Warren Buffett Read Everyday 5 6 hrs

no one has ever been success betting against america since 1776 and they're not going to be success in the future doing it either hi i'm jeff cunningham professor at arizona state university and i'm here this morning with legendary investor philosopher and ceo of berkshire hathaway warren buffett good morning warren good morning my first question for you don't know if you've had chance to google yourself but if you google warren buffett you get 25 million hits and my question is you're sitting ceo you're wealthier than midas but everybody thinks you're champ how do you do that well don't know about that think think when you get older they forgive lot of things so think if ever make it up to you know george burns's age or something and just have cigar in my mouth and people people will really love me that you're arguably the most interviewed ceo in history is it your ability to communicate that comes from instinct or is it something you've learned over the years well certainly learned to speak in public at one time was terrified of speaking in public when was in high school avoided any class that would require it and in college and then finally signed up for dale carnegie course when got out of school realized had to talk to people and spent 100 bucks got this little diploma proposed to my wife during the during the term of the course so really got my money's worth there but in terms of public speaking really had to force myself on that in terms of talking privately they couldn't stop me from the moment started in school think i've always like to talk how do you keep up with all the media and information that goes on in our crazy world and in your world of berkshire hathaway what's your media routine just read and read and read probably read five to six hours day don't read as fast now as when was younger but read five daily newspapers read fair number of of magazines read 10ks read annual reports and read lot of other things too so i've always enjoyed reading love reading biographies for example you process information very quickly well have some filters in my mind so if somebody calls me about an investment in business or an investment in securities usually know in two or three minutes whether have an interest and don't don't waste any time with the ones don't in which don't have an interest always worry little bit about even appearing rude because can tell very very very quickly whether it's going to be something that's will lead to something or whether it's you know it's just half an hour an hour or two hours of chatter when think he wrote in an annual report who was in 2009 speaking about the country about the economy we are certain for example that the economy will be in shambles throughout this year the problem was that wasn't the complete quote it led the impression that you were unduly pessimistic about the country how did you respond to that yeah well wasn't at all pessimistic about the country in fact wrote an wrote an op-ed piece for the new york times in october of 2008 just when the world was kind of falling apart and said the word said the world is going to fall apart for while but don't worry about it we're going to come out fine on the other side and said buy stocks and i've i've never been pessimistic by the united states bought my first stock in the spring of 1942. was 11 and if you remember you would you don't remember no one watching this will remember but but we were losing the war at that time and we were getting we were we were getting totally creamed in the south pacific and the philippines fell and the death march at baton and all that sort of thing it was not until the battle of midway which was little later the thing started turning around but was optimistic on the country then and i've been optimistic on the country ever since and incidentally the dow jones average then was 117 000 it's no one has ever been success betting against america since 1776 and they're not going to be success in the future doing it either know when the dow hit thousand it was moment of euphoria yet if i'm not mistaken you plowed in and you even raised more funds has the doubt ever felt to you like it was way too frothy there were couple of times when it looked too frothy to me but that's in 50 years and and you know the wrote gave talk in 1999 and that's gotten reprinted in fortune subsequently and there have been couple of times when it really looked to me like people have gotten too excited but even then knew that the country would you know any any any marker that we'd established we were going to surpass later on and and that continues true today mean this country's just getting started was reading lincoln quote the other day with public sentiment nothing can fail without it nothing can succeed and of course he was talking about what led to the immense emancipation proclamation when think about your world 330 000 people who are employees of berkshire hathaway or subsidiaries how do you send the message that they are being scrutinized under the microscope by the media at all times well sent message to their managers those 330 000 people work for maybe 70 or so ceos and in turn work for me so my job is to have those 70 7 70 ceos sending out the right message so every two years write them very simple letter it's page and half don't believe in 200 page manuals because they put out 200 page manual everybody's looking for for loopholes basically but page and half it's very hard for them to argue about what i'm talking about so tell them you know that my reputation berkshire's reputation is in their hands and not only and we've got all the money we need we'd like to make more money we got all the money we need we don't have an ounce of reputation beyond what we need and we can't afford to lose it so we never will trade reputation away for money and and they're the ones that are the guardians of that and that want them to not only do what's legal obviously but want them to judge every action by how it would appear on the front page of their local paper written by smart but semi-unfriendly reporter you know really understood it to be read by their family their neighbors their friends and it has to pass that test as well and tell them don't want anything around the lines tell them there's plenty of money to be made in the center of the court and i'm 84 and my eyes aren't that good anymore can't quite see the lines that well so just keep it in the center of the court and if they have any questions call me you know even the occasional dust up at berkshire there will be is big news yeah and i'll i'll pick on solomon only because it's history now it's got lot of time to reflect on that when you think about what you went through there what advice do you have for ceo who's on the media hot seat because of similar situation well there's there's couple pieces of advice on that the first is that when you find out about bad news correct it and if it's necessary to report it then the authorities reported it immediately the big problem with solomon was not what fellow named mosher did which was to defy the u.s government not ever very good idea but that could have been handled but he reported it he didn't report it john merriweather his supervisor picked up on it in late april of 1991 and went to the president and the chairman and the chief legal counsel of of solomon and said here's what this fellow moser has been doing and they all agreed it was wrong they all agreed it was reportable to the federal reserve promptly and unfortunately nobody did anything and then in the middle of may moser went out and did it again and now you've got terrible problem because you knew the guy was bad actor few weeks earlier and you hadn't reported it and now that compounded there and then you're you're in real pickle so when you when you find bad news you know my say get it right get it fast get it out get it over and get it right is important it wasn't any question the moser had done it there but to get it fast and get it out they missed on and so deal with bad you're going to get bad news mean got 330 000 people mean will guarantee you that probably dozens of them are doing something wrong right now and just hope find out about it early and the person below me finds out and lets me know if it's bad enough and that they stop it so you can't have city of 330 000 without an occasional crime of some sort so it's going to happen and you've got to do something about it fast when it does happen