source: https://youtu.be/C8657B4v_t8?si=XA9E9WbLr-KSmxsY
title: Warren Buffett | Lecture | Georgetown University | September 19, 2013

transcription: 
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to
the stage Lindsey Bruin's Ma, an MBA
candidate at the McDonough School of
Business, John J. DeGioia, president of
Georgetown University, Brian T.
Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, and
Warren E. Buffett, chairman of the board
and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
Welcome. Good evening. Thank you all for
being here.
I must say I am beyond excited to be
here and that I am in complete awe of
the leaders on this stage and before me.
We have our own Dean Thomas of the
McDonough School of Business, Georgetown
president Jack DeGioia,
chief executive officer of Bank of
America, Mr. Brian Moynihan,
and though he really needs no
introduction, Mr. Warren Buffett.
My name is Lindsey Bruin's Ma. I am a
second-year MBA candidate at the
Georgetown McDonough School of Business
with a focus on global business strategy
and cause marketing.
Over a decade ago in 2003, I was
fortunate to attend the international
relations program here at uh Georgetown
University for high school students and
it had a significant impact on what I
wanted to achieve in my career.
I've actually been trying to get back
here ever since.
Um and so 2 years ago when I decided to
pursue my MBA, Georgetown's McDonough
School was unquestionably it.
I believed then, even more now I believe
this, that Georgetown inspires students
to positively sculpt the way that
business and society interact.
Programs such as the Global Social
Enterprise Initiative, founded by my new
friend Professor Bill Novelli, have very
much made this belief a reality.
I am a product of GSEI and our wonderful
sponsor Bank of America, who partnered
with the ONE Campaign last year to
provide the opportunity for five
students to apply business skills
towards social and economic impact.
Last summer, I interned with RED as a
global strategy fellow. RED being a
cause marketing organization founded by
Bob Bono and Bobby Shriver under the ONE
Campaign umbrella.
Through this opportunity, I was able to
implement business solutions in a
nonprofit setting. And with RED, I was
able to work with global iconic brands
to take on the HIV and AIDS epidemic in
sub-Saharan Africa through a cause
marketing model.
I would like to personally thank Mr.
Brian Moynihan for creating this
opportunity, as well as Ms. Anne
Finucane of Bank of America, and the
entire GSEI family, including Executive
Director Ladonna Mantegui.
I would also like to introduce and thank
our President, Jack DeGioia, for his
unwavering embrace of such programs as
GSEI and for his continued dedication to
community and service. Since 2001,
President DeGioia has encouraged
engagement at both a local and global
level.
Through this, he has given students not
only the opportunity to follow in the
footsteps of some very impressive
leaders, but he has given them the
opportunity to actively shape the new
face of global leadership.
And with that, please join me in
introducing Georgetown University
President Dr. Jack J. Dejoya.
Thank you very much.
It's a beautiful project.
Well, thank you very much, Lindsay,
for that introduction and for the
example that you set through your
commitment to social enterprise.
We're very proud of you and your fellow
students
who are engaged in this very important
work.
It's my pleasure to have this
opportunity to welcome you all to
Georgetown this evening for a very
special conversation between Warren
Buffett and Brian Moynihan.
We're deeply grateful to them both for
sharing their unique experiences and
insights with us this evening.
I'll have the opportunity to more
formally introduce our guests in just a
few moments, but first I wish to express
my gratitude to some of the individuals
who helped to make this this evening
possible. And I'd like to begin with the
Dean of the McDonough School of
Business, David Thomas, for his
exceptional leadership and for for
fostering such important initiatives as
the Global Social Enterprise Initiative.
I'd also like to thank Bill Novelli, a
distinguished professor of the practice
at the business school and the founder
of GSEI.
His commitment to social enterprise,
corporate responsibility, and social
change has enriched our community here
at Georgetown,
and he will moderate our Q&A a little
later this evening.
The values at the core of the work that
we examine here tonight are defining
characteristics of the tradition that
animates our university community, a
tradition rooted in our Catholic and
Jesuit identity,
a tradition that compels us to create
and share knowledge in service to our
world.
As a university, we have been guided by
this tradition since 1789 and now for
over 224 years, we've been building upon
and reimagining it in new and innovative
ways.
The GSEI, through its work to cultivate
leaders who focus on both economic and
social value, is a concrete example of
our commitment to living this tradition
in our contemporary world.
As you know, tonight's conversation is
made possible by Bank of America and I'd
like to express my deep gratitude to two
individuals, a proud Georgetown parent,
Anne Finucane, global strategy and
marketing officer at Bank of America,
for her work in bringing us together
this evening,
and again Brian Moynihan, Bank of
America's CEO, for his leadership and
support of this extraordinary event.
Under Mr. Moynihan's leadership, Bank of
America has deepened its commitment to
community development, philanthropy, and
environmental and sustainability
initiatives.
This includes a 10-year 1.5
trillion-dollar
community lending and investing goal,
the largest ever by a financial
institution.
Since 2007, Mr. Moynihan Moynihan has
also led Bank of America's global
diversity and inclusion council, a group
that is dedicated to creating an
inclusive work environment, and the
company is consistently recognized as
having one of the best environments in
corporate America.
Tonight, he will be engaging in
conversation with one of the world's
great business leaders and
philanthropists, Warren Buffett.
Mr. Buffett, it's an honor to welcome
you back to Washington, D.C. Many people
may not know this, but this is a return
home of sorts for Mr. Buffett. He
attended high school just a few miles
away at Woodrow Wilson High while his
father was a member of Congress.
Renowned and respected for his business
and investment acumen
at the company that he has led since
1965,
Mr. Buffett is also well known for his
deep commitment to philanthropy and
social enterprise.
He co-founded, along with Bill and
Melinda Gates, the Giving Pledge, an
effort to encourage the wealthiest
Americans to donate at least 50% of
their net worth to philanthropy.
About 5 years ago, he pledged 99% of his
Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity.
And last year, the shares he donated
went to foundations that work to fight
poverty, elevate the status of women and
girls around the world, and support
early childhood education among many
other causes. This led to his being
ranked number one in 2012's
philanthropy 50, a list of the nation's
top philanthropists compiled by The
Chronicle of Philanthropy.
He's also given generously over the
years to help support the work of the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which
focuses much of its efforts on global
health
and global development.
So, Mr. Buffett, on behalf of our entire
university community, it's an honor to
welcome you to Georgetown. We're so
pleased you could join us this evening,
and it's now my
my privilege to present to you all for
our conversation this evening, Mr.
