8:42 a.m. (all times Central): It’s begun! They’re playing the movie. Starts out with a musical montage with scenes from Berkshire subsidiaries. Makes me wonder if “It’s a Beautiful Day” is, in fact, the most-played song at annual meetings. Then goes to a cartoon in which Warren and Bill Gates (Berkshire director and Buffett bridge [...]
First event of the Berkshire Hathway annual meeting: Warren Buffett gets his portrait painted by performance artist Michael Israel. It takes 8 minutes. Afterwards, Buffett goes to shake Israel’s hand… and then thinks twice. Then Warren did some TV interviews and walked around the exhibition space, visiting the booths and displays of Berkshire’s subsidiary companies, [...]
One thing I meant to tell you about yesterday—before I got seduced by the blueberry martinis and diamond necklaces at Borsheim’s—was my conversation with Brad Kinstler, the CEO of See’s Candies. In this year’s annual report, Warren Buffett bragged about See’s. Per-capita consumption of boxed chocolates might not exactly be a growth industry, Buffett wrote, [...]
