Sunday, November 15, 2009

A $500,000 Advice by Warren Buffett

Ben Franklin once said “If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” Warren Buffett heeded and he recommends you to do the same thing.

"Right now, I would pay a hundred-thousand dollars for 10 percent of the future earnings of any of you. So, if anyone wants to see me after this is over ... (laughter and applause). If that's true, you're a million dollar asset right now, right? If ten percent of you is worth a hundred-thousand? You could improve on that, many of you, and I certainly could have when I got out, just in terms of learning communication skills.

It's not something that's taught, I actually went to a Dale Carnegie course later on in terms of public speaking. But if you improve your value 50 percent by having better communication skills, it's another 500-thousand dollars in terms of capital value. See me after the class and I'll pay you 150-thousand. (Laughter and applause)"


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CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great

QUESTION: I'd like to know your perspective on whether greed and immoral behavior, unethical behavior, were key causes of the recent financial crisis.

BUFFETT: It certainly played a part. We have always had greed. That didn't get invented in the last few years. And greed, fear in the third quarter -- I mean, the American people were really panicked there for a while. And it affected their -- it started out on Wall Street but then spilled over into the general economy subsequently. But we're never going to get rid of greed. We're never going to get rid of fear. What we do have is a system, as Bill said, a market system where we have the quality of opportunity and the rule of law combined to unleash human potential in this country over the last couple of hundred years to the degree nobody would have believed possible a few centuries before that. There's nothing that's gone wrong with that system. Our economy was sputtering and still is sputtering some. But we've got the greatest engine ever devised. And it's just beginning. Greed will continue. Don't worry about that. Oliver Stone is putting out a second film here pretty soon. Probably get mentioned again in this one with Gordon Gekko making a return. But that is not what drives the American system. What drives the American system is the quality of opportunity in a market system and the knowledge that when you get out of here, you're going to enjoy the fruits of the knowledge you have gained. And it will keep working. I'd love to trade places with any of you.

On what you should do after graduation.
BUFFETT: Find what turns you on. Find what you have a passion for. If somebody said to me when I was getting out of Columbia, you know, that Bill's business was going to be the one that would be exciting, you know, I don't think I'd have done so well. [LAUGHTER] But I knew what turned me on. I had a professor, Ben Graham, I offered to go to work for him for nothing. He said, "You're overpriced." Nonetheless, I went into the business. [APPLAUSE] I will guarantee, you will do well at whatever turns you on. There's no question about that. Don't let anybody else tell you what to do. You figure out what you are doing. [APPLAUSE]


Full transcript here: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great

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"There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is also the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily - or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play." - Jesse Livermore