Warren Buffett and Mr. Brian Moynihan.
So, good evening, Georgetown. It's a
pleasure to be here.
Uh for those of you who were here last
year, you know that we had uh Bono come
talk to you about what he did.
And uh Anne Finucane helped us arrange
that through all the hard work she does
for our company.
And so, this year as I was thinking
about with Anne who we should bring in,
I actually talked to Bono. And he said,
"Boy, if you want to bring a real rock
star,
bring Warren Buffett in."
Because here's a guy who has done more
for philanthropy than I can ever do and
and etc. So,
last year we brought you a rock star,
this year we brought you a real rock
star.
So, what we're going to do is I'm going
to ask Warren a series of questions over
25-30 minutes, and then we'll take your
questions in the in the crowd and and
let the students have a chance to ask
Warren about his experiences. And I'm
going to start a little bit with
the president left off, which is this is
your hometown. This is every part of
your hometown. So, what are your best
memories about being around Georgetown
and uh
Well, I delivered papers at Georgetown
Hospital uh 66 years ago.
And uh
uh
I like I I developed this affinity
because
in the hospital uh people tipped. Uh
my regular my regular customers, the
ones that knew me, never never tipped.
But they uh but I would go to the
hospital and and one of the things they
would do uh
they would give me cash tips, but they
also would tell me if they were a woman
that had given birth to a
baby that was we'll say 8 lb 11 oz, they
would whisper that number to me. And the
numbers racket was very big in in
Washington that time, and they felt they
were giving me this terribly valuable
information, the exact time in which the
baby was born or something. And I was
supposed to bet on that number in the in
the in the numbers racket that day. So,
I I have a lot of memories of uh
of uh
of Georgetown and uh
um
I was here during World War II, which
was really a fascinating time to be in
in Washington and uh uh
my dad being in Congress and you know,
it was it was really a
a window on an extraordinary time in in
America. And of course
at that time
we were probably more united than at any
time in my lifetime about a common goal.
I mean, it uh
that was the time when people like Bobby
Feller and all the athletes the day the
war broke out went down and enlisted and
and people really
did voluntarily in a very high
percentage uh play by the rules in terms
of gasoline rationing and sugar
rationing and meat rationing and all of
that and
uh we all bought savings bonds at at uh
at school to help out the troops. So, it
was it was quite a period.
Well, so somewhere along there you
started investing and
and uh changed the nature. And I've read
stories that you started investing at 13
or that whether they're true or not, but
somewhere around that and then so
11. What what created the fascination
with investing?
It took me 5 years. I had to save $120.
It took me 5 years to get
$120 to buy a stock uh three shares of
City Service Preferred when I was
uh 11. I I just my dad originally was in
the investment business. He really
wasn't very interested in it. But I
would go down on Saturday morning and uh
and he had these books there in the
office and I read all those and then I
went to the Omaha Public Library and I I
read every book on investments in the
Omaha Public Library by the time I was
by the time we moved to Washington.
And then when we got here, I had the
Library of Congress.
Did you get through all those? Oh, I I I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
it it's an activity
you know, if you're a
you're a baseball player or something,
you know, your legs may go or something.
Well, my legs have long gone, but it
doesn't make any difference in what I
do. So, it's uh
I have
I I literally have as much I always have
had fun working, but I have as much fun
now as I've ever had in my life. I mean,
it's I work with people I love doing
what I love, and it just doesn't get any
better than that. Well, the quote is
that you tap tap dance to work every
day.
dance to work. And so, what what makes
you do that?
Don't don't ask me to demonstrate, but
it's incidentally it was nice to get
that round of applause at the start, but
I've learned that crowds now applaud at
the start because I'm 83 and they're not
sure I'll be around at the end of the
talk anyway.
Well,
I've I've shared enough dinners with you
to know that you have more energy than
anybody I I know, so it's Let's let's
switch to a little bit on a philanthropy
side. So, President Joya talked about
the the Giving Pledge.
How How did you come up with the idea
with with Bill, and and how are you
doing on it? I mean Yeah, well, we're
doing great. And it was I don't know,
three or four years ago
Bill and Melinda and I were out in
California and talking, and I'm not
exactly sure how it came up, but we
decided to call the right David
Rockefeller and ask if he would host a
dinner in New York
for about
16 or 18 people.
Just to talk about philanthropy, and
Oprah Winfrey came, and and Mayor
Bloomberg was there, and it was a
private dinner, and and
I started at having these people talk
around the table as to how they
developed their philosophy of
philanthropy.
It must have taken us 2 and 1/2 hours or
so to get around it, but people were
really interested in it. So,
uh
Bill and I were at that dinner, we
decided that maybe there would be a
possibility of
of of taking this passion which these
people show had shown, and and and going
to other uh people that had a great deal
of money, and
see if we could develop something
uh where people would pledge at least
half their net worth, and
we now
have about 115 people. I've been
I've been dialing for dollars. I I call
these billionaires up, and uh
uh
sometimes they tell me how they can't do
it and I decided I I tell them I'm going
to write a book on how to live on $500
million cuz apparently there's this
great need.
They just can't seem to figure out how
to do it and they need help. Uh,
but it it's it's been very rewarding and
and I received a letter from one woman.
She and her husband had over $10 billion
and she sent me a tie. She sent me two
ties and she sent me this handwritten
note and said that
that uh
they hadn't really faced it. It's a
little like facing your own mortality to
some extent making that plan and that
that's tough for people sometimes and uh
uh so she and her husband had changed
things and and over half of that $10
billion was going to go to philanthropy.
They They They do tend to postpone the
decision so I tell these I tell these
people I call you know the last will is
what counts but I tell them you know are
you If I'm talking to some 70-year-old
do you really think your decision-making
ability is going to be better when
you're 95 with some blonde on your lap
or
So let's get on board fellows. You know.
You know I I assume that that convinces
them maybe the 70-year-old decision's
better at that point.
Well it's
Bill is not a trivia Bill has gotten
people around the world because he
travels more than I do but uh
uh what we're hoping
is people do pick up on norms. I mean
when I was young I read about Carnegie
and Rockefeller and different people
building too and and you do pick up
behavior from those who come before and
and
we've collected letters from every one
of these people. They're up on our
website at the givingpledge.org and and
I think they're worth reading. They're
they're pretty remarkable and of course
what we really want to do is get the
younger people like Mark Zuckerberg has
joined us for example and and he
obviously is going to appeal to a much
wider group than than than than than I
would or
uh so
we are
we hope it becomes you know this gospel
of wealth that Andrew Carnegie uh came
up with 100 years or so ago. That's
influenced all kinds of people. Well,
we've got better stories than that, you
know, on these on these letters. So, I
I just hope it moves. Now, I don't think
I want to emphasize one thing.
