At the Foot of the Master

Monday, February 18, 2006: Omaha Field Club, West Omaha

So, what is Warren Buffett like? That’s a question that’s both tough and easy to answer at the same time. As he strolled into the Field Club meeting room we gave him a thundering standing ovation. He didn’t react like a politician, finger pointing “hey you over there” to the crowd or flashing thumbs-up signs with black-light bright smile. Nor did he act like a crusty Wall-Street financier, hardened with decades of sitting behind an immense desk or smarmy with easy smiles and self-congratulation.

Instead (not like we really expected anything else, after all we’ve heard about him), he greeted the room warmly and acted like he had nothing better to do on a Monday than to spend the next four hours with 140 UC Davis and NYU black-suit-and-tied MBA students.

Within the first few minutes he launched off with a joke about a Wall Street fund manager who didn’t get his bonus this year and was forced to cut back on expenses. The punch line blurred the lines enough, so to speak, that I’m not quite sure I can actually post it on a University-sponsored blog. The bottom line was that he wanted us to feel comfortable and to make sure we understood that “anything goes”- we could ask him questions about finance and the markets but he was not opposed to answering personal or particularly sticky questions either.

Our crack team of UCD question-askers (chosen in the previous months as we prepared for the trip) proceeded to ask away, alternating one for each of our two with the smaller group of NYU students that also had been invited that day. I will post the Q&A once I get off the plane in Phoenix and get an internet connection again but we spent a rapt few hours basking in the glow, laughing and having a great time with the second richest man in the world.

After our four hours were up and we had had a simple but satisfying lunch of sandwiches and Coke products (“I don’t care if you drink it, I just care if you open the bottles”, said Mr. Buffett, the Coke shareholder), we left feeling like our lives had each been touched not just by the genius of the most successful investor in history, but by a generous, sincere and singular man whose impact and legacy are already a part of this country’s (and the world’s) history.

So what’s he like? I don’t know about everyone else, but after we had a raucous and thoughtful Q&A session, lunch and then photo op time that lasted for over an hour, we felt that he was something like a cross between your favorite professor and a dangerously savvy businessman. I think were all just very grateful that he took the precious time out of his busy schedule to spend the afternoon with us.