2005 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting (Full Version)
Morning. I'm Warren. He's Charlie. We work together. We really don't have any choice because he can hear and I can see. I want to first thank a few people. That cartoon was done by Andy Hayward, who has done them now for a number of years. He writes them, he goes around the country, and gets voices dubbed in. It's a labor of love. We don't pay him a dime. He comes up with the ideas every year. He's just a terrific guy. He's unable to be here today because his daughter's having a bat mitzvah, but he's a very, very creative fellow.
He did something a few years ago called "Liberty's Kids." If you have a child or a grandchild that wants to learn American history around the time of the Revolution, it's a magnificent series. I think it's maybe as many as 40 or so half-hour segments and it's appeared on public broadcasting. It will be appearing again. You can get it in video form, and like I say, it's just a wonderful way to—I’ve watched a number of segments myself. It's a wonderful way to get American history. The only flaw in it is that the part of Ben Franklin is handled by Walter Cronkite, and Charlie is thinking of suing. A little upsetting!
When Charlie is available, incidentally, we have "Poor Charlie's Almanac" on next door in the exhibition hall, and it's an absolutely terrific book that Peter Kaufman has put together. I think it's going to be a seller, a huge seller, long after most books have been forgotten. It's Charlie at his best, and Charlie's at his best most of the time, but it's a real gem.
I want to thank Kelly Muchmore, who puts all of this together. I don't give it a thought. Kelly takes charge of this. She works with over 200 people from our various companies that come in and help make this a success. She does it flawlessly. As I mentioned in the annual report, Kelly's getting married in October, so this is just a warm-up. I mean, we're expecting a much bigger event than this come October.
I want to thank my daughter, Suez, who does millions of things for me. She puts together that movie. She does draw the line occasionally. A few years ago, we had a dinner at Garats the day after the meeting, and we were in—having the whole family was there, having dinner. The place was packed, and there was a big line that had formed outside. Be sure not to go to Garats unless you have a reservation tomorrow because they're sold out. But the big line had formed and it started raining cats and dogs.
A waitress came to me while we were eating. The waitress said, "I've got to tell you, it's raining like crazy outside and there's a long line, and Michael Eisner is standing out there getting soaked." So I turned to Suez, and Michael and Jane are friends of mine, good friends. I said to Suez, "Why don't you go out there and help them out before they get drenched?" And she looked at me and said, "I've waited in line at Disneyland." [Applause.]
That seems to strike a responsive chord. We've flipped things this year. We're going to have the business session at about 3:15. The plan is to have questions and answers. We have 12 microphones here. We have an overflow room that's filled also, so we've got another few thousand people there. We'll break at noon, and when we break at noon, anybody that's been in the overflow room that wants to come in here, there will be, I'm sure, plenty of seats in the afternoon session.
As soon as I get through with a few preliminary remarks, we'll go to noon. We'll take a break. You'll have lunch. Many people find that it helps the digestion to shop while you eat, and we have thoughtfully arranged a few things next door that you can participate in while you eat your lunch. Even if it doesn't help your digestion, it'll help my digestion if you shop during that period.
During the question period, we can talk about anything that's on your mind. Just there's two and a half subjects that we can't talk about. We can't talk about last year's Nebraska football season; we'll correct that next year, but that's off-limits. We can't talk about what we're buying and selling. I wish we were doing more…