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QuestionerYou stated that you're looking for someone younger to possibly work at Berkshire, and I was wondering if you could expand on that, and how would I apply for that job?
WarrenI think you just did. We're not looking for someone to teach. I probably didn't make that clear enough in the annual report. We're not going to be mentors or teachers or anything of the sort. We are looking for somebody that's wired in a way that they see risks that other people don't see that haven't occurred, and there are plenty cognizant of the risks that have occurred. And those people are fairly rare. Charlie and I have seen a lot of very smart people go broke or end up with very mediocre records where, you know, 99 out of the 100 things they did were intelligent, but the 100 did them in. So our job is to filter through these hundreds and hundreds of applications, find a couple of them. that we think can do the job who are much younger. Perhaps give them a chunk, two, three, five billion. Have them manage it for some time. Have them manage it in the kind of securities that they would scale up to a larger portfolio because, and then either one or more of them will get the job turned over to them at some point. Charlie?
CharlieYeah. Our situation in looking for this help, reminds me of an apocryphal tale about Mozart. And a young man of 25 or so once asked to see Mozart, and he said, I'm thinking of starting to write symphonies, and I'd like to get your advice. And Mozart said, well, you're too young to write symphonies. And the guy says, but you were writing them when you were 10 years old. And Mozart says, yes, he says, but I wasn't asking anybody else for advice, how to do it. And so if you remind yourself of young Mozart, why you're the man for us.