Everyone has a list. A list of people they would like to meet at least once in their lifetime. And sometimes that opportunity falls right in your lap and the ensuing excitement is simply unbearable. For 20 students from the Olin Business School, the dream of a celebrity meeting came true: we met Warren Buffett! The trip to Omaha, Nebraska was full of interesting tidbits and words of wisdom from Mr. Buffett.
When you have the opportunity to visit someone so successful, being nervous comes with the territory. This meeting with Mr. Buffett, however, defies all the bias one attaches to money, success and power. The recurring theme during the question and answer session with him was humor! He is quick-witted and I can’t remember any one of his answers lacking humor, anecdotes and some sort of life lesson. Buffett’s use of one-liners also added levity to the tone of the session making us feel at ease. Our discussions ranged from what it is like to be rich, taxation, credit cards, investments, brand imaging, business strategy, and personal philosophies.
Mr. Buffett is like a professor who knows what his audience wants. Even while he addressed rather technical questions he interspersed them with stories that were relevant and made the points memorable.
Olin Business School students visit Nebraska Furniture Mart
Among the many highlights of the day were the visits to Oriental Trading Company, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borsheims. With a unique spread of customers and businesses these visits gave us a view into Berkshire Hathaway and what it takes to be a part of it. It was evident from our conversations with the management teams of the companies that there was a recurring theme amongst their visions – customer satisfaction, autonomy and fantastic leadership. The visits further attested to the beliefs that Mr. Buffett shared with us earlier in the day, “I have never seen a company that has focused on delighting customers and hasn’t done well.”
I am sure you are curious if we asked him a question and what his response was. Olin Business School did ask him a question, “What would be the one thing we should unlearn when we graduate with an MBA?” The question prompted laughter from the audience and Mr. Buffett himself. Unexpectedly, he replied with another question, “If I give you an opportunity to pick one classmate of whose earnings you can take 10% of for the rest of their life, whom would you pick? What would be your criteria?”
Then, he asked us to list who we would short out of the same pool of classmates and write down why we would do that. The logic was simple, no one wants to work with people who are not likable. The main message of his view being that people are an important part of a business and no one wants to work with people who are not likable. Mr. Buffett elaborated by saying that if you can focus on those two criteria, you have a road map for life. He stressed that no matter how successful, brilliant or intelligent you are, if you don’t have the right people alongside and if you aren’t someone businesses would want on a team the future holds a lot of challenges. He added that one’s traits become more pronounced the older and richer one becomes and admonished us to lose bad habits and gain good ones.
Selfie of the trip!
Meeting the Oracle of Omaha was like a dream come true for many students who traveled to Nebraska that week. So much so that some of us were shivering when we stood next to him for pictures. Most of us were star-struck by his insights, sense of humor and spectacular one-liners. We also came away with a database of one-liners that are worthy of being life lessons as well as life goals.
t’s first investments. With furniture stretching as far as the eye could see it was not a surprise that NFM is North America’s largest home furnishing store. After walking through several different buildings and seeing everything from kitchen appliances to the latest electronics, we could definitely appreciate the late Mrs. B’s motto “sell cheap and tell the truth.”
