QuestionerIn the past, you've often said that the insurance operation is the most important business in Berkshire's portfolio. Is that true? And what are numbers two and three?
WarrenThe question was about the insurance business, which we have said will be by far the most important business at Berkshire. We said that many, many years ago, and it's proven to be the case. It obviously got a big leg up when we purchased all of Geico. So insurance, as far as the eye can see, will be by far the most significant business at Berkshire. And the question about two and three, in terms of earnings, flight safety is the second largest source of earnings. But we don't really think of them that way. I mean, we do know our main business is insurance, but we really have a lot of fun out of all of our businesses. I mean, I have a great time out of Borsheims yesterday or at a dairy queen. So it will be accident, to some extent, over the next 10 years, what ends up being the second or third or fourth largest. That'll be determined by opportunity. We bid on certain businesses or negotiated on them that could have been very large businesses if they'd become part of Berkshire. And that'll happen again in the future. So we have no predetermined course of action whatsoever. ever at Berkshire. We have no strategic planning department. We don't have any strategic plan. We react to what we think are opportunities. And if it's a business we can understand, and if it's particularly if it's big, you know, we would love to make it number two. Charlie?
CharlieI also want to say proudly that we have no mission statement. It's hard to think of anything that we do have, as a matter of fact.
WarrenYeah, we have never had a, we've never, I mean, I'm sure you all know this, we've never had a consultant and we, we, we tried to keep things pretty simple. We still have 12 people at headquarters. We have about 40,000 people that now work for Berkshire, and we hope to grow a lot, but we don't hope to grow at headquarters.