Nobody in our group
has given away a dollar that in any way
affects how they live. I mean, I have
the much greater admiration, frankly,
for the person who drops $5 or $1 in a
collection plate on Sunday where it
makes a difference in whether they go
take their kids to a movie or whether
they go to eat out or something of the
sort. They are actually giving up
something that has utility to them.
I am giving up nothing that has utility
to me. I have everything in the world I
want that that that can be bought by
money.
And
so, I have a whole bunch of stocks or
tobacco that have no utility to me, and
they can possibly have enormous utility
to other people in vaccines or
education or all kinds of things. So,
people who give up something that
that actually can have utility to their
family and give that to some other
person so it has utility to them. I
Those are the people I really think
deserve the kudos. But, it's still nice
to go where the money is. I mean, you
know, it's with the Willie Sutton
approach. And and
so, if we can get if we can work on
polio or something like that and it it
takes big contributions, then we want to
go after it. So, I mean, the unique part
of what you've done is with Bill and
Melinda and their foundation and and and
on the one hand how you're doing it and
secondly that you've gone and said
whatever the number will be, but most
almost all your wealth.
all my Berkshire Hathaway Right. And so,
and so, talk about the Gates
relationship and why you chose them as
opposed to creating your own foundation
or Well, originally my wife and I
planned when we were in our 20s that
when we had everything we needed, we
would we would use the rest for society.
And
I thought she would outlive me.
She was younger and women live longer,
and then she she died in 2004.
So, I had to come up with a different
plan.
And you you know, if you've read Adam
Smith and the specialization of labor,
you know that you know that if you're if
you're good at one thing, you're not
necessarily good at another and you
ought to get the person you ought to use
your talents where they're most useful
and get other people to give their
talents. So, you know, when my wife
had babies, I mean, I went to an
obstetrician. I didn't deliver myself.
When I get a toothache, I go to a
dentist. So, I wanted to go to people
who were very good at giving away money
and who were younger, energetic, smart,
and had the same
objectives in philanthropy that I did.
And and the basic principle of the Gates
Foundation is that every human life has
equal value. And if you start with that
as your basic assumption, then a lot of
things flow from that and Bill and
Melinda,
as well as my children, cuz I have
foundations for each one of my three
three children that are of significant
size.
They and you can read the letters I
wrote them up on the Berkshire Hathaway
website. I
I do not direct them to do anything, but
I do tell them to swing for the fences.
I tell them if they succeeded everything
they do in philanthropy, they're doing
the wrong things because the important
things
are the tough ones and you're going to
fail on some of those, but
I have got much younger people,
very energetic people, common
objectives, and they work for nothing.
So,
that's not a bad deal, but
Like that that stretches the money a
long way.
Yeah, absolutely. And and the way I read
it is that you require them to actually
move the money out the other side of the
foundation.
they got they got it they got to spend
it. And and when I die,
uh
all of the money has to be spent within
10 years after the estate is closed
because I do not think that I can pick
out some little
great-great-grandchild yet to be born,
you know, just cuz he has the right name
of Buffett or she has the right name and
they will be the best custodians. I
mean there
there'll be plenty of philanthropists
50 years after I die to take care of the
problems of 50 years, but I want them to
need to get
spent promptly and then and I don't
believe in trying to
control things from the grave. I mean, I
I like to think I can
think outside the box, but thinking
outside of that particular box
That may take a lot of flares for you to
figure that out.
Let's um recently I read an article
about East Lake and and Tom Cousins. So,
this week the as many people know, the
PGA finishes up his tournament at East
Lake, which is a golf course in Atlanta.
And and the story I read about the
development is that you've now helped
Tom Cousins in in the in the development
work he does with communities. Talk a
little about that because that's a
little different than this type of
thing.
Yeah, but it's the same theory of loving
the
back people who are putting their own
time and energy and and who are
successful in in into a project that's
worthwhile. Tom Cousins is a remarkable
man who lives in Atlanta.
Uh just extraordinary, and uh
uh he took this terrible terrible
neighborhood called East Lake in
Atlanta and
against a lot of community opposition,
everything. It was it was it was
crime-ridden, and nobody did it well in
school and everything else. And he
decided you had to a pri-
to apply a holistic approach to it, and
then and you couldn't just attack this
thing or that thing. And so, he
he worked for probably 10 years to
develop this entirely new community out
of this total disaster.
And then
Tom and I talked about it, and I said,
"Tom, you know, everybody's going to say
that that's only be- it can only be done
because you're Tom Cousins, and you live
in Atlanta, and you've done this." So,
uh he and I and a fellow named Julian
Robertson, but primarily Tom,
uh decided to see if we could replicate
this in other communities. And it seemed
to me that and and Tom that New Orleans
was a great one to do it. I mean,
they've been racked by this the Katrina
and everything. So, so uh we've taken it
to the we've taken it to
to New Orleans, where we've got hundreds
of people and these are
it's it's mixed income type
uh a community. I mean, we do we do not
want to have it with everybody
being subsidized. We
We want to create a new kind of
community that where people of different
races, different economic conditions
work together, play together, and it's
been successful in New Orleans. We went
to Indianapolis, it's been successful
there. We've got about 11 more towns
we're working on now. And so I
Tom Cousins has really he
really come up with something. He had an
op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about a
week ago describing this, but he's a
fantastic human being. And when you get
a chance to
to join forces with somebody that
is as high quality as that and energetic
and smart and putting his own funds in
it, you know, you just got to jump at
the chance.
Let's uh
we'll switch the economy now. What's
going on in in move from philanthropy to
the economy um
that you create your wealth off of that
you can do these wonderful great things
with. So, what do you see in the economy
and in what you're seeing in your
companies, your operating companies, and
from an investor's point
Well, our our company
business has come back
very well from 5 years ago when the
panic hit. And it was a panic like
nobody's ever seen. I mean, whatever you
think about it, it was worse. Uh
I I'm dead serious about that. We were
right on the edge of the cliff. Uh And
fortunately, I give enormous credit to
uh
uh
both Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson and
and Tim Geithner.
