> Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”
> I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.
This made me laugh. I wish my hiring process was this robust! I'd be curious to know more about why he actually chose him.
>Ajit Jain is an older cousin of Anshu Jain, who was the former Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank.
Connections
>He did his schooling at Stewart School, Cuttack. In 1972, Jain graduated from the IIT Kharagpur in India with a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering.[4][5]
Tough degree
> where he earned an MBA from Harvard University and joined McKinsey & Co
A second tough degree at Harvard, plus connections from Harvard and McKinsey
>Jain was invited by his former boss, Michael Goldberg, who had left McKinsey & Co. to join Berkshire Hathaway in 1982
Referral by a former boss
I'd say insurance experience played a very small part in why he got the job
Buffett has mentioned on more than one occasion that Jain is a near genius, if not one. I remember watching him say that he’s one of the smartest people he’s ever met. Given Buffet’s wide network of people, Jain is clearly extraordinarily special, something that would have shined through in an interview.
If you were in India, the last name Jain is enough of a brand if you need someone who can grow the business. The community/ last name is synonymous with successful businesspeople.
When I first started to look into this Berkshire Hathaway company and this Warren Buffett person, of course the first thing I checked out was the website. I was immediately sold. Damn, the world would be a much much better place if all websites are built like this. (And text.npr.org)
I suspect a component of it is simply that the sort of investors they want don't actually care, and that they're happy not to deal with people who do care enough to not do business with them.
> "If you have any comments about our WEB page, you can write us at the address shown above. However, due to the limited number of personnel in our corporate office, we are unable to provide a direct response."
Reading that from them is hilarious. The message might be about being a bootstrapper and not spending frivolously.... or simply saying they don't care, who knows?
Totally unrelated to BRK's website, but something that it brings to mind:
I sometimes wonder if launching a new B2C startup that provides utility, but that doesn't look that good or modern, might succeed not just in spite of the lack of attention to design, but because of it.
I'm talking 1996-2002 era tables and gifs. Nothing fancy.
Would consumers trust it?
Would the usability be greater or worse if it was just plain HTML?
Berkshire continues to sit on cash (144B) with a thesis that productive assets are expensive due to the long period of low interest rates:
'That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive
investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.'
Upcoming interest rate increases may create good opportunities for Berkshire to invest this money and grow.
Yeah I’m a long term investor in GE and the low interest rate is actually painful for them cause of their massive pension liabilities. When the rates are so low, GE has to keep shoring up the pension funds with their own money to make up for the shortfalls. Interest on the pension’s assets just aren’t paying enough to keep up with predicted expenses.
Since I'm not confident I'll be able to figure this out myself from the article, I'll ask you: how exactly are they keeping this "cash"? It is predominantly some kind of treasury security or something, presumably?
Also, we've had a 15 year bull run, arguably the greatest in history. Sooner or later that bubble has to pop. No? Though if we run into stagflation, I wonder how they plan on protecting the value of their cash. Regardless, it's amazing how much cash they've accumulated. You expect tons of cash from APPL, FB, GOOG, etc since they are in tech. But I guess it helps when you don't pay a dividend each quarter.
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are 91 and 97 years old respectively and have famously bad diets and do no exercise yet are both healthy and productive. Many other examples, like William Shatner, who is 91. Or Henry Kissinger, 98. I think much of conventional wisdom about weight, diet, health is wrong. Outcomes are influenced much more by genes than anything else. That's how these old guys keep going when the 'conventional health wisdom' by the experts says they should be dead.
The summary as I understood is that hereditary factors will determine about 40% of your ageing rate. Doing the right things (eating your greens etc) will affect maybe 10-15% of your ageing rate if you're generally healthy. Avoiding the bad stuff (obesity, smoking, alcohol) will drastically affect your healthspan and lifespan.
It's hard to take these men as an example not to care. Who knows what genetic cards they were dealt, and who knows how much luck or invisible preparedness they have with their bodies. The conventional health wisdom you mention is borne of millions more examples and unequivocally points in the direction of keeping your body in as good a shape as possible through your whole life.
