourself as somebody who doesn’t invest in technology.<\/p>\n Obviously, the biggest position in the Berkshire portfolio is Apple, a position that you put on. But at the time, you called that a consumer company.<\/p>\n Google, you just called an AI company. So what happened?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Google \u2014 the real question with Google and all of its competitors now, because they’re all laying out hundreds of billions. I mean, they \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0They’re big capex spenders.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0So they \u2014 and yeah \u2014 and that \u2014 and that’s real money.<\/p>\n I mean, that’s \u2014 if our railroad were to lay out 300 million \u2014 or billion \u2014 or 200 billion, you know, that \u2014 that kind of money wasn’t even put in the railroad business, you know, in terms of developing it.<\/p>\n So \u2014 and \u2014 and they are \u2014 that’s the game they’re \u2014 they’re playing now. They weren’t playing that game with \u2014 with computer software.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0No, so when they were asset light, you didn’t like them, and the markets loved them. Now that they are \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I made a mistake.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 spending heavily on capex, a lot of shareholders don’t like them as much, because they don’t \u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I think they’re more likely to be a winner, based on their record, than \u2014 than probably 90 percent or \u2014 or 95 percent of what gets merchandised through Wall Street, because Wall Street is just interested in whether they can sell something.<\/p>\n And I can’t recall a report on Wall Street that really gets into the internal rates of return that a business is actually earning. That \u2014 what’s more important than what a business is earning?<\/p>\n But they ask all these questions about what’ll happen next quarter, or you know, or it’s just \u2014 it’s ridiculous.<\/p>\n But, you know, investing is \u2014 is coming up with \u2014<\/p>\n Well, probably the \u2014 close to the most successful long-term investor was \u2014 was Rockefeller. And \u2014 but look at what oil and gas has done over 150 \u2014 or a couple of hundred years.<\/p>\n So he kept compounding at a very good rate. Not as good a rate as GEICO would have achieved in its early years, because it’s easier to do when you’re small.<\/p>\n Getting to do it when you’re large is \u2014 you got the whole world looking at you, trying to figure out how \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 how \u2014 how come those guys are doing it and we’re not doing it?<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Why do you like Alphabet above all others, and what made you initiate this position? What was the eureka moment?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u00a0I \u2014 I would say that I don’t like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Other than Apple, the railroad?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0American Express?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0You’re not going to get the whole portfolio out of me \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 but \u2014 and of course \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But you like it enough it make it a huge position.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I like \u2014 I like Berkshire that way. I mean, Berkshire earned high returns on capital without \u2014 without \u2014 I’m not talking about using the tricks of leveraging or that sort of thing \u2014 I’m \u2014 and all that.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But I’m talking about why Alphabet versus the other Magnificent Seven, or the other, you know, hyperscalers, who are doing the same thing, spending a lot of money \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Amazon<\/a>,\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>, whoever it may be \u2014 to try and win in this position of AI?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. Well, I don’t want to sit around knocking the others. They don’t have any choice. You know \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0To spend like this, you mean?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah. They’re now playing a game, in many cases, where they \u2014 or in some cases \u2014 where they’re playing a game they don’t want to play.<\/p>\n IBM<\/a>\u00a0would have loved it if they just kept playing the game that IBM was playing in the 30s or the 40s or the 50s and the 60s, you know. And then somebody came along with \u2014 and said, we’ll get a better result for you, achieving the objective of all the customers you have, because that’s all you’re going to have is \u2014 you either have happy customers or you don’t have customers, over time. And the customer is not dumb.<\/p>\n Wall Street can be very dumb, and in terms of \u2014 they \u2014 they can dream. But a guy with a grocery store can’t dream. I mean, I worked at my grandfather’s grocery store, and we saw \u2014 well, we had one store in 1869 and we had one store in 1969 \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 and \u2014 and other people were earning high returns on capital, some on a national scale. A&P, which people don’t associate with anymore, in the 1930s, I mean, they were \u2014 they were number one \u2014 enemy number one \u2014 of trustbusters in \u2014 in Washington. And they \u2014 they had a very, very, very good hand, and that hand disappeared.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0So it’s a different game.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yep.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0And you like this game? You understand this game more than you understood the game they were playing before? Is that what you’re saying?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, well, there’s all kinds of games I don’t understand. Sure.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah. But this game \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Why \u2014 why should I expect to make money in all kinds of things I don’t understand? And \u2014<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But that’s what I’m getting at. What do you understand about this game at this point? Because most people would say he’s never going to buy any technology stocks, and I think you’ve said the same thing yourself in the past.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah, but I’ve done it. And actually, one of the most successful companies I was associated with, going back to 1958.