Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?

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Recorded Warren Buffett said elsewhere, not written here
I've mentioned that we strongly prefer to use cash rather than Berkshire stock in acquisitions. A study of the record will tell you why: If you aggregate all of our stock-only mergers (excluding those we did with two affiliated companies, Diversified Retailing and Blue Chip Stamps), you will find that our shareholders are slightly worse off than they would have been had I not done the transactions. Though it hurts me to say it, when I've issued stock, I've cost you money.

His letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the 1997 annual report, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., February 1998 source ↗

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To a resistant materials teacher at secondary school called Mr Noel. He had a comb-over and whenever he turned his back to write on the blackboard, we would roll up bits of paper and launch them at his head. Once, I hit him. I remember him turning around and looking crestfallen.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 October 2025 source ↗

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Question How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? Failure & regret
My first mistake, of course, was in buying control of Berkshire. Though I knew its business - textile manufacturing - to be unpromising, I was enticed to buy because the price looked cheap. Stock purchases of that kind had proved reasonably rewarding in my early years, though by the time Berkshire came along in 1965 I was becoming aware that the strategy was not ideal. If you buy a stock at a sufficiently low price, there will usually be some hiccup in the fortunes of the business that gives you a chance to unload at a decent profit, even though the long-term performance of the business may be terrible. I call this the "cigar butt" approach to investing. A cigar butt found on the street that has only one puff left in it may not offer much of a smoke, but the "bargain purchase" will make that puff all profit. Unless you are a liquidator, that kind of approach to buying businesses is foolish.

Recorded Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letter, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., 2 March 1990 source ↗

Question What made you decide to stop something you were known for, and how did you know it was time? Time & hindsight
Well, I ran out of gas. You know, I got to be what, 93 at that time, or something like that. And it just – same reason I gave up teaching. I teach – I was – I taught every year from when I was 21 till 88 or 89, and there just came a period when your body said different things to you, and you should turn it over to somebody, just like I did at Berkshire.

Recorded Becky Quick, CNBC “Squawk Box”, recorded in Omaha; CNBC's own transcript of its own broadcast, 31 March 2026 source ↗

Question What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? Values & belief
The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.

Recorded His letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the 1993 annual report, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., February 1994 source ↗

Question What is your greatest fear? Identity & self
And now, you've got nine countries, including, you know, a guy in North Korea. I mean, and there will be, something will happen. And we worried enormously about it when there were two. And we had perfectly, we had really pretty sane leaders in Kennedy and Khrushchev. You know, I mean, you were not dealing with unstable people or anything like that.

Recorded Becky Quick, CNBC “Squawk Box”, recorded in Omaha; CNBC's own transcript of its own broadcast, 31 March 2026 source ↗

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