Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (two of the three wealthiest people on the planet), along with Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, talking about Apple.
Short, to the point. Don’t miss that very last line.
VIDEO: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett on Apple
Money is nothing if it’s not simply “an idea backed by confidence.”
I’m typing this while on hold with Apple Support who have been working diligently to resolve my particular situation with enabling Apple Music on my iPhone.
Simply, put, I trust Apple implicitly to keep producing products and services which enhance my life in multiple ways. I honestly believe that millions of Apple customers also have a similar level of CONFIDENCE in Apple, as well.
THIS ALONE is the main factor in Apple’s current success!
Carry on, Tim and company!
Interesting to watch all three carefully choose their words here, careful not to pledge alliance to the Apple ideology, yet they are unable to deny the temptation of Apple’s value.
For Warren, it’s all about the ‘consumer behavior with the product”, rather than the brilliant design, rather than the engineering, rather than the commitment to humanity & environment, and rather than a commitment to a fair and balanced social responsibility. Well, here’s a great big secret Warren, et al., people like shit that works well, is made well, is endeared by the people that make it and doesn’t try to cheat you at every opportunity.
“Very intelligent management.”
From Charlie Munger, that is very high praise.
Though he doesn’t dig at Apple, he doesn’t exactly sing their praises either. Classifying them simply as a ‘consumer goods’ company, to me, trivializes the strides they’ve made in their journey to get to the iPhone X. I understand Buffet still uses a flip phone, but he (his company) owns $43bn of Apple. Nothing trivial about that. Makes me think he doesn’t understand them at all.
Buffet is a very intelligent and shrewd investor, but I’m thinking his comments are somewhat measured here, by the fact that his BFF Gates is sitting three feet away.
Buffet’s long-time partner, Charlie Munger, didn’t mince words, though, when he said “I wish we owned more of it… I like the fact its reasonably priced and strong.”
Gates always seems to praise Apple with a constrained grin. He knows his success would have required a whole different set of bootstraps had Apple never existed.
Buffet has said that he knows where his expertise is, and that he also knows where it isn’t. This is why he’s traditionally stayed out of technology stocks.
I’m guessing that he’s praising Apple for the things that he can directly observe and understand as an investor, rather than for the things he would either need to infer or feel a need to categorize as irrelevant to potential ROI. He’s talking about what benefits the long-term share price, not what benefits the rest of the human ecosystem, either directly or indirectly. He’s certainly not talking about the design or the technology, as this brief clip illustrates.
I’m happy to also have stock in a company those commitments to humanity and social responsibility are proven and tangible. But those factors alone wouldn’t make Apple a desirable investment—especially for anyone of limited means.
Buffet’s talking about numbers and steady performance, not about aluminium, renewable energy, toxic chemicals, or hiring practices.
Fair. Although WB could also have been curt for other reasons which occurred that day in that room. This was just a three-minute excerpt of a longer conversation. That said, it’s known that he makes no claims about understanding the technology he can now hold in his hand.
I sometimes have to wonder if Munger’s the part of Berkshire Hathaway that actually understands businesses that are something other than reinsurance. 😉
Gates face during the entire clip is so great to watch. He may have moved on to far, far more important things than Microsoft vs Apple, but he’s still got that DNA. He praises them with gritted teeth, and I hope that never changes.
I can agree with that, and particularly the Munger comment.
After re-examining the video, I noticed that Gates takes a dig at other ‘tech-speculative’ companies, à la Amazon, Facebook, or perhaps Uber & Airbnb, which changes my initial perception of his comments. You’re right about context and without it, its easy to misinterpret the message here.
As for Gate’s final comment regarding tech companies profit position: “… Apple has the most of all.” Is that a smile, a frown, his poker face or what?
Exactly.
I think of it as a grimace. He knows the degree to which Jobs accomplished things that Gates could only try to commoditize after the fact. The business model he and Ballmer followed certainly took over the world, displacing the IBMs and the DECs, but not as intelligently or profoundly as Apple’s did.