OtherHome is where connections are made, memories are formed, and ideas are born, and no oneknows home better than NFM.Thanks for tuning in to I Am Home, the podcast that goes deeper than trends and dives intowhat it means to make your house a home.NFM Headquarters with NFM4Life Rebecca Sudbeck, and Hilary Woltermath, Visual Display GeneralManager.Today, we're thrilled to bring you a Thought Leadership episode featuring Todd Combs ofBerkshire Hathaway and Geico fame.Very exciting.So we're bringing out our special Thought Leadership host, Amy Myers, our Chief MarketingOfficer.
OtherHi, Tyler.
OtherHey, Amy.Again, this is going to be a really awesome episode.But before we get to that, let me tell you why we're even doing this podcast, and that'sbecause NFM is more than just your everything home store.We're in the business of improving lifestyles because your home life should be your bestlife.Learn more at nfm.com.And we're on with Todd Combs.
OtherHey, Todd.
Todd CombsHey, thanks for having me.
OtherOf course.Of course.At this point, I would like to introduce you and kind of get the audience to know a littlebit about you.And feel free to, like, correct us if we get anything wrong here, but I think we did okay.Big mess in the beginning.Right out of the gate.So Todd Combs is a multi-billion dollar investment manager with Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated.He's also President and Chief Executive Officer of Geico.Before joining Berkshire Hathaway, Todd formed Castle Point Capital, an investment partnershiphe founded in 2005 to manage capital for endowments, family foundations, and institutions.He partnered and, oh, sorry, he holds degrees in finance and multinational business operationsfrom Florida State University and an MBA from Columbia University.Personally speaking, we like to try to, like, dig a little bit, and Todd, it's like we'regetting not a lot out there.So we couldn't find much, but I love this bit of information from your high school days.You were a member of Speech.That wonderful haircut.Yes.I love that photo out there.Phi Beta Chi Clubs.And then I was just finding out from Becca, you know, you're into running, you're a bikingenthusiast.So we've got a little bit of that going on as well.And then lastly, Todd, you also serve on the JPMorgan Chase Board of Directors and allsorts of other things.So that's just a little bit about you.Anything important that we missed?
Todd CombsNo.Wife and kids, you know, and we'll probably get to that in the Q&A, but I'm a minor in
[2:48]
Otherpsychology.Oh.Can't leave that out.We've got questions related to that, though.So I'll turn it over to Amy to jump into questions.Thank you, Tyler.
QuestionerYeah, of course.So I wanted to start with what I'm calling, like, your Berkshire Hathaway origin story.Yeah, sure.And that journey.It's like a superhero kind of thing.It seemed like there were two kind of main, main points on your journey to there.And the first was when you were at Columbia and Warren came and spoke and you didn't meethim at the time.But that idea that he said to read, was it, is it 500 a day or 500 a week?A week.It was a week.OK.Definitely want to clarify that.I saw it in multiple ways.500 a day is a little over the top, yeah.And the second is when, years later, when you did that cold call to Charlie Munger andwhere that went.So can you talk about both of those stories and how that, how that happened?
QuestionerYeah.So I'll start with the first one, which is I didn't really meet Warren because, as yousaid, he came and spoke to professors, legendary value investing professor at Columbia, ProfessorGreenwald, who's this larger than life figure.And he would have, it was, he's now since retired a couple of years, but it's the preeminentvalue investing course really anywhere.And he'd have the first half of the class, he would talk about value investing and itwould be case studies, you know, Budd versus Coors.He didn't do this, but it could be Geico versus Progressive, you know, et cetera, GM versusFord, et cetera.You get it.And then the second half, he would have over kind of 12 or 15 weeks, legendary speakerscome in.And he'd introduce everybody from Marty Whitman and Michael Price and Seth Klarman.And then he'd always finish with Warren.And so there were, I think, I'm going off recollection here, about 65 of us or so inthe class and the value investing program.And so Warren came and spoke, that would have been the fall of, boy, I'm taking this backnow to 2000 and 2001, I think, 2001, because I graduated in 02.So I think it was the fall of 01, right after 9-11, if I remember correctly.And he came and spoke and you'd fire away with questions just like he does at the annualmeeting.And the very last question, I remember that, was that somebody said, how do you spend yourtime?And he had brought in this kind of rumpled accordion folder, just it was a complete mess.I remember that.It was just papers everywhere spewing out of it.
[5:25]
QuestionerAnd he said, well, you know, I read newspapers and this and that.And they kind of had a follow-up of like, no, but how do you actually really spend yourtime?You can't read 12 hours.And he turned around and he picked this accordion folder up and he said, well, I read.I just read.I read.And the compounding of that knowledge accrues over time because it never goes away.There's no decay rate and so forth and so on.And he said, I don't know.What is this?About 500 pages or so.And he said, each and every one of you can do it.It's free.But most people don't because they get distracted and he kind of used his Socratic method thento go into why focus is so important.And from that day forward, that really had a huge impact on me.It was a real epiphany for me.And I thought, you know, it was almost like I took it like a challenge.He definitely didn't mean it as a challenge, but I took it that way to be like, you know,I'm going to start doing this.And so I started from then, at first I was very meticulous about it, like counting thepages and everything.But, you know, you get there now.There's only one or two things that I'm still reading today that I had started back thenbecause you evolve and so forth and so on.But it's still about the same amount, give or take.So, yeah.He actually took action from that.That's what I think is interesting.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.I think that and he meant it that way.Like if you, a lot of you can either approach things actively or passively.And I think that, you know, I think a lot of people can take it passively.And probably a lot of people that were there that day, they certainly all remember Warren.I don't know how many would actually remember that comment and then how many actually actedon it.I don't know.But I think that, you know, there was a lot of fame around this 10,000 hour rule thatMalcolm Gladwell kind of made famous.It actually happened to have been a Florida State professor, K. Anders Erickson, if Iremember his name correctly, that came up with that.But the real point was in the 10,000 hours.People became kind of stuck on that.To me, the point was active versus passive.So whether you're learning to play golf or you're trying to get better at running orcycling or investing or whatever you're trying to do, if you do it actively versus passively,you pull those things forward and you create a tighter feedback loop on your mistakes andyour learning process and it becomes more iterative.
[7:39]
QuestionerThat's what I took away from it at least. And then second big point. So that kind of got to change your trajectory on like how you thought about yourself and how you read and educate yourself.
OtherFor sure.
QuestionerThen the cold call, if I'm understanding it right, and tell me if I got the story wrong.
OtherYeah, that's right.
QuestionerYou reached out and said, you know, would love to meet. Tell us about that story.
