Tag: Jeff Bezos

Why Buffett Didn’t Buy the Post

There have been many speculations about why Warren Buffett — a long time shareholder, admirer, and one-time delivery boy of the Washington Post — opted not to purchase the company. Berkshire Hathaway has over $35 billion in cash and they’ve been purchasing local papers recently, so passing on the Post is curious at first glance.

Followers of Buffett have pointed to the fact that he has a policy of not buying into money-losing businesses in a shrinking industry.

But I think the real reason is that Buffett believes the Post will be better off in the hands of Bezos. For the Post to stop losing money, it needs some serious changes — changes that would be difficult for Berkshire to provide. The company would be only a tiny part of the massive conglomerate, and there wouldn’t be a figurehead leader to guide the paper during such a turnaround.

Buffett admires and respects Jeff Bezos.* He also loves the Washington Post enough to look past his own desires so it can have a brighter future. Don Graham no doubt sought Buffett’s advice before making this decision, and I’d like to believe this is what he told him.

* It’s also worth noting that the admiration is mutual. One of the major aspects of Buffett’s success is his ability to realize talent in others. It’s easy to see that talent in someone who knows strategy, history, product, and capital allocation so well.

Found Quotes

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people… Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. — Jeff Bezos

A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage. — Ed Land, Polaroid

Do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. — Freeman Dyson

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that all was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men, That they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible. — T. E. Lawrence

Experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime. A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind that loves diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past. — Charlie Munger

The world’s biggest problem is that not enough people are working on the world’s biggest problems. — Max Marmer, Student of Life, January, 2011