Fund manager and columnist Whitney Tilson explains to Business Insider why he doesn't miss the Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger show at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha.
He basically gives two reasons: he learns a lot and it's fun.
Tilson makes a simple point about learning: repetition helps. "Even though I have been to so many of these, I find that while many of the questions have been asked over the years, the answers sometimes change and hearing a repetition of things I've already heard is good to reinforce a lot of the principles of sound investing," he said. "There are always new questions and new topics that get addressed."
Tilson made a fascinating comparison when he reached for a non-investing comparison: Ted Williams. Williams, like Buffett, was famous for possessing unmatched wisdom and practical success in his chosen passion. Williams, also like Buffett, was known to dispense his wisdom regularly.
"If I were really interested in being a great hitter in baseball and Ted Williams, the last guy to hit .400, were to once a year host a weekend long baseball clinic, would I go? Absolutely," Tilson said.
A lot of people go to Omaha for the Berkshire meeting. And a lot of people engaged Williams on hitting over the years. But one thing I find interesting is that it was Williams, who enlisted in the Navy rather than enroll in college, instead of Buffett, of whom Munger declares, “plainly could have gotten a PhD in any field he wanted to pursue”, who wrote the book on his topic. Buffett famously learned under the guy, Benjamin Graham, who had previously written the authoritative tome on investing: The Intelligent Investor.
Buffett has said that the book “changed my life,” and it provided the “bedrock of investment philosophy.”
Maybe Buffett has been too busy or just never had an interest in writing such a book. Maybe he just never thought he could improve on the original. Buy such a book by Buffett would certainly offer insights The Intelligent Investor didn’t. As Munger has argued, “if Warren Buffett had never learned anything new after graduating from the Colombia Business School, Berkshire would be a pale shadow of its present self. Warren would have gotten rich—because what he learned form Ben Graham at Colombia was enough to make anybody rich. But he wouldn’t have the kind of enterprise Berkshire is today if he hadn’t kept learning.”
Munger has done better, leaving a trove of staggering insights in his book Poor Charlie’s Almanack. This blog is dedicated to getting the most out of those insights (and CrossFit founder Greg Glassman’s very similar ideas). But even Munger hasn’t written a book on investing.
One thing is for certain: Ted Williams didn’t think himself incapable of improving on the best conventional wisdom when he wrote The Science of Hitting.
Williams taught a lot of people about hitting. His book provided many insights that informed people’s practice for many years, and continued to be influential. Imagine what a book by Buffett and Munger could do for their field.
I’m sure investors mourn the lacuna caused by Buffett’s and Munger’s decision not to pen an investing manual. Even though I’m not personally interested in investing, I do, too. Though, I admit to being more grateful that Munger has turned his considerable insight to loftier stuff—or at least topics I take to be far more interesting, like what he calls ‘worldly wisdom.’
Despite authoring no investment books, Buffett & Munger have offered a lot of insights on the topic. And they’ve done so in ways that are superior to books. The Berkshire annual shareholders meeting is a great example. Tilson’s second factor for attending shouldn’t be discounted. Fun is important. "It's a huge amount of fun,” he said of attending Berkshire’s meetings. And that’s a big draw.
But it’s more than fun. Learning at someone’s feet is important.
The guy I learned the most from in college wrote me a few weeks ago about what it’s like to learn in person versus at a distance, “Affect is an important component of learning, and this tends to get lost when people are not physically proximate. As you know very well, writing is a good example of what [Michael] Oakeshott called ‘practical knowledge.’ I'm skeptical that one can ‘learn by doing’ at a distance. I can remember sitting in professors' offices and being asked, ‘what do you mean by that?’ Often the problem or the solution wasn't revealed until we both struggled to make our meaning clear to one another. (Remember the Pocock article from Political Theory, ‘On Verbalizing a Political Act’?) Reading a verbatim transcript of a conversation shows how difficult it is to convey meaning in non-verbal settings, or at a distance (even if the exchange is verbal).”
As it was for me in that professor’s classroom, the exchange of ideas with Buffett and Munger is possible in Omaha. That’s exciting. And significantly more lively than most of our sessions at the library.
 |
| Whitney Tilson. |
He basically gives two reasons: he learns a lot and it's fun.