And and frankly, even though I didn't
vote for him, never voted for him,
President Bush,
uh
you know, I don't know how many of you
have studied economics, but in Adam
Smith they talk about comparative
advantage and and and and uh you know,
Keynes talked about animal spirits and
all those people, but
President Bush
really came out with the great economic
insight of all times. And he did it in
10 words in September of 2008. He went
out there from the White House and he
said, "If money doesn't loosen up, this
sucker could go down." And I mean that
that goes right up there with tear down
those plaques of Adam Smith.
And
And he backed up. He backed up those
fellows and and so
it we've come back from it. But business
has come back you know
a lot of companies are having record
profits including many of ours. And
the American
populace has all has not come back. I
mean the inequality is getting wider.
The The Forbes 400 which just came out
showed aggregate wealth for the Forbes
400 of $2 trillion. You go back 20 years
and that was 300 billion. So it's up six
or seven for one. It's different people
to some extent. But this is the top.
300 billion to 2 trillion. And if you
read the paper today you you'll see that
the median income, you know, is the same
place it was in terms of real purchasing
power. Uh
from 1989 it hasn't changed. So it's
the inequality is getting wider.
Uh the rich are doing extremely well,
extraordinarily well. Uh
and uh business is doing well. Business
profit margins
are
terrific compared to the record
historically. Business returns on
tangible equity are terrific. Uh but
most you know, a great many people in
our country if you take the bottom 20%
of households that's 20
24 million households or something like
that housing you know, close to six
about 60 million people. You know, it's
the top level is $22,000. And I'm I
don't want to try to live on $22,000
with a couple of kids. So it we've got
we've got an economy that is delivering
$50,000 of GDP per capita.
And we've got an awful lot of people who
aren't living well. So it we we have
learned how to turn out lots of goods
and services but we haven't learned
as well how to have everybody share in
the in the bounty that we have.
So, how do how do you think is that that
we just got to grow out of it to provide
growth
growing. We're we're growing. I mean, if
you take even 2% a year, if you think
about it,
people feel very unhappy with 2% a year,
but the population grows 1% a year. So,
that means 1% per capita real growth.
That means in 20 years, a generation,
there's a 20% gain
in in in in GDP per capita. That's not
bad in the generation. And but the
question is how it gets distributed.
This country will grow This system
works, you know, in my lifetime. I was
born in 1930. I was conceived in 1929
because my dad was a stock salesman and
and after the crash, he didn't have
anything to do. Nobody
So,
I I look back with great fondness on the
1929 crash, but
since night
since 1930,
since I was born in 1930, real GDP per
capita has increased six for one. Just
think of that. Six for one.
I mean, you went centuries when nothing
happened for for people. And this this
this country works. I mean, I consider
the luckiest
person on a probabilistic basis
that ever lived is the baby that's born
today in the United States. I mean,
it is a fabulous country and the market
system works all kinds of things, but we
we do have to, in my view, we have to
make sure that everybody
participates to a reasonable degree. We
don't want equality of results, but we
also want a base level that's that's
that's satisfactory for our people. So,
you talked about the
George Bush's statement economic
statement about
it could go down.
Would you What do you think the lessons
are of the last couple cycles that
you've seen from an investor standpoint?
We've got a lot of young kids out there.
You've lived through multiple cycles in
the
in the
50, 60 years plus you've been doing
investing 70 years
investing. that. What are the lessons
and what, you know, these are young
people, what should they take away?
The lessons are that people will
continue to make the same mistakes
they've made. I mean, it
humans, and when it it it it doesn't
correlate to IQ particularly. I mean,
they when they get
when they get greedy
and we had this
huge bubble in the most important asset
the American public has, housing. I
mean, so you had a huge bubble in
something you could borrow heavily
against, so you could run a margin
account effect on a house instead of
stocks. And and the conditions got very
lax, and so when that bubble popped but
people came into that gradually. When
they get fearful, it happens all at
once. I mean, when everybody wants when
people get scared, they all want to
leave at one time. And we had them all
want to leave at one time, and we'll
have that'll happen again. It'll happen
with a different set of circumstances,
but but uh the human animal
uh will keep behaving pretty much the
way it has in the past. So, we will have
periodic
uh
recessions. We'll have an occasional
panic, which doesn't all
all recessions don't come from panics,
but uh
uh
but the good news is, if you look at the
20th century
in the 20th century, we had two World
Wars, we had the Great Depression, we
had the flu epidemic, we had the we had
the Cold War, we had the
atom bomb, you name it.
The Dow Jones average went from 66
to 11,497.
You know, with all these terrible things
happening supposedly at various times.
America works, and uh
well, I when I bought my first stock
when I was 11, that was in the spring of
1942,
and that was a couple months after Pearl
Harbor, and we were getting clobbered in
the Pacific at Corregidor and Bataan. I
mean, the death march of Bataan, and and
and and and and the European theater,
and the the blitz of England was on, and
but and the Dow was at about 100.
But just look at where we are now. I I
the the country really works.
The trick is I mean
it seems to me the obligation of a
society as prosperous as as ours is to
figure out how nobody gets left too far
behind.
It was interesting cuz it last year with
Bono's speech was a lot about how
America is a society of dreams and you
can accomplish more here. It was
actually one of the best speeches about
the optimism America should could have
by a person who's not American by birth.
So it's
and I know you carry that optimism. So
after all this, how do you how do you
how what makes you most optimistic for
the next decade about America? The next
just imagine, you know, 1789. Just go
back just a few hundred years.
There wasn't anything here, you know,
I mean in this country. And and you
know the
Sir Christopher Wren I think you know,
the
designed St. Paul's Cathedral was buried
there and there's a
there's a little plaque there and it
says, you know, if you seek my monument
look about you. Well, I say if you in
America, if you if you seek America's
monument look about you. This this
country has all come about in a few
hundred years. We had less than 4
million people, you know, when we became
a country. China had 300 million people
at that time. Europe had about 75
million. They were just as smart as we
were. They worked just as hard as we
did. They had natural resources that
were similar to ours. And yet we ended
up with a quarter of the world's GDP in
a few hundred years later.
We've got something that works and we
don't want to mess that up.
We want to figure out what we do with
this abundance better as we go along.
But but you don't have to worry about
the system working. But you will have
you will have periodic recessions and
you will have an occasional
panic brought on by something that who
knows where it comes from, you know, at
and
the thing to remember at that time I
wrote an op-ed piece in the New York
Times in in the fall of 2008 and I said,
you know, that
the country will come back, you know,
it'll go through this big recession and
everything but it'll come back and it's
coming back. So don't ever worry about
America. It'll tell you You're in the
right place.
