QuestionerWarren, for years, you stayed away from technology companies saying they were too hard to predict and didn't have moats. Then you seemed to change your view about technology when you invested in IBM, and again when you recently invested in Apple. But then on Friday, you said IBM had not met your expectations and sold a third of our stake. Do you view IBM and Apple differently?
WarrenWell, I do view them differently, but, you know, obviously, when I bought the IBM, started buying it six years ago. I thought it would do better in the six years that have elapsed than it has. And Apple, I regard them as being quite different business. I think Apple is much more of a consumer products business in terms of the, in terms of sort of analyzing moats around it and consumer behavior and all that sort of thing. It's obviously a product with all kinds of tech bill into it. But in terms of laying out what their prospective customers will do in the future, as opposed to, say, on IBM's customers, it's a different sort of analysis. That doesn't mean it's correct, and we'll find out over time. But they are two different types of decisions, and I was wrong on the first one, and we'll find out whether I'm right or wrong on the second. But I do not regard them as apples and apples, and I don't quite regard. them as apples and oranges, but it's somewhat in between on that. Charlie?
CharlieWell, we avoided the tech stocks because we felt we had no advantage there, and other people did. And I think that's a good idea not to play where the other people are better. But, you know, if you asked me, in retrospect, what was our worst mistake in the tech field? I think we were smart enough to figure out Google. Those ads worked so much better in the early days than anything else. else. So I would say that that we failed you there. And we were smart enough to do it and didn't do it. We do that all the time, too.
WarrenYeah. We were their customer very early on with Geico, for example, and we saw, I don't, at least figures are way out of date, but I, as I remember, you know, we were paying them $10 or $11 a click or something like that. And any time you're paying somebody, 10 or 11 bucks every time somebody just punches a little thing where you've got no cost at all, you know, that's a good bit. unless somebody's going to take it away from you. And I knew the guys. I mean, they actually designed their prospectus. They came to see me. And they, a little bit after, the original one, when they went public, a little bit after Berkshire even. And so I had plenty of ways to ask questions or anything of the sort, educate myself. But I blew it.