OtherYeah. I'll try. There's a lot I could say in that. So I had been running this. I started my own fund in October of 2005. I had run it through the global financial crisis and I was pretty fried. We had done quite well but it took everything out of me and I was working, you know, a hundred plus hour a week, sleeping at the office, etc., etc. And I knew it was part of my dream was to always run my own investment partnership and the process and the journey of going through that and doing it yourself, painting your own portrait, so to speak. And I had done that and I had lived in dog years during that global financial crisis. Everyone did, to be clear. It wasn't just me. But it felt those five years and there were amazing ups and downs throughout the whole thing and we did quite well but as I said, it took everything out of me. And what I had experienced at that time, you know, at Progressive and running insurance and obviously I followed Berkshire for a long, long time and so to me, I had this, again, kind of an epiphany one day that, well, if I know insurance and having seen what Warren and Charlie did with Float and so forth, that's a much, much better way to do it for permanent capital and not having to post monthly results and I love my LPs but not having to constantly kind of live up to those expectations and standards and just kind of changing the dynamic quite a bit. And so that was my plan and I had some phenomenal partners that were also experts in financial services and insurance and some point capital. And so I kind of knew that I was going to go that route and then the question was how. And so I thought, well, gee, I really, you know, obviously, I'd always wanted to meet Charlie. I held him in such high regard and I was going to be on the West Coast. I in no way, shape or form thought I would actually get to meet him, to be clear, and I didn't have any in or anything like that. I just called and talked to his assistant for a little while and the funny thing that I recall was that she was really trying to vet me for what I wanted because of course
[10:13]
Ted Weschlereveryone is always trying to sell you something and she didn't believe me at first.I got her to believe me.And so a couple of days later, I was in a meeting out there, Experian, the credit bureauwas a big position of mine and I got an email from her and said, Charlie can meet tomorrowmorning at the California Club at 7 a.m.And so my wife and I were staying at the Montage in Laguna at the time and so I left and wentup.Charlie and I met for six hours.It started at 7 a.m.They cleared all the breakfast, they brought lunch, they cleared the lunch and it was obviously– and I really had no agenda or anything other than we talked about life, we talkedabout family, we talked about the sciences.I remember we talked a lot about the universe.I had this book on me at the time that I read on the flight out there called Just Six Numbersand it was about how the universe can only exist in this way because gravity has to be– if you take it out 60 digits or whatever, it has to end in precisely the way that itdoes or else the universe doesn't.And so we talked like for 45 minutes or something about that and at the very end, maybe thelast hour, we talked about investing and he's like, by the way, what do you do?And I told him that I was – what I wanted to do, which was I had a little over halfbillion dollar fund at the time, which could have been a lot larger, but we didn't takein fund to funds money, we didn't have European fund to funds, etc.And he said, why?And I think that really struck him because most people, if you could be a billion ora billion and a half dollar fund, you'd do that.So I remember I didn't mean for it to strike him that way and I wasn't, but that's right.And then that started a conversation around my insurance background and looking to dosomething kind of with permanent capital and so forth.What was the why to that?Why you haven't done that?Why hadn't I?Well, why hadn't I already done the insurance company thing?Well, a couple of reasons.One, I was still building up my personal capital because I worked at a fund for three yearsand then this fund for five.I was building up my track record from running this fund and then three, in no particularorder, was trying to survive the global financial crisis and do the best I could for my ownpiece, so I didn't really have any time.This was the spring of 2010, it was before the summer.We met for six hours or so and Charlie said, stay in touch and I thought he was just being
[12:45]
Ted Weschlernice and about a week later, I was back in my office in Greenwich, Connecticut and hecalled me out of the blue, completely out of the blue and I picked up.I thought maybe it was a prank and Costco had reported earnings.Of course, Charlie is a huge Costco fan and so we talked about – even though I was runninga financials fund, I was so into investing, I would look at companies outside of financialsand so I had just serendipitously had looked at their report, their quarterly earningsthat day and we talked about Costco for a little while and then he had a bunch of questionsthat he had for me that he hadn't gotten to the first time about investing and lifeand stuff like that.He said, next time you're out here, we should meet again.One thing led to another and we ended up, I met him again on the West Coast and we metat his house and we would catch up over the phone and we probably did that a dozen timesor so before one day, he finally said, you should meet Warren.
QuestionerWere they all marathon sessions like the six hours or did they?
Ted WeschlerThey weren't all six hours, we got them tighter, we got them down to two or so hours,maybe two or three hours or something like that.A pretty significant amount of time, 12 times, yeah, a couple of hours, yeah.
QuestionerYeah, Charlie, for me, it would just fly because Charlie is just such an obvious fountain ofknowledge and a true renaissance man, I mean, you can literally talk about anything.In fact, that book, Just Six Numbers, we started talking and he said, they forgot the sevenththing and so we have to do something like that, right?Almost any book I mentioned, he had either read or read five books related to it or somethinglike that.
Ted WeschlerI guess the important thing to know for your listeners or what have you is that, it kindof goes back to my original auspices for calling him, I didn't even know why, there was nopretense as to why I was meeting him.So the 12th time we were talking and he said, you should talk to Warren, I was really thinking,I had these top names in my fund like Experian and MasterCard and Visa and so forth thatwere quite, there were a lot of analogies to names that Berkshire would, that Warrenwould own and so I was thinking all along, in fact, even up to the point he said, gotalk to Warren and when I flew out to see Warren, that it was about, they were reallyinterested in one of these names and that it was kind of, including when I first sat
[15:04]
Ted Weschlerdown with Warren and I don't want to trump your question, but we started talking aboutExperian and I thought Equifax had been on the market and he had done the Marmon dealand it was all part of that same thing.So I totally assumed that was the reason for all these conversations, having no, so I neverfelt like I was interviewing, I guess that's what I'm saying, yeah.They were just conversations.
QuestionerAnd what's the time difference from like your first cold call to Warren?
Ted WeschlerOh, from reaching out to Charlie to Warren, it was probably, let's take a question, acouple of months, three months, four months.
QuestionerThat's a lot of meetings in a short amount of time.
Ted WeschlerYeah, yeah, yeah, but they were fun.There were conversations, you know?
QuestionerYeah.Yeah.So when you came to meet Warren in Omaha, you had no idea that that was even a possibility?
Ted WeschlerNo, none.Yeah.No, none, which helped me because otherwise, yeah, I would have been too.I was listening to a podcast recently, I think it was Julie Louis-Dreyfus, you know, Seinfeldand Veeam Fame and she was talking about, they were talking about bombing auditionsand when you really, really want the part is exactly when you don't get it because youchoke, you know?And so no, under no circumstances, I was nervous, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I wasn't,but I honestly, to God, thought it was coming to talk about, and I knew my stuff when itcame to the names I owned, obviously, so I felt comfortable there, but that's what Ithought I was coming for, yeah.
QuestionerAnd then, it was at that meeting that he ended up offering you the role?
