Dear Mr. Buffett_ What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street - Janet M. Tavakoli [10]
I was not prepared for Warren. I am accustomed to a business world in which most of the men are not “nice kids,” and I have long been used to prudently dealing with disrespect by lesser men (not twice). If Warren had simply avoided overt rudeness, it would have been an upgrade from most finance professionals, and it would have given me bragging rights: I met Warren Buffett, and he was civil!
It is hard to explain how Mr. Buffett managed to thoroughly win me over. He seemed to look away for an instant and then looked back with an almost imperceptible nod. It was as if he considered the totality of his impressive experience, and then concentrated on me with a compelling bias in my favor—as if he had exactly the impression of me, that at my personal best, I hoped to impart. In that moment, Mr. Buffett became Warren and seemed to convey that I should believe in myself the way he believed in me.
It seemed as if our conversation up until now had been a test drive. Warren trotted out his well-worn clichés reported over the years in magazine articles. Now he picked up the pace and asked a lot of questions. We must have covered over one hundred topics.
I lived in Iran for a year? Warren met Farah Diba, the late shah of Iran’s third wife, at a Washington dinner party. I am grateful to be back, grateful for the opportunities, and relieved to again enjoy my rights as a woman born in the United States? So was Rosa Blumkin, the Jewish Russian emigrant furniture sales entrepreneur who sold her business to Warren and died at the age of 104. Inspired by his late wife, Susie, Warren is a major supporter of Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to choose. I do most of my work out of my home office? Warren likes the idea of keeping overhead low, especially since I rent conference offices when needed—he had worked out of his home office for years running his first highly successful investment partnership. I wear casual clothes to work unless I am meeting clients? Warren had considered that, too, but in his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, it isn’t practical. I attended a fundraiser in Chicago and met Ted Kennedy? Warren knows Ted Kennedy, but on a much different plane. I read Forbes? Warren knew the late Malcolm Forbes, son of the magazine’s founder, B. C. Forbes. California housing and politics? Warren had advised Arnold Schwarzenegger, and another of Warren’s personal friends was throwing him a birthday party in California, where Warren has a house. I had worked my way through my MBA as a chemical engineer? A chemical engineer and his wife, Donald and Mildred Othmer, had invested $50,000 with Warren in the 1960s and it was worth $750 million when Mr. Othmer died in 1995 (Mildred Othmer died in 1998. Today their holdings would be worth more than $3 billion). I was born in Chicago? Warren had owned and later sold retail stores in parts of town I probably didn’t visit. I think the rating agencies’ opinions are unreliable? Warren doesn’t rely on them either for his investment decisions. Derivatives sometimes present opportunities? Warren had taken on a large derivative position on the dollar weakening (and later reduced it and put on another). I know large business owners? Warren is looking for good foreign businesses—preferably family owned—of $1 billion or more in size.
When Matteo Ricci studied at the Jesuit College in Rome in the late 1500s, he created a memory palace in his mind. Each