A closer look at Taylor Morrison — Berkshire Hathaway’s first acquisition of the Greg Abel era. kingswell.io/p/taylor-morris…

Chris Hohn: "AI will increase the productivity and lower the cost base of all companies. So if you have a company with these barriers to entry, it's going to be worth more." "It's going to increase disruption in ways we can't even predict."

Warren Buffett on investing: "You don't have to do anything very smart — you just have to avoid doing things that are ungodly dumb when looked at about a year later. You know, airlines and that sort of thing..." "It is not some great crystal ball game where you look into the future and see all these things that other people can't possibly see. I mean, what's complicated about Coca-Cola or Gillette or Wells Fargo?" (Berkshire Hathaway AGM || 1996)

Charlie Munger: "There will never be any shortage of good people in the world. All you've got to do is seek them out and get as many of them as possible into your life — and keep the rest the hell out."

Warren Buffett: "It's better to have the talent of the whole world working on things like battery technology or whatever it may be. If we can add the resources of a whole bunch of other people to help solve our problems, I'm all for it." "If we get there first and they copy us — fine. If they get there first and we copy them — fine. It is not like they're going to be able to hoard the technology and we'll never see it." "I like to see the United States come in first on everything, but I don't think it will be terrible if somebody in China or India comes up with something that enables this country to deal with its problems." (Charlie Rose Show || 2009)

Charlie Munger: "I like a certain amount of social intervention that takes some of the inequality out of results in capitalism. But I hate with a passion rewarding anything that can be easily faked — because then people lie and the lying works and the lying spreads and I think your whole civilization deteriorates." "If I were running the world, the compensation for stress under workers compensation would be zero. Not because there isn't real stress, [but] because there's no way to keep the fakery out if you reward stress at all." (Berkshire Hathaway AGM || 1996)

Apple CEO Tim Cook: "There was a feeling that I had in talking to Steve [Jobs] that he was a very different kind of CEO. He was focused on products, products, and products — and had a belief that small teams could do amazing work." "I also loved that in an environment where everyone was going to an enterprise kind of company, he wanted to refocus Apple on consumers. At the time, nobody was doing that." "I had the chance of a lifetime to work with the creative genius who started the entire industry. And I didn't want to pass that up." (WSJ || 2024)

Charlie Munger: "It's going to be way harder, for the group that is graduating from college now, for them to get rich and stay rich. It's going to be way harder for them than it was for my generation." "Think what it costs to own a house in a desirable neighborhood in a city like Los Angeles." "I don't think the future is gonna give the guy graduating from college this year nearly [as] easy an investment opportunity [as we had]." (Daily Journal AGM || 2022)

Warren Buffett: "What really means something to me is the record of Berkshire. That's what I've done." "I paint the painting. The world can bid on it at auction." "It's been way more fun doing it with Charlie [Munger] than it would have been alone. It's just incomparable."

Mohnish Pabrai: "When the Coke investment came about, [Buffett and Munger] found something very different than See's. They knew See's doesn't travel well. But they could look at the more than 100-year history of Coke and they knew Coke travels really well." "People in Pakistan or India or Bangladesh, they are having Indian food — with a Coke. It's ubiquitous. And that did not exist with See's Candies." (h/t @myfirstmilpod)

Warren Buffett: "What you don't want is inequality of opportunity. There will be a lot of inequality in ability." "A market system, like we have, turns out what people want. It produces what people like and it produces it in abundance." "It's much better to be in the bottom 20% in this country now than it was fifty years ago. And it's better to be in the bottom 20% of this country than in any other country. But it still isn't very satisfactory." (Berkshire Hathaway AGM || 1996)

Charlie Munger: "To everyone who finds the current investment climate hard and difficult and somewhat confusing, I would say welcome to adult life." "I don't think I have a one-size-fits-all investment [strategy for others]. Some people are gifted enough that they can invest in hard-to-value, difficult things. Other people, I think, would be very wise to have more modest ambitions in terms of what they choose to deal with." "You have to figure out your level of skill and that should enter the equation." (Daily Journal AGM || 2022)

Just came across this Buffett quote. “Never, ever have clients. You may call them that, but in your mind, they must be partners. Set it up so if they win, you win — in that order. If you do that, you’ll be successful forever.” This is in fact, the way. H/t - @kejca 🫡

Warren Buffett: "If you look back a couple hundred years, we've gotten where we are not because we've gotten smarter or not because we work harder. [It's] because we've found ways to unleash more of the human potential." 🇺🇸 "What does that? Rule of law helps. A market system helps. Equality of opportunity helps. All of these things that are still a fundamental part of the American system." (Charlie Rose Show || 2009)

Peter Lynch: "You cannot lose money in a stock you don't own. The only way to lose money is to buy a stock, have it go down, and [then] sell it. That's the only way."

Berkshire Hathaway director Chris Davis: "Every investor, if they're honest, will say that their biggest mistakes were what they sold." "I first bought Amazon in 2002, but I sold it in 2004." "I'm trying to really learn and think about how can I improve results, over the next twenty years, by being more willing to hold." (h/t @Ritholtz)

Charlie Munger: "In my whole adult life, I've never hoarded cash waiting for better conditions. I've just invested in the best things I could find." "Berkshire has excess cash. Quite a bit of excess cash. But it's not doing that because it thinks it knows how to time investments — [Warren Buffett] just can't find anything he can stand buying." (Daily Journal AGM || 2022)

Warren Buffett: "I could have done way smarter things [during the GFC]. I did not optimize the period, looking back." "If I had just saved the money and put it in the market six months later, I would have done way better than making these deals. But I didn't know that at the time." "I don't try and pick bottoms. When I get a call and it makes sense and I've got the money, I do it." (Charlie Rose Show || 2009)

Chris Hohn: "Most industries are bad industries. Maybe there are 200 companies that we consider to be high-quality and investable." "The one important thing that I've learned in my time in investing is [that] investors underestimate the forces of competition and disruption."

Mohnish Pabrai: "See's is a wonderful business. It taught [Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger] a lot. It taught them more than they ever thought they'd learn from a stupid candy business." "Both [Warren] and Charlie were amazed that you could have a business where you are continuously raising prices significantly above the rate of inflation — and there is no resistance from the customer base to accepting those prices. That gave them a huge lesson in brands." "They paid 3x book value for See's. They were choking almost when they paid that amount. I think they bought See's for $25 million. Looking back, they could have paid $200 million and it [still] would have been great." "If they had not bought See's, they would have never bought Coke. The lessons that they learned about branding and the power of brands is what led to the Coke investment — which was a much bigger home run." (h/t @myfirstmilpod)

Charlie Munger: "The director's table in the Heinz Corporation cost $600,000. The director's table at Costco cost about $300. They are different places [with] different ethos." "If you get fat like that, somebody like 3G comes along and says, 'I want to buy you and cut you back to normal.'" "Of course, it's possible to over-cut — but my guess is there's a lot of fat in our successful places." (Daily Journal AGM || 2022)