QuestionerHow would you respond to the question of a stockholder that's really concerned about Berkshire being a one-man show?
WarrenYeah, well, Berkshire is not a one-man show. It's a two-man show in terms of capital allocation. There's no question about that at present. But it's run by many managers that are doing an outstanding job and that don't need any guidance from Charlie or me as they go along. But I might say that, you know, I will die with all of my Berkshire stock, essentially, and that stock will be held either in the family or in a foundation, depending on the order of death, for a long time thereafter. So there's no one that's more concerned about the subsequent management issue than I. I mean, this is not something that ends at all on my death, and it doesn't end for the Buffett family or the Buffett Foundation. You've got to get away from the idea that it's a one-man show, because right now we've got 33,000 people working for Berkshire out there, you know, as we speak, and I'm sitting around, you know, watching movies about myself or something. I mean, you can see how vital I am to the place. So the, but the question, and the other thing we do besides allocate capital is we do identify these managers and hopefully we make it attractive for them to stay and work for Berkshire. But that, you know, that doesn't require 150 IQ or anything to do that. It does require a certain sensitivity to why people want to get up in the morning and do what they do. And when I'm not around, the logical, it depends on exactly when it happens, but Charlie's a little older than I am, and it's likely that it will be broken into a two-person function again, but not exactly the way Charlie and I function. If you just run your mind through all the assets, I think you will quickly decide that there are large momentums in place that would do very well without us. I mean, is Coca-Cola going to suddenly stop selling because some managers dead at Berkshire Hathaway? You know, are the people going to stop using Gillette razor blades? Is GEICO suddenly going to stop being intelligently run? Is the Nebraska furniture market going to try any less hard? So the existing assets, you can argue, have been lovingly put together so is not to require continuing intelligence at headquarters. And what, there would be a disadvantage in that I think would be unreasonable to expect that a successor would be as good at making new investments as Warren has been in the past.
QuestionerWell, that's just too damn bad.