Hard to reason from world-famous anecdotes. They could also just have supremely healthy genetics, thus explaining why they’re able and willing to work very hard far beyond the normal retirement age. You’d need large studies to learn more.
This is completely unsupported. Instead of jumping to conclusion that conventional wisdom is wrong, maybe show the evidence about their supposedly bad diets?
The big assumption in this statement is that they have a poor diet but where is your collaborating proof? The only famous bad diet attributed to them is drinking the occasional soft-drink (Coca-Cola) and that can hardly qualify as a bad diet.
Unless you have first-hand knowledge on their diets or detailed second-hand sources that go beyond the occasional soft-drink. Your claim about debunking conventional wisdom on diets such as not over-eating or avoiding excess sugar is totally bonkers.
I'm pretty sure they have a healthy diet, avoiding junk food and such but I may be wrong (since I don't have first-hand knowledge) and so better to post sources when making such contrarian claims such as dismissing the entire consensus of healthy and unhealthy eating.
> I think much of conventional wisdom about weight, diet, health is wrong.
If they weren't alive, it would be a few other old people you would use as examples. Even if conventional wisdom on those topics was bang on, you'd still be able to use this reasoning thanks to survivorship bias.
I'd posit that more important to longevity than diet, is the relation to retirement and work. It may not be much of a coincidence they're working and living until their nineties. I've noticed too many people decline precipitously after retirement when there was nothing in the way anymore of TV and sedentarism, which is the natural state of things in modernity.
Oddly this letter doesn’t have an overarching lesson. Some of the teaching points are that interest rates are low driving up valuations of everything, adjusted earnings including ebitda are suspect, don’t bet against America, float is under appreciated by gaap.
It was another lousy year for Berkshire Hathaway. Hey, at least this year they matched blind dumb indexing! But no interesting major purchases, no benefit from their cash stockpile despite another extraordinary year of volatility & opportunity, and reading the letter is unimpressive - as much as ever it reads like a rambling copy-paste job from the previous year. One wonders at what point the shareholders should hold a family meeting and take the keys away from great-uncle Warren, and if that point is already past.
full picture . they own biggest 'infra' position holding on cash to weather the shit storm . will buy back stock if we fall behind index funds to deliver value .
> Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.
Perhaps this is poorly worded, but can someone explain how that's not a conflict of interest?
The best place on the Internet for Berkshire Hathaway news and discussion is on Reddit: r/brkb
It has more than two dozen value investor moderators and it was created by the legendary and eccentric u/100_PERCENT_BRKB... somewhat of a jerk, but he runs a tight subreddit.
If you are considering investing keep in mind that Berkshire is trading at 1.5 price-to-book ratio. Is there an actual reason to buy the stock instead of roughly replicating their portfolio and maybe periodically rebalancing? You might get slightly different returns but you are not paying a massive 50% premium + fees.
Also Buffet and Munger are in their 90s and I am not sure how the stock will react when the inevitable happens. Personally I would stay away
Even if they only hold stock positions that you could replicate, you would be buying when Berskshire is already done buying and selling when they are done selling. For example, the recent Bershire's position in Activision was disclosed when Microsoft already made the acquisition offer, so it was too late to replicate it.
they have a huge cash position and when where they chose to invest it will create a halo effect causing it to get bigger .... also they can and will do stock buy backs if they cant a better investment.
[+] [-] jcalabro|4 years ago|reply
> I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.
This made me laugh. I wish my hiring process was this robust! I'd be curious to know more about why he actually chose him.
[+] [-] vsareto|4 years ago|reply
Connections
>He did his schooling at Stewart School, Cuttack. In 1972, Jain graduated from the IIT Kharagpur in India with a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering.[4][5]
Tough degree
> where he earned an MBA from Harvard University and joined McKinsey & Co
A second tough degree at Harvard, plus connections from Harvard and McKinsey
>Jain was invited by his former boss, Michael Goldberg, who had left McKinsey & Co. to join Berkshire Hathaway in 1982
Referral by a former boss
I'd say insurance experience played a very small part in why he got the job
[+] [-] james-redwood|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newyankee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
[+] [-] nxmnxm99|4 years ago|reply
Warren Buffet really is a 100 billion dollar door to door salesman
[+] [-] schuke|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdpi|4 years ago|reply
Sort of the equivalent of this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...