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0We started a company called Data Documents. We started Data Documents because a couple of pals of mine read in the paper that IBM had settled a antitrust suit by divesting. They had to divest 50 percent of the capacity of what was their best business. And everybody knew it was their best business.<\/p>\n Now, it so happens it ran out after 10 or 15 years, and I \u2014 I knew some of the people that caused it to run out.<\/p>\n But if you have a wonderful business, you are going to be subject to attack. So you \u2014 it’s not a question of whether it was wonderful yesterday. It’s \u2014 it’s \u2014 the question is: how long is it going to be wonderful?<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But that’s what I think I love. People can try and pigeonhole you and say they know who you are and what you do. To me, it looks like you’re 95, turning 96 next month, and you are still changing and following the game.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT: Well yeah, but it’s easier for me \u2014 if somebody came along \u2014 I’m just trying to think of what it might be \u2014 better candy \u2014 that would have more predictive value to me than if they came along and had a better way of \u2014 of doing something that a hundred of their competitors would sneak in the \u2014 in the plant at night to see how \u2014 exactly how they got it all done.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 \u00a0 45:48 – Apple faces tough competitors<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Let’s talk about your largest position,\u00a0Apple<\/a>.<\/p>\n You told us that you were thrilled with everything that Tim Cook had done. I don’t know how well you know\u00a0[incoming CEO] John Turnus<\/a>\u00a0at this point, or what you think the company’s doing.<\/p>\n You still have a lot of faith in Apple?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Well \u2014 I \u2014 there was no move they could make, that would replace Tim, that I would have liked. (Laughs)<\/p>\n I mean, you know, if you got somebody, you know, Stradivarius playing the violin for you, I mean, don’t \u2014 don’t spend the next 300 years looking for another one. I mean, you’ve got one already.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and of course, Wall Street thrives on the idea that convincing you that \u2014 that \u2014 that if you just listen to them, they’ve got something that nobody else has. Well \u2014 which can’t be true. I mean, it’s ridiculous.<\/p>\n But \u2014 but it works because \u2014 well, in general, it works because the \u2014 America has been a wonderful place to invest money. And the Dow industrials, when I bought my first stock, had just crossed a hundred \u2014 100 \u2014 and now it’s 52,000 or something \u2014 and you’ve got dividends in between and all kinds.<\/p>\n Well, I mean, the village idiot \u2014 (laughs) \u2014 could have made it from that point forward. And so I’ve been in the right game.<\/p>\n If I’d been in \u2014 in wheat speculation, I mean, wheat \u2014 wheat’s gone from, you know \u2014 I don’t know whether it’s gone from three dollars to five dollars, or something, over 200 years. And it \u2014 it’s a pretty \u2014 it’s a very simple business, as long as you keep remembering that it’s simple and that making it complicated can \u2014 can \u2014 well, it’s just crazy. At that point, you’re gambling.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0But do you still like Apple?<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0\u00a0And the people \u2014 people’s enthusiasm for gambling is enormous.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0You’ve talked about that \u2014<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u2014 over the last many years, probably since COVID.<\/p>\n But you still like Apple? Back to the point.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n And I know more about Apple than I knew many years ago. But on the other hand, if you’re \u2014 if you’re Apple, you’ve got very, very smart people all over the world shooting and trying to figure out how to make sure that \u2014 that Apple’s future \u2014 the future isn’t as bright as the past.<\/p>\n And look at \u2014 look at the car companies. I mean, Henry Ford owned the car business for 30 \u2014 for 20 or 25 years, and he \u2014 \u00a0he did \u2014 he brutally integrated like you cannot believe. He got \u2014 drove costs down. He got the cost of the Model T down, I think, to $285. And he always was decreasing prices while increasing wages.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0So he was \u2014 he was \u2014 but he also was a little nuts in some ways, and \u2014 and that did him in, finally, when he \u2014 when he converted over the Model A, and General Motors just came racing by.<\/p>\n And \u2014 and my friend Charlie Munger thought that General Motors was the \u2014 was going to be the dominant company. Who could imagine attacking their dealer fleet and everything they had going for them? And \u2014 and \u2014 you know.<\/p>\n You’ve always got somebody shooting at you.<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0To that point, Apple brought a lawsuit against OpenAI just last Friday night \u2014 just last week \u2014 and basically accused OpenAI of trying to steal trade secrets.<\/p>\n WARREN BUFFETT:\u00a0I would say most \u2014 most companies would love to try steal trade secrets. They wouldn’t love getting caught.<\/p>\n But if you really could dig deep into the hearts of managers, they’d like to steal secrets. (Laughter)<\/p>\n Wouldn’t you? I mean, if you had a business and you were struggling along, and the guy next door was making money?<\/p>\n I \u2014 I had a half interest in a Sinclair filling station at\u00a030th and Redick<\/a>\u00a0in Omaha when I was in my early 20s, and I’d been to business school and knew all these things. The guy next door had the Phillips station and he was pumping 30,000 barrels \u2014 30,000 gallons \u2014 a month, and we were pumping 15,000 gallons \u00a0a month.<\/p>\n So I said we’re going to wipe this guy off the face of the earth. And you know, a couple years later, we were selling 15,000 and he was selling 30,000 and we gave up, and we closed up. And I think he’s still operating.<\/p>\n It’s \u2014 people are playing for keeps in business.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 \u00a0 50:40 – IRS sues Coca-Cola over taxes<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BECKY QUICK:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n We talked about\u00a0Coca-Cola<\/a>\u00a0briefly, the long-time position you’ve held for more than 45 years.<\/p>\n