So,
you've been famous for your investment
strategy on basically that follows the
the opposite side of principles invest
when the chips are down and write it up
at
um
that served you well. So, what's your
favorite your favorite uh time that you
were able to accomplish that when you
cut somebody down and and and uh and
move it up.
Well, I I I I always think my favorite
time's going to be tomorrow, you know,
basically.
I But, I
it it's it's always been fun, you know,
and and uh
there's a company here in in in
Washington called GEICO, you know, and I
I first got exposed to that in 1950. I
was
I was 20 years I was 19 years or Well,
it was '51, I'm sorry. I was 20 years
old and uh
I came down here and
and I came down on a Saturday uh because
I'd learned that my
professor who I worshipped at Columbia
named Ben Graham was the chairman. I got
down here and the door was locked. And I
went to the building uh cuz it was
Saturday and I pounded on the door and
some janitor let me in and a marvelous
fellow named Lorimer Davidson uh spent 4
hours with me teaching me all about
insurance and he
he helped me so much in life. You're
going to get
you're going to get help by some
wonderful people in life. It's it's a
great thing to to remember later on when
you get to be my age that you know, all
the help you've received from different
people because uh
uh yeah, nobody does it alone. Obama got
in trouble when he said that in the
campaign that you know, nobody does it
by themselves. Nobody does do it by
themselves. We all sit in the shade of
trees that were planted by others. So,
it's bubbling up to here. I think the
plan of few trees ourselves if we've had
good luck.
Uh
it's
it's been a great ride, but it's not
over. But, you've only got
But, when did you actually buy GEICO?
The the When did you get When did you
invest in GEICO the first time? Was it
Well, GEICO I bought I I I met
Lorimer Davidson
when I was I was finishing up at
Columbia and and then I started selling
securities when I got out. I went out to
my Aunt Alice and my Aunt Alice would
have bought anything from me. And so I
she bought 100 shares of Government
Employees Insurance. It was the first
stock I ever sold. And
uh
then a lot of years passed and Mr.
Davidson was very kind to me in a
variety of ways. But I went I you know I
went in different directions. And then
in 1976 the company got in big trouble
because they miscalculated their
reserves and they were going broke. And
so I came back here
and I I bought a third of the company in
the market in a very short period of
time.
And then in 1995
by now our third had become a half
because they'd repurchased their shares.
And I went out to see Mr. Davidson who
was was out in
Bethesda. He was 96 or 97 and he had a
bunch of stock in GEICO
with no cost basis cuz he'd held it
forever. And I said, "Davey,
if I make an offer for this company
for cash, you're going to pay a big tax.
And of course if you die with the stock,
you don't have that tax and you get a
stepped-up basis. So I'm not going to
make this offer
unless it's all right with you." And and
he said to me, he said, "Warren, he
said, "I've I've hoped for this all my
life." And so we bought the rest of the
company. It was He was a great man.
That's that's terrific. Well, let's
let's turn it over to some student
questions. So I they're going to put a
microphone out here and uh
uh
we'll have you queue up
and uh let you have uh
questions for Warren or
All right, uh
want you
let's go let's take the first question.
Say tell us who you are and ask away. Go
ahead sir.
Hi, I'm Cassin Tavallali, a senior in
SFS.
Uh I was wondering if you have any stock
tips for any of the students, you know,
we're we're all trying to
uh make make a little living.
I I didn't think they taught that at
Georgetown.
They
No they
The best The best investment I ever made
Well,
I I bought a book in 1949 by a fellow
named Ben Graham called The Intelligent
Investor. I don't remember what I paid.
But aside from what I paid for my two
marriage licenses, that was the best
investment I ever made.
Uh and uh
uh it's very important to have the right
framework. You need
You need
You need to have an approach to
investing that's sound. And
Graham's approach is is simple.
Uh but some people
uh
adopt it and and and and which I did
immediately and and most people don't.
Um but if you have the right philosophy,
you will find opportunities
uh as you go through the next 20, 30,
40, 50 years. And and frankly, you're
most likely to find them
uh
when in periods like 5 years ago when we
were having the panic. I mean, that
uh
stocks
sell at silly prices from time to time.
Most stocks at one time or another sell
at very silly prices. Um
and
it doesn't take a high IQ to figure out
that they're cheap. But it does take a
temperament that's willing to step up
and actually act.
I tell people if they're going in the
investment business,
if you got a 160 IQ, sell 30 points to
somebody else cuz you won't need it. I
mean, that that it it it I mean, I
figured out very early you don't have to
be that smart in this business, which is
fortunate. But you do have to have the
right temperament. And you have to be
able to ignore
what other people are saying and and
simply look at the facts and decide
is this stock which is selling at X
worth 2X. And occasionally you'll find
things like that and if when you don't
find it you don't do anything. So,
that's my generalized stock tip. No
names.
I'll make it simple. Just buy Bank of
America and you'll be set.
Yeah, it worked all right for him.
right. That's right.
The
next question, Um, good afternoon. My
name is Nicholas Walker. I'm a sophomore
in the SFS as well.
Um, so Mr. Buffett, in the past you
invested in China, South Korea, and
Israel. Um, and recently you partnered
with 3G Capital and Jorge Paulo Lemann,
um, from Brazil over for the Heinz deal.
Uh, does this mean are you tempted to
venture into the Brazil market next?
I didn't get the question.
you you did the Heinz deal. The question
is are you going to invest in Brazil
next? Oh, uh, I don't know where I'm
going to invest next. That's what That's
what makes my job interesting. I mean,
I'm I'm I'm I'm not kidding. I mean, if
you went out and played golf
and every drive went in the hole, you'd
give up the game wouldn't be
interesting. I mean,
what what's interesting is when you get
in the rough and have to come out and a
few things like that. So, I
I love the fact that I don't know what
I'm going to do next. You mentioned the
Israel investment.
In 2006 in the fall,
I got a letter from a fellow
and I never heard of him
and I never heard of the company he was
talking about, but he said, "My name is
Eitan Wertheimer
and I want to tell you a little about my
company Iscar." The letter was a page
and a half long and he said,
"If he sold the company, the family sold
the company, the only company they
wanted to sell it to was Berkshire
Hathaway. And if I was interested,
they'd be glad to come over from Israel
and explain it to me." And it was a It
just jumped off the page that this was
an interesting idea. So, I emailed him
and they came over very shortly and
and we bought the business. We we handed
them
$4 billion for 80% of a company where
I'd never seen it or anything, but Eitan
kept saying, "You got to come over to
Israel and see the plants and
everything. You You won't believe how
wonderful they are." And I said, "Eitan,
I don't go to Council Bluffs, Iowa. You
know, I mean,
I am doing fine in Omaha. And uh he
said, "No, you know, you got to see it."
