QuestionerYou talk a lot about the importance of selecting terrific managers. I'd just like to understand what your three most important criteria for selecting them, and how quickly you can assess that.
WarrenYeah, I'll give you two different areas. The most important factors subject to this one caveat I'm going to give in a second is a passion for their business. We are frequently buying businesses from people who we wish to have continue managing them, and where we are in effect monetizing a lifetime of work for them. I mean, they've built this business over the years. They're already rich, but they may not be rich in a liquid sense. They may have all their money or a bit of it tied up in the business. So they're monetizing it. They may be doing it for estate reasons or tax reasons or family reasons, whatever. But we really want to buy from somebody who doesn't want to sell. And they certainly don't want to leave the business. So we are looking for people that have a passion that extends beyond their paycheck every week or every month for their business. Because if we hand somebody a hundred million or a billion dollars for their business, they have no financial need to work. They have to want to work. And we can't stand there with a whip. We don't have any contracts at Berkshire. They don't work as far as far as I'm concerned. So we hope that they love their business. we do everything possible to avoid extinguishing or in any way dampening that love. I tell students that what we're looking for when we hire somebody beyond this passion, we're looking for intelligence, we're looking for energy, and we're looking for integrity. And we tell them if they don't have, you know, if they don't have the last, the first two will kill you. Because if you hire somebody without integrity, you really want them to be dumb and lazy, don't you? I mean, the last thing in the world you want us to be smart and energetic. So we look for those qualities, but we have generally, when we buy businesses, it's clear to us that those businesses are coming with managers with those qualities. And then we need to look into their eyes and say, do they love the money or do they love the business? And if they love, there's nothing wrong with liking the money, but if they're, if they, what it's really all about, is that they built this business so they can sell out and cash their chips and go someplace else. We have a problem because right now we only have 16 people at headquarters and we don't have anybody to go out and run those businesses. So we, we, it's necessary that they have this passion and then it's necessary that we do nothing to in effect dampen that passion.