Ted WeschlerYeah, it was the first meeting with Warren.Like you got an offer.That was about a seven hour meeting and I came around 9.30 or 10, we sat in his officefor a couple of hours, literally didn't talk about stocks at all.We talked about life and family and I was born in Peoria, Illinois, so there's a lotof Midwest connections and so forth, so we talked a lot about that and he said, do youwant to go to lunch?And I had no idea how long it would be or anything, and so at this point, we're like,great, let's go to lunch, and he talked a lot about Berkshire and the past, the present,the future, etc., etc., and then that was a couple of hours, give or take, and thenwe got back to his office and he's like, when's your flight?And I said, don't worry about that, and so we got back, we sat in his office for a coupleof hours and that's when we really started talking about stocks and names and how I think
[17:19]
Ted Weschlerabout investing, how he thinks about investing, and he'd pull out, he'd draw out randomnames and how would you think about this and that, and we went through my top five, tenlist, etc., etc., and at the very end, he pulled out Lou Simpson's contract and Louhad retired from Berkshire, I don't know, maybe six months before that, a year beforethat, something like that, and that's when he – and this goes to show even at, I guessI was 39 at that point, maybe how still naive I was, he said, you know, we're thinkingabout bringing in a manager, would you have anyone in mind, and I said, oh yeah, I canthink of two or three people for you, you know, and he kind of looked at me like, isthis guy playing Daedalus?
QuestionerYou missed the tone right there.
Ted WeschlerTotally, totally. It's my lack of EQ sometimes, but yeah, he said, well, I was thinking about you, I justcomplained, I would have never, so even after six hours, I still didn't get it, I guessis the point.
QuestionerThat must have – so where did your head go from there, because that's such a changein your mindset in the moment.
Ted WeschlerYeah, I mean, we had, you know, our oldest – my wife is April, and our oldest was insecond grade at the time, we had pretty good roots, deep roots in Connecticut at the time,and I still had my fund, I had partners, I had LPs, I have, you know, obligations, andnow I thought about some of that because, you know, to the aforementioned, you know,insurance company and changing the structure and so forth, but your mind races obviously,and, you know, so – and Warren was fantastic with the whole thing. This is so Warren, this tells you everything, like you see what you get is what you see.He says, you know, don't make any rash decisions, it might have been a Wednesday, some weekday,Tuesday, Wednesday, something like that. He said, go home and think about it, and then, you know, let's connect, you know, earlynext week, and come and hit me with the tough questions, you know, and I think he wouldhave been 80 or so at the time, right? And so, he called, I was out doing some yard work actually on a Sunday, and I came in,and April was talking, so I thought it was my father, and so I go back, you see wherethis is going, it was Warren, he called to kind of talk to her, he knew exactly how to– so, and then, you know, when – so we – I did, I hit him with the tough questions,and we had – he was always very open, always very honest, again, you get what you see,
[19:47]
Todd Combsand then, I guess the point I want to make here is that – so great that when I joinedBerkshire, he said, why don't you and April come out, you know, Thanksgiving weekend,if you don't have plans, and we had – and he took us out to dinner, and, you know, it'sjust like you're part of the family, so, yeah.
QuestionerJoined in, so quick decision then?
Todd CombsIt was, yeah, over three to five days, or something like that, yeah, yeah.
QuestionerAnd so, when – because I was reading about, like, the announcement, so, Monday, October25th, I don't know how much time that was between when you and –
Todd CombsIt was probably pretty short, within two to four weeks, or something like that, as I recall,my memory's a little fuzzy with it, but something like that, yeah.
QuestionerSo, it's suddenly announced on that Monday, press release goes out, and you're sortof the head fake candidate, you know.
Todd CombsSure was, yeah.
QuestionerUnexpected.
Todd CombsYeah.
QuestionerOut of nowhere.
I mean, I have high school photos of you to post.
What –
Todd CombsYeah.
QuestionerWhat – did you feel that instantly?
Like, were you getting calls and –
Todd CombsOh, yeah, yeah.
What was that like, to suddenly become so public?
QuestionerYeah, it was harder on my wife than it was on me, right?
Todd CombsBecause I told her, like, this could be – there's going to be a lot here, it's going to feellike a wave, and I think she, at first, if she were sitting here, she'd admit she didn'tfully realize maybe the ramifications of it.
And then, when you have reporters, we were not on a private street, we were on a publicstreet.
It was a very nice public street, but it was still a public street.
And so, when there's Bloomberg reporters, and they're, like, parked outside, takingpictures, and you have young children, it just feels invasive.
Like, everything – you know, there's all kinds of psychology around this, right?
When it's your world, you see everything through your world.
And even though, in retrospect, I don't want to say it wasn't a big deal, like,it comes, it goes, it passes, et cetera, in the moment, it felt quite overwhelming.
QuestionerI'm sure those days were huge.
Todd CombsYeah.
Yeah.
QuestionerI mean, they were quite young.
Todd CombsThey were pre-KK and second grade at the time, and so, you know, it's just a lot to gofrom zero to a million right away like that, and so – and we in no way, shape, or formwere prepared for it or anything, but you get through it, and it's all fine and innocentat the end of the day, right?
QuestionerSo, and I was –
How long did it last, that sort of intensity of media?
Todd CombsYeah, probably a – it was at least over a month, because I remember then we had – Warren
[22:04]
Ted Weschlersent me the board materials, and we had the board meeting in late 2010 around the holidayshere in Omaha, and I remember he asked me to sit down with Carol Loomis, and I said,well, you know, part of our agreement was no media, and as I recall saying, and he said,well, I think this will help, actually, with the other situation, and he, of course, wasAnd so, it – and I was relatively well-known in the investment community, but then there'sthis much – it's – you're always a fish in some fishbowl, right?So I was – if you had asked almost any LP, family foundation, etc., etc., they wouldhave known me or the fund or whatever, but I was not Seth Klarman.I was not, you know, etc., etc.I wasn't that name that had been bandied about.I think David Einhorn –I kept staying largely unknown, largely unknown.I know he's known –It's very flattering.I was just thinking, who's unknown to you?It doesn't mean whoever's writing the article.Which I was perfectly fine with.I actually take some level of pride in that.So I would have preferred to stay relatively unknown, to be clear, but that was not anoption at that point, so.You feel like a lot's outside of your control, but then you have to just have to get overlike it doesn't matter.Yeah.I saw you using your high school picture.I thought that was hilarious.And I was not happy with my father because I had told everyone, and April had told allof her friends, as long as you don't confirm anything, and they had a kid go by my father'shouse and pretend to be a neighbor and confirm my picture, and he thought it was a neighborthat he didn't know was a reporter.They didn't identify –That's pretty underhanded.Poor dad.Oh, that wouldn't even have existed.I was not happy with my father for a couple of days, but yeah.The whole family wasn't – I mean, your parents talked about it.The thing my wife was the least happy with was they put a picture of our house with ouraddress online.I think that was business week, if I remember correctly.But, you know, with, again, with kids and everything, it just – there's a lot ofweirdos out there, so.Yeah, yeah.First couple of days.So you started it first half of the way.And I read an article about it.And I was like, oh, my gosh.I was like, oh, my gosh.I was like, oh, my gosh.Oh, my gosh.Oh, my gosh.Oh, my gosh.Oh, my gosh.You were looking immediately for how you can add value.Yeah, yeah.That's true.I think that's like such a good universal way of thinking about it though, because,
[24:39]
Questioneryou know, you were like, okay, Warren knows how to pick stocks. Like, what do I bring to it?
