Bertie, it is wonderful to see you here.
This is a place you've been coming for a very
long time.
You come back every year and you're always a big
part of things here.
But this year, in the annual letter,
you really took center stage.
I mean, you were the opening of the letter,
the heart of the letter,
the end of the letter.
Warren said that when he thinks about writing this,
you are his perfect mental model.
What did you think when you read that?
I cried. That's what I think.
Yeah. But I'm going to try not to cry right
now
And yeah, no it was so sweet.
He told me he was going to put me in
the in your letter.
But he he he didn't read it to me or
anything like that and I had no idea it was
going to be what it was and and
yeah, it was so sweet.
I mean I was really,
I think about it a lot.
It was it was so lovely.
He, he talks about his relationship with you and
how you 2 have always had such a wonderful,
loving relationship. Yes and yes.
Never had any arguments. No.
You know, and it's it's I was thinking about it
in terms of,
you know, talking with you and stuff and I thought,
gosh, well he's the closest person to me in the
world because he's been in my world ever.
He's older, for anyone wondering,
and he's been with me my whole life
and still is.
And they're not many of us in our generation left
now,
so that even makes it more special.
But even without that, you know,
he's the one that has always been there.
In a way. He's my Big Brother and he's
protected me or always help me if I need it.
And he's
for length of time, you know,
my biggest ever and still is emotional support.
Warren pointed out in the annual letter that you are
really smart,
savvy investor, that you're somebody who reads many newspapers every
day.
You have an opinion about financial issues.
But you're also somebody who
is a very smart investor in her own right.
That you something like 45 years ago
you kind of decided to take all of the other
things that you were trading.
And what happened you you put everything into Berkshire for
the most?
Well, I figured out that Warren was better at it
than I was.
That was easy.
I mean it sounds so simple but
it you know, that's just what happened and and I
thought this is ridiculous,
you know, he is so good and it was a
little
the, the, the hardest thing for me and I think
it's hard for a lot of investors is that
Berkshire Hathaway doesn't pay dividends.
And I was in the place of my life where
I wanted some dividends,
you know, and and once somewhere you just sell stock,
You know, it's like sell stock.
You don't know, cancel principle,
you know, whatever. I didn't say that to him,
you know, 'cause I just listened and do what he
tells me to do.
So anyway. But once I got over that hump
and realized, well, that's wonderful.
I, you know, I can decide when I declare A
dividend.
I can declare one for myself,
you know, in its essence by selling some stock.
And and I can choose when I'm going to do
it and choose how much it is and and it's
capital gains instead of regular income tax.
And that's good. And you know,
once that was, that didn't stop me from doing it,
but I had to get used to that emotionally.
But I did pretty fast.
And he said then you you made that change and
then you did nothing like
the patience. And there were a lot of times along
the way because
I had a brokerage account and people,
you know, who were brokers or this or that or
wanted money to start something or whatever,
you know, approach me about that.
But luckily
I didn't even have to
think about it much. I mean,
I knew I was.
I was all in with one
and still AM and all the way.
So you and Warren have always had this wonderful relationship.
He says you all have never had a fight,
but he does say that there are some competitive streaks.
Oh, yes, yes.
What? What comes to mind when you think about competitive
games or issues with
Warren? Well, it it it
being younger. We have had an older sister who's now
gone,
but she was very sophisticated and whatnot and and I
think Warren was very smart because he picked out me
to play all the games with because I was.
I'm three years young and he won everything and for
some reason it didn't bother me.
I still wanted to play,
you know, I was always hoping for a win.
So we played everything from ping pong to cards to
monopoly to
boxing to, I don't know anything that you could
play. We played and
and and sometimes he did.
Clever little
tricks on me that for some reason
it it didn't make me mad.
I just wanted to be
part of it. And I also have a joke with
him
that when we played Monopoly when we were
and I was really little,
of course, and he was a little bit older,
but I I remember this so distinctly.
But I was so happy because I had this money
and I was saving up the money in little piles
in front of me.
But as I noticed as the game went on,
I was landing on more and more properties,
and then they had houses and hotels.
Pretty sure all my money was gone
and I realized too late that it was a better
strategy to buy property than hoard the money.
But my joke with him about that is,
and we laugh about it,
'cause it, it is actually a joke,
But that I trained him to be a winner because
since he was winning all the time,
playing against me, that he owes his great success to
the fact that I trained him to
win.
And he loved it so much.
He just kept going.
But that's a joke. It's
it's good work. Bernie,
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
with us.
Yeah. Well well it's a pleasure.
And and I just want to say
say one thing because many people
ask me about Warren, you know,
when they find out about him and stuff and and
to me,
he's always been my Big Brother.
He's he's my Big Brother.
You know, I know he's this tycoon and stuff and
I sort of know that in my head.
But that has nothing to do with my reality.
He's my Big Brother and he's always been a wonderful
Big Brother and I love him and I feel so
lucky that he's my Big Brother.