WarrenGraham obviously had way more influence on me than Phil. I worked for Ben, I went to school under him, and his – what I call the three basic ideas that underlie successful investing, which is to look at stocks as businesses and to have the proper attitude toward the market and to operate with a margin of safety. They all come straight from Graham. I didn't think of any of those. And Phil Fisher opened my eyes more to the idea of trying to find the wonderful business. Charlie did more of that than Phil did, actually, so you'd have to put Charlie – but Phil was espousing that entirely, and I read his books in the late 50s or early 60s. So, you know, I – and Phil's still alive, as you know, and I owe Phil a lot, but it doesn't compare to what I owe Graham, and – and that – in no, no way reflects poorly on film. Ben was one of a kind.
CharlieJohn? Ben Graham was a purely formidable mind, and he also had a clarity in writing. And we've talked over and over again about the power of a few simple ideas thoroughly assimilated. And that happened with Graham's ideas, which came to me indirectly through Warren, but also sum directly from Graham. The interesting thing for me is to watch Buffett, the former protech. And by the way, Buffett was the best student Graham had in 30 years of teaching at Columbia. And – but what happened – and since I knew both men was that Buffett became way better than Graham. That is a natural outcome. It's what Newton said. He said, if I've seen a little – than other men, it's by standing on the shoulder of giants. And so Warren may have stood on Ben's shoulders, but he ended up seeing farther. And no doubt somebody will come along and do course and do a lot better than we have. I enjoyed making money more than Ben. I mean, candidly, with Ben, it just – it really was incidental, at least by the time I knew him. It may have been different when he was younger, but it just didn't – The process didn't enjoy – the whole game did not interest him more than a dozen other things may have interested him. With me, I just find it interesting. And therefore, you know, I've spent way more – way higher percentage of my time thinking about investing and thinking about businesses. I probably thought way more about businesses than Ben ever did. He had other things that interested him. So I've pursued the game a little – a little – a question. a bit differently than he did. And therefore, measuring the record is really the two records are not – it's not a proper measurement. I mean, he was – he was doing victory laps while I still thought I was out there running against, you know, the whole field. But Graham had some blind spots, partly of sort of an ethical, professorial nature. He was looking for things to teach that would work for every man, that any intelligent layman could learn and do well. Well, if that's the limitation of what you're looking for, there'll be a lot of reality you won't go into because it's too hard to figure out and too hard to explain. Buffett, if there was money in it, had no such restriction.