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QuestionerAmazon has been hugely disruptive due to the brilliance of Jeff Bezos, whom Charlie earlier called the business mind of our generation. What is your current outlook on Amazon and why hasn't Berkshire bought in?
WarrenWell, because I was too dumb to realize what was going to happen. Even though I admired Jeff, I've admired him for a long, long time and watch what he was doing. But I did not think that he could succeed on the scale he has. And I certainly didn't even think about the possibility of doing anything with Amazon Web Services or the Cloud. So if you'd ask me the chances that while he was building up the retail operation, that he would also be doing something that was disrupting the tech industry. You know, that would have been a very, very long shot for me. And I've underestimated, I've really underestimated the brilliance of the excellence of the I mean, it's one thing to dream about doing this stuff online, but it takes a lot of ability. And, you know, you can read his 1997 annual report, and he laid out a roadmap, and he's done it and done it in spades. It always looked expensive, and I really never thought that he would be where he is today. I thought he would do, I thought he was really brilliant, but I did not think he would be. where he is today when I looked at it three, five, eight, 12 years ago, whenever it may have been.
QuestionerCharlie, how did you miss it?
CharlieIt was easy. What was done there was very difficult, and it was not at all obvious that it was all going to work as well as it did. I don't feel any regret about missing. No. Out on the achievement of achievements of Amazon. But other things were easy. and I think we screwed up a little.
OtherNo. We won't pursue that line.
CharlieWell, I meant Google.
WarrenWell, we missed a lot of things.
CharlieYes. We missed a lot of things. And we'll keep doing it.
WarrenYeah. And we'll have a... Like we don't miss everything, Warren.
CharlieThat's our secret. We don't miss them all.
WarrenOkay, we better move on, I think.