[+] [-] meirelles|4 years ago|reply
Reading that from them is hilarious. The message might be about being a bootstrapper and not spending frivolously.... or simply saying they don't care, who knows?
[+] [-] echelon|4 years ago|reply
I sometimes wonder if launching a new B2C startup that provides utility, but that doesn't look that good or modern, might succeed not just in spite of the lack of attention to design, but because of it.
I'm talking 1996-2002 era tables and gifs. Nothing fancy.
Would consumers trust it?
Would the usability be greater or worse if it was just plain HTML?
[+] [-] voisin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somedude895|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaws|4 years ago|reply
Can you share examples?
[+] [-] tim333|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ant6n|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixedbit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hangonhn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanderjd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qiskit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulpauper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zemvpferreira|4 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_aaBKubJnA
The summary as I understood is that hereditary factors will determine about 40% of your ageing rate. Doing the right things (eating your greens etc) will affect maybe 10-15% of your ageing rate if you're generally healthy. Avoiding the bad stuff (obesity, smoking, alcohol) will drastically affect your healthspan and lifespan.
It's hard to take these men as an example not to care. Who knows what genetic cards they were dealt, and who knows how much luck or invisible preparedness they have with their bodies. The conventional health wisdom you mention is borne of millions more examples and unequivocally points in the direction of keeping your body in as good a shape as possible through your whole life.
[+] [-] marvin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon2020dot00|4 years ago|reply
The big assumption in this statement is that they have a poor diet but where is your collaborating proof? The only famous bad diet attributed to them is drinking the occasional soft-drink (Coca-Cola) and that can hardly qualify as a bad diet.
Unless you have first-hand knowledge on their diets or detailed second-hand sources that go beyond the occasional soft-drink. Your claim about debunking conventional wisdom on diets such as not over-eating or avoiding excess sugar is totally bonkers.
I'm pretty sure they have a healthy diet, avoiding junk food and such but I may be wrong (since I don't have first-hand knowledge) and so better to post sources when making such contrarian claims such as dismissing the entire consensus of healthy and unhealthy eating.
[+] [-] kuhewa|4 years ago|reply
If they weren't alive, it would be a few other old people you would use as examples. Even if conventional wisdom on those topics was bang on, you'd still be able to use this reasoning thanks to survivorship bias.
[+] [-] victor106|4 years ago|reply
Is this survivorship bias?
Also, I think a stress free happy life could be equally or more important than diet and exercise.
[+] [-] reducesuffering|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itzprime|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwthere|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwern|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elisharobinson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dazc|4 years ago|reply
Seems like a good idea few other businesses have caught on to?
[+] [-] gaws|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xibalba|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eddy_Viscosity2|4 years ago|reply
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/a-capitalist-is...
[+] [-] voidfunc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beejiu|4 years ago|reply
Perhaps this is poorly worded, but can someone explain how that's not a conflict of interest?
[+] [-] FredWeschler|4 years ago|reply
It has more than two dozen value investor moderators and it was created by the legendary and eccentric u/100_PERCENT_BRKB... somewhat of a jerk, but he runs a tight subreddit.
[+] [-] victor106|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if Railroads will ever be replaceable, maybe if an EV truck is widely available?
[+] [-] bmmayer1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apollo1213|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cushychicken|4 years ago|reply
Warren and Charlie have always struck me as deeply humanist folks. I really like that about them.
[+] [-] elevaet|4 years ago|reply
Oof.
[+] [-] qznc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drexlspivey|4 years ago|reply
Also Buffet and Munger are in their 90s and I am not sure how the stock will react when the inevitable happens. Personally I would stay away
[+] [-] danielmarkbruce|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixedbit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vasco|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] i_have_an_idea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elisharobinson|4 years ago|reply