Todd CombsTotally. Everyone has that to some extent going on to roll in that mindset of like figuring out how you add value. I really thought that was an interesting way of approaching it. How did you do that? And where did you end up finding that? And how did you get through that?
QuestionerYeah, well, you have to be comfortable in your own skin, and you have to be comfortable with your own abilities, and you can't try to do it the way anyone else has done it, I guess would be the advice I give my kids and I try to give students. And if you try and change your swing, it isn't going to work. And so that probably took me, I thought a lot about it leading into, you know, day one, I kind of wrestled with this and that and the other because Warren handed me Lou Simpson's portfolio. It was, as I recall, two and a half billion or something like that. And it still had Lou's names in there. And Warren said, I know some of these, I don't know others. And I said, okay, do you want to talk through them? And Warren said, no, it's yours, you do whatever you want with it. And so I thought, well, does he really mean that? You know, if you start down that path, you just second guess everything. And so I then made a resolution to myself that I was going to do it my way, you know, and it's the only way I know, and I'm going to succeed or fail that way. And I knew and I had enough confidence in myself having, you know, run a fund or GFC, you know, et cetera, et cetera, we had good results, that I knew this area well, and I could do that. And so, you know, MasterCard and Visa were my first names that I bought. And we had some restrictions, particularly around insurance companies and stuff like that. Like I owned a lot of Chubb at my fund and when you own insurance, restrictions are around owning insurance companies within insurance companies and stuff like that, but for the most part, got to do whatever I wanted in whatever amount I wanted, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so then that led to then thinking about names and this was within, this is a good with Warren or Parable, which is, you know, we were going to lunch once, twice, sometimes more every week. And he was very much into obviously talking about Berkshire, both again, past, present, future. And also kind of like, hey, as you're out there looking for things, like we can acquire the whole thing if you really like it, right?
[27:10]
Todd CombsLike think big, think big, like we have to think big to move the needle and so forth. And so that, like lessons like that are invaluable because without someone reinforcing that intuition that you already have and having someone with, to reinforce the intuition, but also have the guardrails to reinforce that intuition to know I can swing. And if I strike out, that's okay. That's a hugely important lesson that I try and still fast forward to today at Geico and so forth and support exactly of, look, you know, if you're going to have a $3 billion position in something and you believe that big in it, like we should think about the whole thing and so forth. And so that led serendipitously to looking at acquisitions, both large for Berkshire and then tuck-ins as we call them for the smaller operating companies. And then also then that led to, so one thing leads to another, leads to another as it always does in life. And then that led to working a lot more with our operating subsidiaries when they'd have questions that they didn't want to, you know, bounce off Warren. And then that leads to, we're incredibly autonomous and decentralized as everyone knows. So that led to things like pooled purchasing, pooled healthcare, which then led to Haven and things like that. So one thing leads to another, leads to another. So that's kind of how, and you just keep, you have to keep your head if you worry. What I try and stress, kids, students, Geico, et cetera, is like if you just keep your head down and you focus on the process, things will take care of itself. I feel like sometimes where people can get off or spun up or whatever off the rails is when they focus on the outcome instead of the process and they're trying to, not even sometimes as shortcuts, but sometimes like, oh, I want this outcome, how do I back solve for that? Instead of just focusing on, you know, doing your best, keeping your head down, one foot in front of the other, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There's different methods for everybody, but that's what works for me.
QuestionerWhich is actually kind of how you ended up in the role in the first place.
Todd CombsYeah, no, exactly. Yeah. I'm consistent.
QuestionerBut if you do that, like you keep your head down and then eventually you still get usually the outcome that you were wanting anyways.
Todd CombsYeah. Yeah. Not always. That's the key.
QuestionerYeah. I mean, two steps forward, one step back sometimes. Do you have big swings that didn't work?
[29:33]
QuestionerAny that jumped to mind?
QuestionerAt Berkshire or anywhere?
OtherAnywhere.
QuestionerWow.
OtherYeah.
OtherI mean, you always have.
Todd CombsI mean, look, I mean, I think that the story of Berkshire, I mean, look, Warren's very open about the mistakes, you know, Dexter, et cetera, et cetera. We've been fortunate. Most of them have been small, but you absolutely get things wrong. No question about it. Both personal business, I mean, nobody's perfect, right? And if you try and be perfect, you know, and this is another thing I always tell the folks at Geico and students and everyone else is if you think you're batting a thousand, first of all, you're probably fooling yourself. Second of all, you're probably – think about the opportunity cost and all the things that you're missing, right? So you should be. And I think that when Warren talks about this with philanthropy is you want to be striking out a lot. So you want to be pushing the envelope. You want to be – I think of it like concentric circles, right? So I knew financials quite well, banking, finance, insurance, et cetera. And then, okay, so I don't go from that to then suddenly something completely far afield like technology, let's say. So you build concentric circles. So the first one I had done stuff with industrials, particularly industrials that had finance arms. So it's like, okay, Cat, Parley, GM, you know, et cetera, okay, well, let's – if you can understand their finance arm, understanding the industrial aspect of it is generally simpler and more straightforward. Then you build out concentric circles from there and on top of that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you just take one step at a time and you're going to make mistakes along the way, but you hope they're small to medium mistakes and not – I think of it, again, like you try and avoid path dependencies and I think people tend to underestimate path dependencies. So you can say, oh, well, this thing has – people almost always overestimate not only their own abilities, but also the complexity that's involved in any task and they can say – you ask anyone, what are the odds of that success and they might say 90%, 95%. Then you break it down into its constituent parts and then you ask them if there's 20 things and it's a multiplicative formula and you ask them what the odds are for each one of those, it might also be 90% and 95%. Well, guess what? Multiply 90% by 20% and you're under – way under 50%. So you try and think in terms of those and you break it down and you chunk it out and
[31:48]
Questionerthat's at least helped me to avoid mostly really, really big mistakes, yeah, yeah.
OtherThat's interesting.
QuestionerYeah.
OtherOkay.
QuestionerCan I jump back a bit on this one?
OtherYou go wherever you want.
QuestionerGo back to the beginning because I'm fascinated with some of the early relationships and careersthat can be important later and you particularly, you're out of college, I think you startedwith the securities and then you went to Progressive and you're a pricing analyst, right?
OtherYeah.
QuestionerStill pretty junior in your career.
OtherYeah, for sure.
QuestionerBut you have a relationship with Charles Davis who's a director at Progressive, it'sa big company, it's a big role and that relationship ended up being important laterin funding your own shop.