I said, "No, no, I don't
I said, we can make a deal without
seeing it." He said, "Well, if you buy
if you buy the company, will you come
and see it?" I said, "If we buy the
company, I'll come." So, we bought the
company and I went over there and it's
true. I've never seen plants like this.
It was the greatest operation I've ever
seen. And Eitan said to me, he said,
"You know,
that's why I want you to come over to
see these things." I said, "Listen,
Eitan, if I'd come and seen them, I'd
have paid more money, so I
So it
uh
we we have a wonderful partnership with
the people in Israel, but I don't know
tomorrow uh our partnership with the
people in Brazil, with Jorge Paulo
Lemann and his associates, they are
sensational people. I got to know Jorge
Paulo when I was on the board of
Gillette when and the opportunity to buy
into a wonderful business
and to be partners and they do they
they'll do all the heavy lifting. They
they run the place uh with Jorge Paulo
and his associates. I mean, it it's just
it's a it's a great opportunity for us.
And I don't know what the opportunity
will be tomorrow. With Jorge Paulo is
last December uh I was going out to
Boulder, Colorado where he had a group
that met and he said, "I think I've got
an idea that might interest you when I
get out there." And so, I went out there
and and uh and as we came back on the
plane, he explained what he was thinking
about in terms of Heinz and I said,
"Count me in." And
uh and I will tell you one other thing
which is quite impressive about him.
After I said that and went went a little
little further in the thing, he sent me
a one-page
governance description of how it work
would work between the two of us and he
sent me a very brief description of what
he thought would be a fair deal for both
of us. I didn't have to change a word. I
mean, those are the kind of people you
like to associate with.
Next question.
Hi.
Uh you mentioned that people will make
the same mistakes in terms of the
boom-bust cycle.
And but there've been several recent
financial developments such as the
creation of derivatives which has since
exploded recently. And you once called
derivatives uh weapons of mass
destruction. Right. Uh now that
derivatives are a $700 trillion
industry, do you see this as setting the
stage for the next financial crisis?
It's It's very hard to tell that, you
know, we've enacted Dodd-Frank.
And
if you
if you look at the what happened in
September and October
of 2008,
there were some extraordinary things
done.
The Federal Reserve
poured $85 billion into AIG and if they
hadn't, our world would be very
different.
Uh
Hank Paulson guaranteed money market
funds at a time when 30 million
Americans with money market funds were
panicking and when
300 billion in 3 days had gone out of
the non-government money market funds,
125 of it gone back into the government.
300 billion, that was
that was almost equal to the deposits of
Wells Fargo or Wachovia at the time
which were then two separate
institutions.
Both of those authorities
have essentially
been tak- They I don't think they can do
that under Dodd-Frank. I think they I
don't think that Bernanke could do what
he did and I don't think that Paulson
can do what he what what he did.
Uh
when there's a panic,
the only thing that will stop it
basically
is when somebody who has the
ability
and the will
says, "I'm going to do whatever it
takes." And basically that's what
Bernanke and Paulson and finally
Congress in a kind of a reluctant way,
but said to the American public, and you
could believe it. If Bernanke said, "I'm
going to do whatever it takes." Nobody
knows what section 13 three or of the
Federal Reserve Act is, and it wasn't
probably meant to do what what he did
with it, but he did it. And the same way
with the they call it the exchange
stabilization fund of the of the
Treasury. Nobody It was enacted back in
1934. Nobody dreamt it would be used to
take care of money market funds, but you
had these strong characters
who had the ability to print money in
the case of Bernanke, and they said,
"We're going to do whatever it takes."
And the president was behind them.
That is the way you end a real panic.
And and I
I worry actually that that you know,
Congress doesn't like to give anybody
that much authority, and it bothers them
that the Fed has all this authority, or
that Paulson acted as he did in TARP.
And
I tip my hat to them, and I I I'm not
sure. There will be another panic. You
know, where it comes from, who knows.
But when that time comes, the question
will be are the people who have
panicked, who have frozen, who have
caused the economic engine to stop, you
know, will they believe and come right
back and be doing something? And I'm not
sure
whether the what's been enacted is a
plus or a minus in that regard.
Regardless, the the country will come
through, but we
uh
it's very hard
to write regulations
that will keep people from acting
foolishly, particularly when acting
foolishly has been proven very
profitable over the preceding few years.
It's just It's just the way it works.
And humans, you know, they they they all
think they're Cinderella at the ball,
you know, and they think, you know, as
the night goes along, the music gets
better, and the drinks flow, and
everything, and they think they're going
to all get They all think they're going
to leave it 2 minutes to 12. And of
course, there's no clocks on the wall,
and they're still dancing. So, it'll
happen again.
But buy when it happens.
Next question.
I'll be buying.
Hi, my name's John Ruff. Um I'm from
Georgia, so I'm familiar with the work
over at East Lake.
Oh, that's great.
Appreciative. But um you talked a little
bit about income inequality. But if you
look at class mobility rates and if you
look at
average household income for middle
class families
measured with inflation, a lot of these
rates have been trending down since the
1970s. And
some may argue that it's harder today
for the middle class than it's been in
30 years. And I was wondering if you had
any more thoughts on how a rising tide
can lift all boats and not just the
yachts. Yeah.
Well, that's what's happened. It's like
John Kennedy talked about rising tide
lifting all yachts. And the yachts have
been lifted like I say for the top 400
from 300 billion to 2 trillion just in
the last 20 years.
The
there is a very, I think, structural
problem
as a market system gets more and more
specialized. If you go back to an
agrarian society like we had a couple
hundred years ago with most people
working on a farm,
most people felt fit most job
requirements. I mean, it was
that as the world has become more and
more specialized,
uh I think we've keep moving away from
that. So,
a market system
will not pay well for a significant
percentage of society. They they aren't
needed to keep GDP itself going up. And
and people at the top And I think
government has to address that. That
it I think it's I
I I I
I sometimes toss out to students this
proposition.
Imagine that it's
24 hours
before you're born.
And you're sitting there, Johnny or
Joni, we don't know yet, and you're in
the womb.
And a genie comes.
And the genie says,
"John or Joni,
you strike me as a remarkable potential
human being.
And I'm going to give you an enormous
responsibility.
I'm going to let you decide the world,
how the world is going to work into
which you're going to emerge.
You can decide on the economic system,
the social system, the political system.
You design it. And whatever you design,
that's going to be the system in which
you live, your children live,
grandchildren live.
