During the 2016 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, Warren Buffett discussed the secrets to their success. Here’s an excerpt from the meeting:
WARREN BUFFETT: But we — Charlie and I are the kind that literally find it interesting in every business — we like to look at micro factors.
If we buy — when we buy a See’s Candy in 1972, you know, there may have been 140 shops or something. We’ll look at the — we’ll look at numbers on each one, and we’ll watch them over time, and we’ll see how third-year shops behave in the second year — we really like understanding businesses.
It’s just — it’s interesting to us. And some of the information is very useful, and some of it may look like it’s not helpful, but who knows when some little fact stored in the back of your mind pops up and really does make a difference.
So, we’re fortunate in that we’re doing what we love doing. I mean, we love doing this like other people like watching baseball games, and which I like to do, too.
But they — just the very act, every pitch is interesting, and every movement, you know, and whether the guy’s — you know, a double steal is interesting, or whatever it may be, and so that’s what our activity is really devoted to, and we talk about that sort of thing.
CHARLIE MUNGER: We try and avoid the worst anchoring effect, which is always your previous conclusion. We really try and destroy our previous ideas.
WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie says that if you disagree with somebody, you want to be able to state their case better than they can.
CHARLIE MUNGER: Absolutely.
WARREN BUFFETT: And at that point, you’ve earned the right to disagree with them.
CHARLIE MUNGER: Otherwise, you should just keep quiet. It would do wonders for our politics if everybody followed my system. (Laughter and applause)
You can watch the entire discussion here:
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