QuestionerWhen both of you were younger and had much less capital for investing, how many hours per week on average did you spend with reading about companies?
WarrenWell, when we were younger, we spent, probably Charlie compared to now, spent a lot more time, I spent a fair amount more time looking at companies. But we would, if we were doing it over again, we would do it over again pretty much the same way. We would look at everything in sight that we thought we could understand. And the world hasn't changed in that respect. There may be some more people doing it, but there are a lot more companies to look at now. And we would read everything in sight about the businesses and the industries we thought we could understand. We would look for things that jumped out at us as being very cheap in relation to value. And we would have one enormous advantage because we would be, working with barless capital, which means the universe of potential ideas would be far greater. But there's nothing different, in my view, about analyzing securities now than it was 50 years ago. Charlie?
CharlieYeah, we read a lot and we thought a lot. I don't know anybody who is wise who doesn't read a lot. And on the other hand, that that alone won't do it. You have to have a temperament, really, which which grabs the correct ideas and does something with those ideas. And I think most people who read a lot don't have the necessary temperament and they grab the ideas or they're simply confused by the mass of material. And of course that won't work. It's not a business that requires extraordinary intellect. It does require extraordinary discipline. And that shouldn't be so difficult, but as I look around the world sometimes, it apparently is quite difficult. I mean, the whole world went a little mad a few years back in terms of investments. And you say to yourself, how could that happen? Don't they learn anything from the earlier ones? But, you know, what we learn from history is that people don't learn from history. And you certainly see that in financial markets all the time.