And you being wise beyond your minus 24
hours of age, say,
"I know all about you genies. What's the
catch?"
And the genie says there's one catch.
Just before you emerge, having designed
the system, put it in cement,
you're going to go over to that barrel
over there
that has 7 billion slips in it, one for
every human being in the world, and
you're going to pull out a slip.
It may say male, it may say female, it
may say white, it may say black, it may
say infirm, it may say it may say
strong, it may say bright, it may say it
may say uh below average. Uh it may say
United States, it may say Bangladesh.
Now, not knowing which
ticket you're going to pull out,
what kind of a world do you want to
design?
Well, you certainly want to design a
world that produces lots of goods and
services and keeps producing more and
more. You want a lot of stuff around.
It could be the world's fairest society,
but if it's on a barren desert island,
it's not going to do anybody good. So,
you really want something that works in
terms of output. But once you have
something that works in kind of in terms
of output, you know, you certainly want
something that eliminates fear from
everybody's life. Now, that doesn't just
mean a lot of cops, it means fear of old
age, fear of health, all of those
problems.
And you certainly want a system not
knowing what tickets you're going to
get. It takes care of the people that
don't survive so well in that market
system, which which maximizes the amount
of output, your first goal.
And I think we've done a wonderful job
at the first stage. We have learned out
of turned out lots of stuff.
We have not thought as much. Although we
thought a fair amount. I mean, when
social security came in and all of that,
I mean, this country has developed in
terms of thinking about how a rich
family should behave. But
we have not I think we're in the stage
where we need to focus more on making
sure that the people who get the bad
tickets
do better
than they are. And you know, we said
that blacks were 3/5 or slaves were 3/5
of a person back when we started and
said, you know, we said all men are
created equal in 1776 and in 1789 we
said blacks are 3/5 of a person. You
know, we said we not only said all men
are created equal, but in the Gettysburg
Address, you know, Lincoln repeated it.
It was 1920
before we passed the 19th Amendment for
for women. So we just we we treated
women as a essentially different class
for all those years. So I think we've
got I think we've gone in significantly
in the right direction in terms of
behaving
better as a society. And I think we've
gone terrifically in the right direction
in terms of turning out lots of stuff.
But I think we have to address the
question of how do you treat the people
that are left behind in a system that
maximizes the output of goods and
services.
And that can only come through
government.
Next question. Good evening. My name is
James Fishback. I'm the School of
Foreign Service first year. It's no
doubt that you're an outspoken fan of
Ben Bernanke, but know he's going to be
stepping down in January of next year.
Whoever takes over the position, do you
think that they should continue continue
the Fed's controversial buyback program?
And if so, for how long? Well, it
I think I think they should
take Bernanke's approach where she's he
says he's going to keep doing it till he
sees more improvement in the economy and
I think he's been mildly disappointed
uh in in not hugely disappointed but
mildly disappointed in the rate of
improvement uh
in the economy in the last few years and
therefore just the other day he said
he's going to you know extend it further
until he sees it. So he's he's not
prejudging exactly when it's going to
happen. He's telling you the conditions
under which he'll he'll change and the
economy is getting better. We are
in in
in a in an experiment which hasn't
really been tried before. I mean we you
know we have a
Fed has a three and a half
trillion-dollar
balance sheet and and uh
uh buying securities is usually easier
than selling securities. Sometimes
people find out. So uh
we don't know how this game plays out.
Uh
and
just the announcement whenever it was a
few months ago or the hint that that
tapering was going to occur, you know,
that had some significant market
reaction, probably 100 basis points or
so in the tenure. And
what will happen when it
when they actually if if they actually
try to deleverage the Fed. I mean what
has happened is the American public
deleveraged and the and the government
leveraged up through the Fed.
When the Fed if the Fed deleverages that
in any big way, that will be that will
be a new experiment and uh As Warren was
we were talking earlier, that the
question is
when they do that, the economy has to be
growing faster.
has to be doing and the piece people
don't take into account is they
they're clear that they're going to stay
there until the economy grows faster.
they have no pressure on them. In fact,
you know, the Fed
is the greatest hedge fund in history. I
mean and you've got a a one financed by
currency in circulation which doesn't
cost anything and they got about a
trillion eight or nine from the banks at
25 basis point and I mean the Fed is
going to make 80 billion or something
like that. The Fed is the fourth largest
contributor
to the United States government's
revenues uh that there is now. That
wasn't the case a few years back, but
it's 80 or 90 billion a year probably.
And so and it is under no pressure.
There's not whatsoever to have to
deleverage. So it can pick its time and
and if you have somebody wise there and
I think Bernie he's wise and I and I
certainly expect his successor to be.
Uh
it it can be handled. But it is
it is something that's never quite been
done on this scale. It'll be interesting
to watch. No, it it it will be and we've
seen the lesson the market moving ahead
and back just based on
the last 30 days. So I think we're going
to take one more question and then
the next student
uh
Hi, I'm still Warren Buffett. Um my name
is Shirley and I'm from China. I'm
currently a graduate student in
Georgetown. Um my friend uh Dennis Zhao
and I uh we are both a very big fan of
you and your friend Charlie and we read
his book which is very interesting. He
had this whole system of criteria on how
to evaluate a company.
It's all very confusing, but he said
that um Warren and I are always staying
away from the industries we don't know.
So you have candies, railways, and uh
Coca-Cola. But um now the word is
changing and we are living in a new era.
The business models are changing. The
B2C platforms, everybody is shopping
online. Maybe in a few years everyone is
going to pay with their iPhones and Bank
of America no longer issues credit card.
So nonprofit is a new model and um So
what's the dinosaur going to like me
going to do, yeah? Yeah, there's just so
many things you don't know about.
He'll take out his flip phone and show
you. So he's not going to be one of This
is my new one.
Huh?
It's going to take it's going to
I I just turned in the one Alexander
Graham Bell gave me, but
Okay.
Um so, the question is the business
models are changing, the world are
changing. They are the new technology,
they are changing everything. There's no
way you can just stay out of it and stay
with the traditional. Now, um for the
private investors, especially in the
venture capital industry, what would you
think is the most important thing, the
key in evaluating a company? It's we are
not I'm not asking about doing mediocre,
I'm not asking about being average, but
about excellent and remarkable.
Just name one thing. The
The most important thing is to decide is
to be able to
define
which ones you can come to an
intelligent decision on and which ones
are beyond your capacity to evaluate.