OtherAlthough I didn't know him when I was at Progressive.
QuestionerOh, that's what I was – because I was wondering like how did you make that connectionand so you didn't know him then.
OtherI did not know him then.
QuestionerAll right.
OtherThat's interesting.
QuestionerCan I answer the question about how I made the connection if you want.
OtherYeah, because I was like how did you meet – how do you nurture that relationship butit was later.
QuestionerYeah, so the way that I met Chuck and Steve, Steve Friedman who ran Goldman in the 90swas that they were – it's now Stone Point Capital.It was MMC Capital, MMC is Marsh McLennan, the big broker.I think they're still, along with Aon, the two largest insurance brokers in the world.They had a private equity arm that Marsh created due to capacity constraints when large hurricaneswould come through and so forth.This goes back to I believe Hurricane Andrew in Florida and so forth in the early 90s.This goes back to the Spitzer investigation of the insurance industry.They caught wind obviously, still being part of Marsh McLennan at the time.Marsh, the brokers, the insurance companies, everybody was in Spitzer's crosshairs, right?They were – and this is all public.They then reached out.They were looking for the next CEO at Marsh to get out of just like AIG and everybodyelse to get out of Spitzer's crosshairs.They were looking at Steve and Chuck and they were trying to get a gauge of what their futurelooked like both as being part of Marsh and what Marsh's future looked like and so forthand so on.Long story short, they reached out to people they knew in the industry and said, "Who'sreally on top of this?" Almost like an investigative reporter type and I'd been on it for maybetwo, two and a half years at that point and I'd been short Marsh and Fannie and the GSEs
[34:30]
Todd Combsand Steve had happened to be on the board of Fannie as well because there were someGoldman connections there.Anyway, their contacts had put them in touch with me and so we met originally again notunlike Charlie and Warren kind of serendipitously, 'Hey, we hear you're the' they calledthe axe in investing on Marsh and the Spitzer's situation.We sat down and had a couple of meetings on where do you think this is going, how severeis it, etc., etc., etc., so that's how we originally met and then that led into discussionsaround Marsh was my biggest short, Fannie was 1B and then that Fannie ended up completelyunrelated to Steve to be clear to have a lot of accounting improprieties and I was a coupleof years in front of that as well, so we had a good discussion about that and then thatultimately led to them saying, 'We've never found anyone we wanted to start a fund withbut we want to do it with you' and I was looking to leave the fund that I was at atthe time.I've been there for three years.I have my own track record but if people thought I was unknown when I came to Berkshire, Iwas really unknown then.They don't know what unknown was, so that's how that whole relationship, the genesis ofit was.
QuestionerYou're similar to I think a lot of people at Berkshire Hathaway.You read a lot.You consume a lot.You've kind of talked about that.How does that happen now though because you've got multiple roles and are you still hittingyour 500 a week?
Todd CombsI am.It's just different.Are you podcasting it?Well, I do.I do listen to a lot of podcasts but no, I don't count those as reading, not cheating.Now I would say 80% or 90% of it is Geico.Certainly 100% of my time is Geico.It adds up to more than 100% to be clear but during the day, I'm 110% Geico and I probablyget through — I don't count but it's well over 500 pages a week of Geico material.That's a different kind of reading because you're going through specific roadmaps, techplans, etc.I just went through a 16-page, very, very detailed deck with APIs and roadmaps and soforth versus reading a 10K, reading a transcript, reading an annual report, a trade magazine,etc.But I do the investing stuff at nights to relax on the weekends.Warren and I meet oftentimes on Saturdays and so that's when I do the investing stuff.I probably read more.It's just a very different composition now.It's just the nature of there's similarities but there's a lot of differences obviously
[37:23]
Questionerbetween investing and operations.Anything you've read in the last year so that you'd recommend?
QuestionerLast year, Ted gave us Trillion Dollar Triage which was great.We did a book club internally on it.Investing-wise or just anything?
QuestionerIt's probably general.
QuestionerThe movie is coming out soon but one of my favorite books that I've read in the lastmore than a year ago now is Killers of the Flower Moon and DiCaprio and I think it'son Apple TV.It's coming out right after the annual meeting and I haven't seen the reviews for it yetbut I've got to believe it.The book is one of the best books I've ever read.I couldn't put it down and it's about the origins of the FBI and going to the Osage Indiansin Oklahoma.It's just absolutely phenomenal.I used to be able to get through about a book a week.I nail pretty much 48 books a year for quite a while there and last year, it's a strugglenow to get over 12.I'm literally maxed out in every way, shape or form and any marginal time obviously goesto the family.Then what rolls over goes to cycling or running, over and above, my equity tranche.I've got a long, long list of book reviews.There are so many.I used to have a really challenging time.If I started a book, I didn't really fully appreciate sunk cost apparently at the time.I would feel the need to finish it regardless and now if I can only get through 12, if I'ma couple of chapters in and it's a dud, I move on.The one thing I still read that I've always read from those days at Warren at Columbiais Jim Grant's Interest Rate Observer.It's a phenomenal publication.It's very widely followed on the street.He's a phenomenal writer.I think a lot of people now read Matt Levine on Bloomberg.I gave it to Warren a couple of years ago and his writing is very pithy and witty andso forth and now everybody reads it and he kind of becomes the go-to source on whetherit's Silicon Valley Bank or what have you.
QuestionerDo you read anything you think nobody else reads?Maybe you don't want to share that.Maybe that's not.
QuestionerNo, no.Look, I don't think a lot of people read – I bet and I don't mean this is going to comeoff the wrong way, so I don't mean it to come off this way, but I think most peoplewould probably be surprised how few people actually read annual reports and 10Ks andso forth.I think that let alone trade magazines and so forth.I still read trade magazines and they're a phenomenal source of information.If Becca is quoted in a furniture trade magazine like, okay, now you know what she says, what
[40:06]
Ted Weschlershe believes.She's likely to call you back because you've got a lead in, etc.I've used that for 25 years plus to get information just as a journalist would.You call.You might read something.Someone does a quote.You might just follow up with them, pick up the phone and say –I used to do it myself to be clear and now I have analysts that do it for me, but I missdoing it myself also to be clear.People pick up and just talk.
QuestionerYeah, it's surprising.I mean, nine out of 10 or something like that.
Ted WeschlerThat's where you get – in investing, there's a quantitative and there's a qualitative.If you're really thinking about it, there should be two courses and I think Warren hassaid this too.It's how to value a security.That's kind of relatively easy, right?The math is not complicated and that's the quantitative.The qualitative is the really, really unique part that that's the secret sauce, right?You can compare it to being a chef or something like that.You can give two chefs a recipe and the master chef is going to cook it very differentlythan I would.When Warren and I would talk about –
QuestionerIt's technique.
