The second richest man in America

Our schedule began this morning when our trolley took us to the Nebraska Furniture Mart. This Berkshire Hathaway owned company has been operated by the same family for over forty years and advertises itself as “America’s largest volume home furnishing store.” In addition to furniture, it sells electronics, record music/movies, and rugs. On any given day it holds tens of millions of dollars of inventory within its walls and tries to attract customers by selling new release movies and music at prices $3 to $5 cheaper than its competitors.

After the furniture store, we went straight to the headquarters of Berkshire Hathaway where Warren Buffett met with us for just under two hours in the top floor of the Kiewit Center. He began by informing us that the format of the meeting was not a talk, but rather a question and answer session where he would answer our questions on anything ranging from investing, politics, to more personal matters.

During the talk, the specifics of which I will blog about in a subsequent post after I have had the chance to go through my notes, a couple of things about the man were evident. First is that he has a sense of humor. He pointed at the Coca Cola products that were laid out in the back of the room and jokingly said that because his company owns 8% of Coca Cola, the profits of one out of every 12 cans of Coke goes directly into his balance sheet. I was amazed at his ability to recall details, names, and dates. But the most striking thing I have noticed is Buffett’s complete lack of pretentiousness. He surprised us by arriving at the meeting room 15 minutes ahead of time and did so by walking up the same narrow flight of stairs onto the 16th floor that many of us did (there was confusion as to which floor we had to go to and a bunch of us got off the elevator on the 15th floor and had to make the walk).

After the talk, we went to lunch at Gorat’s Steakhouse, a place Buffett had mentioned during the talk as an example of "sophisticated dining in Omaha. I remember reading about his favorite steakhouse in a magazine article a few years back. He drove there in his Lincoln Town Car and allowed four students to ride with him. When lunch ended, we went outside and the approximately 80 students (about 30 from Kenan-Flagler and 50 from McCombs School of Business) mobbed him as we fought one another for the chance to have our pictures taken with the Sage of Omaha.

The biggest surprise I had today was running into a familiar face among the students from McCombs. When I had my Kenan-Flagler interview in January, I met another applicant that I had exchanged business cards with. Unfortunately we never corresponded afterwards. He is now a first year at McCombs and I had the chance to talk to him during the tour this morning at the Nebraska Furniture Mart. As I was leaving Gorats, I gave him my business card and asked to keep in touch. I just hope he is better at emailing than I am.