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ritual. In 1997, he had announced he’d bought almost a third of the world’s silver supply. Instead of bringing up recollections of Blue Eagle stamps, this announcement had sent metals enthusiasts into a frenzy over the Oracle’s sudden liking for their niche.16 More attention was paid to this single transaction than any in Berkshire’s history. Buffett was not a metals bug; he followed metals as a business, based on their supply and demand, not to speculate on them or use them as a hedge against inflation. He thought stocks of companies that could raise prices were the better hedge, even though inflation eroded their gains. He had bought the silver as a good investment, but what he really wanted was to go and visit the silver. He pictured himself in the secret London vault, smiling as he counted the gleaming bars.17 The silver question sent Buffett’s and Munger’s eyes rolling heavenward a fraction of an inch, although Buffett responded politely that owning the silver had been a dull ride. He refrained from mentioning that a visit to the silver would have livened up the ride considerably.

The questions droned on as Buffett and Munger listened, unwrapping Dilly Bars with much rustling. Shareholders began to voice complaints. They didn’t like the stock price.18 One said she was going to look into correspondence schools, since her Berkshire stock would no longer pay for college.19 Gaylord Hanson of Santa Barbara, California, stood at the microphone to harangue that he had bought BRK near its highs in 1998 because of Buffett’s track record and had come out okay only because the money he’d lost had been made up by four technology stocks.20 He urged Buffett to invest at least ten percent of Berkshire’s assets in technology, “the only game in town. Isn’t there enough left in your brain power to maybe pick a few?”

The questions kept veering along these lines. What about famous money managers like Stanley Druckenmiller, who had given in and bought technology at Soros? Given Berkshire’s disappointing performance, couldn’t Buffett find something new to do? If not technology, couldn’t he make some international investments?

It was worse than humiliating. Looking out into the audience, Buffett saw that, for the first time, some of them assumed that he was letting them down: the effort of nearly fifty years rolled backward, undone, his own shareholders turned against him. His age suddenly signified not experience but obsolescence. In the press, people now referred to him as an old man. It seemed that the world today did not want Berkshire Hathaway.

Afterward, Buffett guzzled Cherry Coke while signing autographs, then donned a baseball uniform to throw out the first pitch at the Omaha Royals game. He made another round of parties with Astrid, still wearing his baseball uniform, Dilly Bars dripping in his wake. He held court at Gorat’s with the family on Sunday night, then oversaw the board meeting—another teaching exercise—on Monday morning. Afterward, he, Susie, and the kids and their families flew to New York. By the time he was catching up with friends, eating out and seeing shows with the family, and dutifully checking off his list the unloved annual chore of buying suits at Bergdorf’s, the bathtub memory had done its work. While in New York, he also taught a session of the modern version of the Ben Graham course at Columbia and met with half a dozen journalists attending Columbia’s business-journalism program.21

Saturday morning he summoned three members of General Re’s management to his suite at the Plaza Hotel. Ron Ferguson brought a series of PowerPoint handouts and began to pace through General Re’s string of terrible results. Buffett listened for a few minutes, frowning and fidgeting. Finally he said, Why don’t we just jump to the end. Results had to improve. The lines of authority must be reinforced. Clients were dictating terms to General Re, not the other way around. This must end. Somebody had to be accountable.22

He stopped short of telling Ferguson to retire, betrayed by his weakness for older managers. He sympathized