Ted WeschlerYeah, right.It matters.That's where details matter.When Warren and I would talk about stocks, acquisitions, whatever we talk, it's 95%,99% qualitative, qualitative, qualitative.That comes down to all the stuff that he talks about in terms of moats, barriers to entry,all the stuff.You're not getting that necessarily in a filing or an annual report.You get a sense for it.It's a starting point, but you want to work essentially inside out and I think which iswhat I mean by that is starting with the details and then those details form the foundationfrom which you can build upon that you then gain a qualitative understanding.I personally feel like too many people start outside in and what I mean by that is they'restarting with a narrative.They're starting because they heard something from someone or they saw it on CNBC or theyread a research report or what have you.If you start with any narrative, one of the real cognitive dissonances that we can allhave or blind spots is that then you start forming all of your opinions based on a loosenarrative that you formed that was completely erroneous to begin with.It's no different than the scientific process.You don't start with a narrative and try to prove it.You start with the facts and build it from there.I saw where you said you try to clear the noise of the narrative until you've done your
[42:45]
Todd Combsown research to build your story.I don't even look at the market cap of a name.A game that I've always played with myself is like, look at the name, do your work, buildup what you would buy that entire business for and 80-90% of the time, you're withina 20% of what the enterprise value or the market cap trades for.But sometimes, just completely and MasterCard is a good example of that.I think it came public for $3 or $3.5 billion and I purposely didn't want to know or didnot know or hear that at the time and I valued it at like $30 or something like that.Those are the ones you're looking for.
QuestionerYeah, exactly.
Todd CombsThen when I was shorting, vice versa.This thing isn't worth anything and yet it's trading for $100 billion or something.That way, you avoid the anchoring effect that way and once you're anchored, you're anchored.You can't undo it.The genie's out of the bottle.
QuestionerYeah, and there's a variance on whatever that narrative was.Totally.Yeah, and you start double-questioning yourself and say, well, they think this and why don'tI think that and now you're just wrapped around an axle.I read where you talked about the importance of understanding the parts of the businessthat are dying, which was super interesting because I think we're always focused on thegrowth and what's new.But I'd love to hear any more of your thoughts around that.I think you were talking about that from the business side, like your CEO side versus investingside.
Todd CombsYeah.I don't know where I said that.I don't remember, but I would say a couple of thoughts come to mind.One is every business has a golden goose.It doesn't mean it's one golden goose.Sometimes you have multiple golden gooses, but I think an error that people make is thatnot God knows I've made this myself, is you look at the whole thing versus really gettingdown again into the constituent parts, into the details and saying, oh, well, this makesthat work and because this makes that work, this then makes everything else work.There's a domino effect or a compounding effect or whatever.Every business can be similar but also different.Really understanding that and then also conversely understanding where the risks are that peopledon't appreciate.One of the things I remember both Warren and Charlie and I discussed in our first meetingswas, in fact, the first book I gave both of them is this book called Ubiquity by MarkBuchanan.It's about power laws and fractal laws and how low frequency, high severity and the further
[45:27]
Otherup you go on severity, it's not linear.We all tend to think linearly about life and about risk, but in fact, it's much more abouta power law which is a logarithmic type function.When you double the severity, generally the frequency goes down by a larger factor almostwith anything whether it's catastrophes like hurricanes or war or anything.It can be good things too by the way.Looking for that and thinking about that in the business in terms of where they're takingrisks where they're essentially in the words that I remember both stuck with Warren andCharlie were having way out of the money puts.A lot of people have selling way out of the money puts.You can do this in life.It's essentially like borrowing from the future or ignoring a risk.Selling a way out of the money put, you'll win nine out of ten times or I'm making thingsup, but that tenth time, you get tattooed.You lose everything.I think the closest analogy is how Warren and Charlie talk about the insurance business.Most specifically, maybe even last year, Charlie maybe was the one who commented with the brillianceof his G is not the premiums that he's grown and the money that he's made and so on.It's avoiding selling cheap out of the money puts.That's where the real rubber meets the road because anyone can do that.You see it in banking all the time.You see it in finance all the time.You see when hedge funds blow up, banks blow up, etc.They're essentially selling way out of the money puts.They're betting that something extreme doesn't happen.Look, we all make mistakes, but oftentimes, the risk is right there.It's very obvious.It's just they've completely mispriced it or they've not even thought about it or takeninto account.Sometimes it's greed.It's time horizons get arbitraged and obviously, Charlie talks about you get paid annual bonusesversus taking five plus your risk.I've always been really, really fascinated with that and my mind has always worked verymuch that way.When I look at businesses, look at companies, I look for those and then I start at the edges.I look for those.Where are they taking those risks that are laying below the surface?GE Capital is a very poignant example that everybody is aware of and then on the otherend, you look for asymmetries basically.You're looking for asymmetric risks.You're looking for asymmetric upside that is also unaccounted for.Does that make sense?
QuestionerIt does.
OtherYeah.
[48:11]
QuestionerThank you.I didn't know the whole part about it.Do you want to move over to the Berkshire, Charlie?
OtherYeah.It's the reason we're here.One of the main reasons we're here is the Berkshire Hathaway Conference coming up.It's themed this year, the 70s.You were born in 71.How much influence did you have on the theme of the 70s?
Todd CombsNone.Absolutely none.No.I actually honestly didn't know that was the theme.I just learned that.
OtherYour education.
Todd CombsYeah.That's right.You learn something new every day.I checked that box today.
OtherWell, we asked Ted this last year, but there's obviously a huge buzz about the annual eventevery single year.Yeah.Tens of thousands of people make the trip into Omaha for it.How exciting does it feel for you and the rest of the Berkshire Hathaway team everyyear?Is this just something that you're actually jazzed and ready for?
Todd CombsYeah.I have a lot of friends and sometimes family that come in for it.It's always great.We have people stay with us and friends that I've known for decades and so forth.Last year, both my best friend from Columbia as well as the best man in each other's weddingcame in, stayed with us at our house and so forth, which was fantastic.There's a lot of people that are friends, acquaintances that you only get to see maybeonce a year that are coming from overseas, Australia, Asia, etc., etc., Europe thatit's a chance to see them and kind of a one and only touch point that's better than overthe phone.Now that I'm running Geico, we have 30 or 40 people that come in that are on the floor,sales, service professionals that are there to help existing and new customers.I also use it as an opportunity to have them, even though Warren comes out twice a yearto Geico, it's the only subsidiary he does that for.I also use it to bring a dozen or so of our senior folks out as kind of a reward and atreat.Last year, it was all my direct reports.This year, we went through a big reorg about six months ago and the people that were reallyinstrumental in getting that over the line, I'm bringing out.We're having dinner Saturday night together.It's a win all around.
OtherI love that.We've talked a little bit about your networking.You seem to value these relationships, these things that you've had over years.Can you speak to how you approach networking because I think a lot of people look at itas a chore, but it seems to be not your approach at all.
Todd CombsNo.I almost have a little bit of a negative.