You don't have to be right about
thousands and thousands and thousands of
companies. You only have to be right
about a company. couple I'm I'm I'm at
Bill Gates on July 5th, 1991. We were at
Seattle
and Bill
said you've got to have a computer.
And I said, "Why?"
And he said, "Well, he said you can do
your income tax on it."
I said, "I don't have any income.
Berkshire doesn't pay a dividend." And
he said, "Well, you can keep track of
your portfolio." And I said, "I only
have one stock." I said I I mean
And he says, "It's going to change
everything."
And I said, "Well, will it change
whether people chew gum?"
And he said, "Well,
probably not." And I said, "Well, will
it change what kind of gum they chew?"
And not I said, "Well, then I'll stick
to chewing gum and you stick to
computers, you know."
I don't have to understand all kinds of
There's all kinds of business I don't
understand. But there's thousands of
opportunities there. I did understand
the Bank of America, you know. And and
and uh
and I'll be able I'm I'm able to do
that.
Uh
I'm able to understand
some given percentage. But Ted Williams
wrote a book called The Science of
Hitting.
And in The Science of Hitting, he's got
a diagram. Shows him at the plate, and
he's got the strike zone divided into 77
squares, each the size of a baseball.
And he says,
"If I only swing at pitches in my sweet
zone," which he shows there, and he has
what his batting average would be, which
is .400. "If he had to swing at low
outside pitches, but still in the in the
strike zone, his average would be .230."
He said the most important thing in
hitting is waiting for the right pitch.
Now, he was at a disadvantage because if
the count was 0 and 2, or 1 and 2, or so
on,
even if that ball was down where he was
only going to bat .230, he had to swing
at it.
In investing, there's no called strikes.
People can throw Microsoft at me, and
you know, you you name it, any any
stock, General Motors,
uh and I don't have to swing. Uh
nobody's going to call me out on called
strikes. I only get a strike called if I
swing at a pitch and miss. So, I can
wait there and look at thousands of
companies day after day, and only when I
see something I understand, and when I
like the price at which it's selling,
then if I swing, if I if I hit it, fine.
If I miss it, it's it's it's it's it's a
strike. But it's an enormously
advantageous game, and it's a terrible
mistake to think you have to have an
opinion on everything. You only have to
have an opinion on a few things. In
fact, I've told students
if when they got out of school, they got
a punch card with 20 punches on it, and
that's all the investment decisions they
got to make in their entire life, they
would get very rich because they would
think very hard about each one. And you
don't need 20 right decisions to get
very rich, you know, four or five will
probably do it over time. So,
uh I don't worry
too much about the things I don't
understand. If you understand some of
these businesses that are coming along,
and can spot things on if you if you can
spot an Amazon for example, I mean it's
a tremendous accomplishment what Jeff
Bezos has done. And I tip my hat to him.
He's a wonderful businessman. He's a
good guy, too.
But
could I have anticipated that he would
be the success and 10 others wouldn't
be? I'm not good enough to do that. But
I don't fortunately I don't have to. You
know, I don't have to form an opinion on
on Amazon. And I do I did form an
opinion on the Bank of America and I
formed an opinion and I'm Coca-Cola. I
mean Coca-Cola's been around since 1886.
There's 1.8 billion
1.8 billion 8 oz servings of Coca-Cola
products sold every day.
Now, if you take one penny
and get one penny extra, that's $18
million a day.
And 18 million * 365 is 7 billion three
less 730 billion or
6 billion 570 million dollars. So,
annually 6 billion 570 million dollars
from one penny. Do you think Coca-Cola's
worth a penny more than you know, Joe's
Cola? I think so. So, uh
you know, and I've got about 127 years
of history that would indicate it. So,
those are the kind of decisions
I like to make and you may have an
entirely different field of expertise
than I would have and probably much more
up-to-date in terms of the kind of
businesses that we're seeing above and
you can get very rich if you just
understand a few of them and and and
understand their future.
But fortunately I don't have to. I mean,
if we go into Heinz you know, and I
I look at people pouring ketchup on you
know, uh hamburgers and potatoes. I
don't think it's going to change. And uh
uh
And the nice thing about it some
products travel. Some products don't
travel. Candy bars don't travel well. I
mean, if you look at the
Cadbury bars in England, they don't sell
well here and if you look at the Hershey
bars here, they don't sell as well
someplace else.
Soft drinks travel and ketchup travels.
I like products that travel.
Well, thank Okay. Thank you, Warren.
Warren, I want to thank you for your
taking the time to work with the
students today. And I think for all the
students out there, just think about
this. This is a person who with a
passion, he still has at 83 to make that
right investment decision. But
importantly, what we talked a lot
earlier about is
the ability to try to do something with
all that wealth that will help a pretty
near-term set of goals in society. And I
think you will find very few people in
the world have been able to do both
things so well as Warren Buffett has.
And there's a lesson to learn for all of
us in that. So, thank you for spending
time.
Thank you.
So wow.
That's probably the first time in my
life I ever heard um a positive outcome
for the great economic crash of 1929.
So, Brian, thank you for bringing us a
rock star.
We just We just heard a terrific
conversation, a terrific discussion
about economic impact and social impact
and how the two fit together.
And before this conversation, Brian
Moynihan had a session with uh some of
our business students in which he talked
about community lending, philanthropy.
He talked about environmental
initiatives. And he talked about how
they are good business
as well as good for society.
And this is the right place. Georgetown
is the right place for that.
Our president Jack Dejoya, he talks
about global human development.
And the dean of our business school,
David Thomas, he talks about being in
service to business and society.
And that's why our global social
enterprise initiative is flourishing and
why it's in the right place.
Um
our organization, the global social
enterprise initiative, um
is driven by students. In fact, it was
started by students. There's a student
here, I should say a an alumnus here. I
don't know where he is, Rahul
Paswanikar, who flew in. He's a McKinsey
executive. He flew in just for this
conversation. He helped to to
conceptualize this initiative. And
Rahul, wherever you are, keep the good
work going.
Um Lederman Teague and I, we we think
that students power what we do.
And we have many projects going and
students are involved in every one of
them. And we're very thankful for that.
And I can tell you that I love
Georgetown. I love Georgetown because I
come in here every day
and I rub elbows with these students who
are tomorrow's leaders.
And every night I go home thinking the
future is really in good hands.
So um look for future GSEI um
events. Look on our website.
Um thank you again for this wonderful
conversation. We've got to applaud these
two gentlemen.
I'm sorry that not every student got to
ask a question, but there's always
email. And would you please let the
first two rows leave because there are
some security issues involved. Thank you
very much.
Woo!