Berky Meeting Nuggets 2019

Yet another Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is in the books.  This year I didn't feel like waking up early enough to get there before the doors opened at 7am, so I didn't get there until around 8am.  The downside to this was an upper deck seat for the 8:30am company movie and morning session, and no time to look at the exhibition hall beforehand.  The upside was more sleep, there were still plenty of complementary breakfast danishes and beverages at my super-secret place behind the stage, and I got a great seat for the afternoon session anyway.

This year's observations:

There was only one side-question about CEO succession.  I guess everyone has become bored with that.  However, Warren Buffett went out of his way this year to have a couple of questions each answered by the Vice-Chairs, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel.  One of these guys will be the next CEO.  I've heard Abel answer energy questions before, but it was unusual to hear Jain speak on insurance issues.

Charlie Munger was as engaged and funny as ever with his comments, at least until later in the afternoon when he nodded off.  (That was not unprecedented, I've seen it before.)  I thought the best exchange of the day happened when a questioner identified himself as a 27-year-old from San Francisco who fancied the idea of starting his own investment fund.  Buffett took him quite seriously, to my surprise, talking about how he was young when he started his investment partnership.  But Charlie didn't bite -- he instead told a joke, which was classic Munger, and maybe the highlight of my day:

"Let me tell you a story that I tell young lawyers who frequently come to me and say, 'How can I quit practicing law and become a billionaire instead?'  So I say well, it reminds me of a story they tell about Mozart.  A young man came to him, and he said, 'I want to compose symphonies.  I want to talk to you about that.'  And Mozart said, 'How old are you?'  And the man said, 'Twenty-two.'  And Mozart said, 'You're too young to do symphonies.'  And the guy says, 'But you were writing symphonies when you were ten years old!'  Mozart says, 'Yes, but I wasn't running around asking other people how to do it.

It used to be the meeting questions were dominated by Europeans who traveled to Omaha, but now they are dominated by Asians, more specifically, Chinese-Asians.  There's even a room at the arena complex that has a Mandarin-language translator.  Not sure how this came to be, but Munger especially keeps tabs on China, and has encouraged Berky to invest more there.

This was the first year I can recall that the Omaha World-Herald newspaper wasn't distributed free to those entering the meeting.  It was most noticeable before the meeting in that the paper sections couldn't be used by those trying to save seats.  In that regard, it was kind of nice, and anyone wanting to read the paper can get use their smartphone anyway.