Tilson makes a simple point about learning: repetition helps. "Even though I have been to so many of these, I find that while many of the questions have been asked over the years, the answers sometimes change and hearing a repetition of things I've already heard is good to reinforce a lot of the principles of sound investing," he said. "There are always new questions and new topics that get addressed."
Tilson made a fascinating comparison when he reached for a non-investing comparison: Ted Williams. Williams, like Buffett, was famous for possessing unmatched wisdom and practical success in his chosen passion. Williams, also like Buffett, was known to dispense his wisdom regularly.
"If I were really interested in being a great hitter in baseball and Ted Williams, the last guy to hit .400, were to once a year host a weekend long baseball clinic, would I go? Absolutely," Tilson said.
 |
| Ted Williams. Boston Red Sox. |
A lot of people go to Omaha for the Berkshire meeting. And a lot of people engaged Williams on hitting over the years. But one thing I find interesting is that it was Williams, who enlisted in the Navy rather than enroll in college, instead of Buffett, of whom Munger declares, “plainly could have gotten a PhD in any field he wanted to pursue”, who wrote the book on his topic. Buffett famously learned under the guy, Benjamin Graham, who had previously written the authoritative tome on investing: The Intelligent Investor.
 |
| Buffett's teacher: Benjamin Graham. |
Buffett has said that the book “changed my life,” and it provided the “bedrock of investment philosophy.”
Maybe Buffett has been too busy or just never had an interest in writing such a book. Maybe he just never thought he could improve on the original. Buy such a book by Buffett would certainly offer insights The Intelligent Investor didn’t. As Munger has argued, “if Warren Buffett had never learned anything new after graduating from the Colombia Business School, Berkshire would be a pale shadow of its present self. Warren would have gotten rich—because what he learned form Ben Graham at Colombia was enough to make anybody rich. But he wouldn’t have the kind of enterprise Berkshire is today if he hadn’t kept learning.”
Munger has done better, leaving a trove of staggering insights in his book Poor Charlie’s Almanack. This blog is dedicated to getting the most out of those insights (and CrossFit founder Greg Glassman’s very similar ideas). But even Munger hasn’t written a book on investing.
One thing is for certain: Ted Williams didn’t think himself incapable of improving on the best conventional wisdom when he wrote The Science of Hitting.
 |
| Ted Williams offers insight that works for baseball & investing: get a good pitch to hit! |
Williams taught a lot of people about hitting. His book provided many insights that informed people’s practice for many years, and continued to be influential. Imagine what a book by Buffett and Munger could do for their field.
I’m sure investors mourn the lacuna caused by Buffett’s and Munger’s decision not to pen an investing manual. Even though I’m not personally interested in investing, I do, too. Though, I admit to being more grateful that Munger has turned his considerable insight to loftier stuff—or at least topics I take to be far more interesting, like what he calls ‘worldly wisdom.’
Despite authoring no investment books, Buffett & Munger have offered a lot of insights on the topic. And they’ve done so in ways that are superior to books. The Berkshire annual shareholders meeting is a great example. Tilson’s second factor for attending shouldn’t be discounted. Fun is important. "It's a huge amount of fun,” he said of attending Berkshire’s meetings. And that’s a big draw.
But it’s more than fun. Learning at someone’s feet is important.
The guy I learned the most from in college wrote me a few weeks ago about what it’s like to learn in person versus at a distance, “Affect is an important component of learning, and this tends to get lost when people are not physically proximate. As you know very well, writing is a good example of what [Michael] Oakeshott called ‘practical knowledge.’ I'm skeptical that one can ‘learn by doing’ at a distance. I can remember sitting in professors' offices and being asked, ‘what do you mean by that?’ Often the problem or the solution wasn't revealed until we both struggled to make our meaning clear to one another. (Remember the Pocock article from Political Theory, ‘On Verbalizing a Political Act’?) Reading a verbatim transcript of a conversation shows how difficult it is to convey meaning in non-verbal settings, or at a distance (even if the exchange is verbal).”
As it was for me in that professor’s classroom, the exchange of ideas with Buffett and Munger is possible in Omaha. That’s exciting. And significantly more lively than most of our sessions at the library.
 |
| You can also learn from Warren Buffett, now, on Twitter! |
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