[50:41]
QuestionerWhen I hear the word networking, I have a little bit of a, and I don't want to offend anyone, like a, I don't know, vitriolic reaction, but a negative reaction because there's, again, there's like process. There's an underlying reason.
QuestionerYeah, that there's some motive and that you're like a sleight of hand, right?
QuestionerI guess I'm going to sound like a broken record. I go back to like the process versus outcome thing, so I don't think I've ever actively used the word networking. I just, you know, I have friends and people I enjoy and then there's people that you interact with and one thing leads to another and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, and so I just look at it that way and one thing, you know, leads to another. I think sometimes as people get older, they can narrow their world and one of the things I've learned a lot from Warren and Charlie and others over the years, but one of the things I've really learned from Warren is he's absolutely spectacular about keeping a very wide, what I call aperture, but then also you only get so much time, right? So focusing your time on the people that you enjoy spending it with and who are kind of make you feel good and are happy and accretive and, you know, accretive in a happy sense, not a monetary sense to be clear. But, you know, I'd rather do that and then, you know, you don't repeat, you know, the people you don't want to spend time with than try and create a narrow aperture, so to speak. So I've tried to learn some from that.
QuestionerThe wide aperture, the idea behind that you think is just being open to talking to a wide amount of people from different industries and areas.
QuestionerTime is valuable, right? So, I mean, there's always a trade-off there, right? So, you know, and I'm introverted, to be clear. I'm a pretty introverted person.
QuestionerYou wouldn't know from your …
QuestionerThen I hide it well because I'm quite introverted. I like sitting in a room and reading and so forth. I do enjoy people, but I probably don't go out of my way as much as I should, that's a blind spot of mine, to initiate things. But once it's initiated, I feel like I have a decent read. I'm sure most people feel like they have a decent read for other people and I'm pretty good at either reinforcing those or cutting it off or whatever. And then it just builds over time, you know. You meet friends through other friends and, you know, so forth and so on. So people tend to be pretty like-minded, right?
[53:10]
QuestionerYeah. Did you participate in the Berkshire Hathaway March Madness?
Todd CombsI did, yeah. We had … I forget exactly how many people at GEICO. We got pretty good participation. It was … We have about 35,000 employees and it's … I don't want to quote it exactly, but it was tens of thousands that we had participated. We got pretty good participation from the subs. I remember the day Warren came down and with COVID, you know, all these dates get skewed. So I used to be pretty locked in on these things, but I don't know when our first one was, six, seven, eight years ago or something like that. And he kind of … You know, he would come down five, six times a day or whatever when I was in the office every day before I was running GEICO and before COVID. And he said, you know, this is what I'm thinking about. You know, what do you think the odds are? And I said, well, it's actually pretty relatively easy to calculate the odds because you've got a pretty good history on one versus 16, seven or eight versus nine, etc., etc. And I did a pretty quick, you know, calculation on it and I think Ajit and Don Wurster did as well and we were all pretty, pretty close. I mean, it's … I don't think anyone's ever won the entire thing and gotten a perfect goal. And, you know, as you guys know, there's a lot more competition today than there's ever been in terms of …
QuestionerYeah, exactly. It's a lot flatter.
Todd CombsSo you know, you have more upsets obviously, which then extends the odds even more and so forth and so on. But stuff like that's fun. I think it's really fun. How did you do?
QuestionerOh, I did terrible. I was out. I don't know if it was the second game or the third game, but I was out. Whatever the first upset was.
Todd CombsRight. Same. Same. Make us feel a little better.
QuestionerYeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's impossible. I think it's meant to win. It's just meant to be fun.
Todd CombsYeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, one of the things that we're curious about, obviously, we've talked a lot about your Berkshire career. When you think about what you've achieved in your career overall, starting your own hedge fund, Castle Point, all the accomplishments at Berkshire, now CEO of Geico, do you think the 18-year-old Todd would believe you if you went back and was trying to tell him, hey, here's this thing?
Todd CombsOh, hell no. No, no, absolutely not. April and I talk about this sometimes. I mean, because we've done it together and you never accomplish any of this on your own, to be clear. One of the really, really amazing feelings, I think, and this is going to sound cliche
[55:42]
Todd Combsor cheesy or something, but I mean it, is the feeling of gratitude that you have whenyou accomplish.A, when people see something in you that maybe you don't see in yourself.My first outside investor that invested when I started my fund, they had absolutely noreason to take a chance on me versus giving money to any one of the other names that themedia likes.You'll never forget that, right?The people that mentored me and brought me along and so forth and so on, you really arestanding on the shoulders of others as much as that sounds like a cliche and so no, underno circumstances would I have ever even remotely believed any of it.I remember sitting at Progressive in the 90s back when you still kind of had to buy mutualfunds before index funds were big.I think they were like Dean Witter or Morgan Stanley Funds or something like that and ofcourse, you had to have a broker and that's the way things were done.I remember asking for the prospectus and apparently, no one really ever looked at those thingsand I read it and then I actually read the background on each of the managers and theyall had MBAs from Columbia, Harvard, Ivy League schools and so forth and I was asking my broker,I said, I love securities and I love investing and so forth, what would it take to do that?He basically said, you've got no chance in hell, kid, just forget about it and so littledo you know.Again, you just one thing in front of the other and I remember thinking at that time,I started studying for the GMAT and I loved my job at Progressive and so forth and soon and I had a pretty good career trajectory going and Glenn Renwick who went on to bethe CEO shortly thereafter, we were kind of three doors down from each other.He was, to be clear, many levels above me but it was not an easy decision even gettinginto Columbia to forego that known income.It was a burden on my wife who was working at the time, moving to New York, etc. etc.We pushed back having kids for two years, so there are sacrifices along the way tooand so I guess to come back and answer your question like no, under no circumstance, I'vebeen very – and there's a lot of luck, right?To be clear, there's a lot of luck involved.If I didn't call Charlie, if a million things had to happen the way that they did, whenI got to – there's an interesting tie-in to Berkshire.When I started at Columbia, Progressive back then did not have public calls, etc. etc.
[58:35]
Todd CombsSo I was pretty tight with many of our general managers because we had rolled out creditand telematics and so forth and I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right timeand spearheaded a lot of that.So I was going to business school.We had some general managers who had gone to Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, etc.And they said, you should talk to Weston Hicks who was at that time, he was the number oneII rated insurance analyst at J.P. Morgan.And so here I am, he told me then I'd be on the board of J.P. Morgan and Weston wenton to be the CEO of Allegheny which of course we just purchased last year and Weston tookthe time to meet with me knowing full well I could not in any way should know.I knew a little bit about Progressive that he wanted to fish around about, but he putme in touch with these guys at Blue Ridge Capital which was one of the big tiger cubsand said, they're really doing a lot in insurance right now and you know insuranceand they know investing and so it was a way you look for win-wins and so forth.And so that one thing led to another, led to another, led to another and so that's beenthe story of my life.
