QuestionerIn his letter, Charlie talked about Berkshire's insurance success, quote, being so astoundingly large that I believe that Buffett would now fail to recreate it if he returned to a small base while retaining his smarts and regaining his youth. Do you agree that you could not repeat that success today? And if so, what do you think are the conditions in the insurance industry today that would inhibit a repeat of that performance?
WarrenWell, I had many, many, many pieces of luck, but I had three extraordinary pieces of luck in terms of the insurance business. One was, when I was 20 years old, having a fellow on a Saturday, a fellow named Lorimer Davidson, be willing to spend four hours with some 20-year-old kid who he never heard of before, explain the insurance business to them. So I received an education at age 20 that was, I couldn't have gotten at any business school in the United States. And that was just pure luck. I mean, I just happened to go to Washington. I had no idea I would run into him. I had no idea whether he would talk to me, and he spent four hours with me. So just chalked that one up. The chances of that happening again. In 1967, I got lucky. again when Jack Ringwold, who about, for about five minutes every year, wanted to sell his company because he would get mad about something. Some claim would come in that he didn't like or something of the store. And my friend, I told my friend Charlie Hyder, I said, next time Jack is in the mood, be sure and get him to my office. And Charlie got him up there one day and we bought National Indemnity. We couldn't have done that, we not only couldn't have done that a day later, we couldn't have done it an hour later. But it just, you know, and that was lucky. And then I really got lucky in the mid-80s when, on a Saturday, some guy came in the office. And he said, I've never worked in the insurance business, but maybe I can do you some good. And that was a G. Jane. And, you know, how lucky can you get? So it asked me whether we could pull off a trifecta like that again in the future. I'd say the odds are very much against it.