Listen to Charlie
This blog is founded on the idea of learning from Charlie Munger & Greg Glassman. One of the best ways to learn from Charlie Munger is to listen to him when he talks.
And he’ll be talking in a televised interview on Monday, May 6. He won’t be the only guy on stage (in fact he won’t be among only guys—Berkshire’s newest board member Meryl Witmer will be among those interviewed). And his fellow interviewees will probably talk a lot more than Charlie. Fortunately, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Meryl Witmer will also offer compelling insights over the course of the 50-minute interview. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and the newest addition to the Berkshire Hathaway board Meryl Witmer after the company’s shareholder meeting.
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| Meryl Witmer: Berkshire Hathaway's newest board member |
Business school students from Georgetown, Wake Forest, and Columbia will get to ask questions. So if you can’t make it to Omaha this weekend, or if you do but any of your burning questions for Charlie & the gang go unanswered, float a question or two to your closest B-school friend from any of those institutions.
The interview will be broadcast live on Monday, May 6th at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time on Fox Business Network.
Need Berkshire Updates?
Warren Buffett is on Twitter. But Reuters editor of U.S. investment strategy Jennifer Ablan will be a lot more helpful. She’s in Omaha & tweeting updates from the weekends proceedings. Follow her: @jennablan.
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| Jennifer Ablan on Twitter |
Women & Business: Buffett, Witmer, Berkshire’s Board, & more
With Berkshire’s appointment of Meryl Witmer, a principal at Eagle Capital Partners, much is being made about the company’s stance toward women. She is the third woman to be appointed to Berkshire's board; three of the past five Berkshire board appointees have been women. Still, a recent Calvert Investments report lists Berkshire as the worst company for diversity in the country. And one of the report’s co-authors, Christine De Groot, Calvert associate sustainability analyst, said that, “there’s no evidence that diversity is a priority for [Berkshire Hathaway] at all. In fact, the company takes an active stance against diversity in the board room.”
Buffett has also argued that diversity on Berkshire’s board lagged because he basically made all the decisions himself and didn’t rely much on the board for help.
Warren Buffett not only joined twitter (Munger won't be joining him--not his milleu), but he also just authored a piece for Fortune magazine on women in business that speaks to the topic of diversity.
It’s an interesting piece. Especially given Buffett’s belief that diversity shouldn’t be a consideration. He cites Washington Post magnate Katherine Graham as a paradigm case of the way women had the deck stacked against them for years. “I met Kay in 1973 and quickly saw that she was a person of unusual ability and character. But the gender-related self-doubt was certainly there too. Her brain knew better, but she could never quite still the voice inside her that said, ‘Men know more about running a business than you ever will.’”
And then he makes the same utilitarian argument for women’s full inclusion that John Stuart Mill advanced in “The Subjugation of Women” in 1869. “The legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement,” Mill wrote. “And that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."
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| Utilitarian John Stuart Mill. |
Buffett’s case for equality is remarkably utilitarian—every bit as utilitarian as J.S. Mill’s was. “No manager operates his or her plants at 80% efficiency when steps could be taken that would increase output. And no CEO wants male employees to be underutilized when improved training or working conditions would boost productivity. So take it one step further: If obvious benefits flow from helping the male component of the workforce achieve its potential, why in the world wouldn't you want to include its counterpart?...The closer that America comes to fully employing the talents of all its citizens, the greater its output of goods and services will be. We've seen what can be accomplished when we use 50% of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100% can do, you'll join me as an unbridled optimist about America's future.”
And, interestingly, the Calvert investments report lists Coca-Cola among the best companies. Buffett is, famously, Coca-Cola’s largest shareholder. He recently made an appearance at the company's annual meeting:
It’s not a coincidence that a company Buffett owns a lot of stock in has such a record. According to Buffett, Berkshire doesn’t have a corporate diversity policy because he doesn’t dictate one to the company managers. “They do run their own businesses.”
Is that good enough?
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