Bill Gates, Warren Buffett on surviving the fin crisis

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Quick: Right here.

 

Q: Hi, I am Josh Austin. I am a second-year MBA student. My question is for you, Buffett. Value investors, such as yourself, believe that fundamental analysis, deep fundamental analysis is critical to intelligent investing. However, you have said several times in the past that you have made very rapid capital allocation decisions, sometimes in less than five minutes. I was wondering exactly which data gave you confidence in your decision.

 

Buffett: Well, that's 50 years of preparation and five (minutes) of decision making.

 

Quick: Can you just look at the spreadsheet? Can you look at an annual report and make a decision like that?

 

Buffett: Yeah. Sometimes I can. Just take Coca-Cola, for example. I sampled the product for 60 years and then I saw a couple of key ingredients, you know, that essentially tipped the scale in terms of buying it back in 1988. But the good big decisions, they don't take any time at all. If they take time, you are in trouble.

 

Quick: All right. We will have more with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, when we come right back.

 

Quick: All right. Welcome back, everybody. Gentlemen, last question today. If America was a stock, would you buy it? Gates.

 

Gates: You bet.

 

Quick: Buffett.

 

Buffett: On margin.

 

Quick: Gentlemen, we want to thank you very much for your time. You have been wonderful. Gates, Buffett, we really appreciate it. Let's give them a big round of applause, guys. And we want to thank all of you, too. Columbia University, the Business School, Dean Hubbard, thank you, guys. We really appreciate it. It's been fantastic. That does it for us today and we will see you back here very soon.