QuestionerDo you think though, because I get what your point on luck, but at the same time and we'retracing back like okay, you ended up with this cold call to Charlie, but did you have50 of those sort of where you took an action to put yourself in a place where things couldhappen for you and then because when you trace it back, you only see the one, but my thoughtis my guess is your luck came from putting 30 of those out there or a thousand of thoseout there.
Todd CombsYeah, I won't lie.I'm a hard worker.I have a lot of grit.I've got a lot of blind spots and I've got a lot of weaknesses, but I have thosequalities and so there's that probably Mark Twain saying about preparation is your bestluck or something along those lines.And so there is absolutely luck.I had to have the substance when I met Charlie or when I met Weston or when I met the guysat Blue Ridge, etc., etc.I was very green in many of those instances.I remember Weston actually saying, oh, you want to be an investor, I'll put you intouch with a hedge fund and I honestly didn't know and he said a tiger cub.I didn't know what a tiger cub was.I'd been a pricing analyst at Progressive.I knew about investing.I didn't know what a tiger cub was.That was three standard deviations away from where my knowledge base was at the time.
[1:01:01]
QuestionerAnd for people to be patient enough with you, so I mean it's both. I'm sure there are situations where no one did call you back and you were in a room that you didn't get enough of those out there.
QuestionerOne of the things I worry about with this, it's easy to always say like to be dour about the generation or whatever, is sometimes I worry that we're making our generation too soft because we can make things so easy on them and that we don't build up enough grit. And look, that comes with having a society that's more wealthy and is moving along. Not that everybody is by any stretch, but look, that's where you get, I think grit, it's the whole marshmallow test going back to Stanford and everything, right? That's like the one thing that I think they've statistically proven has a correlation with success in life is that ability to not have that marshmallow and you get two if you wait 15 minutes or whatever the number was. But having grit goes a long way. I think I was Angela Duckworth, wrote an entire book and so forth on it. But you make your own luck too.
OtherThere's definitely some of that for sure.
QuestionerFor sure. We've got to ask you about a home. That's our thing.
OtherYeah.
QuestionerYeah. My wife would argue my home is work.
QuestionerWell, speaking of her, you met her at FSU. That's right. I imagine that you've moved quite a bit. You've mentioned Connecticut at one point, obviously from Florida, Connecticut here. How have you and the family made all of these new places feel like a home?
OtherI think, I'm going off the top of my head, which is always dangerous. I think we may have moved, for some reason, I'm thinking 16 times.
QuestionerWow.
OtherIt's a lot. It's a lot. We met in September of 92 in a class at Florida State and we got married in May of 98 and so we've known each other over 30 years. She was, so our oldest is a sophomore in college and is turning 20 next month and he will be the same age as when April and I met. That's crazy.
QuestionerIt's crazy. It's crazy. Even for those words to come out of my mouth. We moved. Now, we rented a lot every two years and that kind of thing. We didn't own our own home until the home that I then owned when I accepted, when I started my own fund and started the Berkshire job. That was 2002 or 2003 or something like that. Not because we couldn't afford it, but just because we were renting and so forth. Sorry, I missed, what was the second part of your question?
QuestionerThe second part was about how do you make those places, all those 16 places that you've
[1:03:47]
Questionermoved to, how do you make it feel like a home?
Todd CombsIt's her, to be clear.
Todd CombsAs I always say, the better half.
QuestionerI say the better 99%.
Todd CombsIt's a good line.
QuestionerI'm going to steal that.
Todd CombsYeah, yeah.
QuestionerI highly recommend it.
Todd CombsEspecially when it's true.
QuestionerIt's the old saying, happy wife, happy life.
Todd CombsI talked to her about, let's just use Berkshire as an example to stick with that. I was flying out once every other week or something like that to come. I would say the week, Warren and I would talk, et cetera, et cetera. This was 2011. Then Michael, our oldest, was in second grade. So here's a great testament to April. She says, let's go out to Omaha for the summer just so we can all be together. A huge sacrifice for her, right? We've got a house on the water, we have a boat, we love Connecticut, we've got our friends,et cetera, et cetera. But she wanted the family to be together. Again, it comes back to sacrifice. It's not just my sacrifice. It's her sacrifice. She comes out. We spend the summer together. She sees how great it is. We make fast friends, et cetera, et cetera. Then one thing leads to another. Before you know it, she says, why don't we move out here? The schools are great. It's a great sense of community. Omaha is amazing. We were very, very fortunate to have people like Warren and his daughter, Susie, and theirfamily. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing.
QuestionerFavorite TV?
Todd CombsYou know what? Yes. You can say favorite TV. We just got a, and I should know this, but April, is either, do you guys sell 90-inch? We have like 100. They're giant now. It's either a 90 or.
OtherThey keep getting bigger.
Todd CombsYeah. It's great. I remember when 32 used to be big.
QuestionerRight. My mom has a 42-inch TV. Oh my gosh.
Todd CombsNow they're like over double that. Totally. So we have a, I don't know, let's call it a 90-inch TV that we just got from NFM.
QuestionerNice. Nice. You have time for one more?
Todd CombsI got all the time in the world. You fire away.
QuestionerOkay. Well, Geico has had some great commercials over the years.
Todd CombsOh yeah. You know, I think they really pioneered that approach with the Gecko.
QuestionerYeah. Using humor.
Todd CombsYeah. Yeah.
QuestionerDo you have a favorite either mascot from Geico or commercial?
Todd CombsOh boy. You know, it's like you're, it's supposed to be like your children. Then, you know, really it's like sacrilege to say this is my favorite. But just between us, obviously the Gecko is the favorite. And the guy's just so adorable.
[1:06:47]
Todd CombsAnd then I would say the ones that come to mind, actually, like I'm a big fan of Humpday.Oh yeah.Humpday.Wednesday Humpday.And I'm a big fan of Caveman.And then, you know, there was the one with the pig rolling out the window with the pinwheel.Whee.Yeah.Yeah.I'm a big fan of that one too.And we have a whole new line coming out soon called Frenemy that I don't want to spoilit for our marketing department, but I just saw them this week and they're absolutelyfantastic.So yeah.
QuestionerYeah.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.Perfect.Well, Todd, thank you so much for joining us.
Todd CombsThanks for having me.This was a lot of fun.
QuestionerThis has been really fun.Thank you.It was a real masterclass.I think we learned a lot.Welcome back anytime, by the way.
Todd CombsWith beer.
QuestionerYeah.There you go.There you go.And I want to thank everyone who's listening at home.I encourage you to go to nfm.com to learn more about our company and shop 24-7 for today'stop furnishing styles.We'll be back again soon with another episode.Till then, remember, home is what you make it.
OtherThanks for joining us today for I Am Home with Tyler Wisecup, Hilary Waltemath, andBecca Sudbeck.No one knows home quite like NFM.So if you'd like more information on home design at NFM, please check out nfm.com andleave us a review on the podcast platform of your choice.