I am a huge fan of Warren Buffett. I mean, who doesn’t? However, I wish I can say that I have read all the pages of all his letters to shareholders. I tried, but sometimes it gets too detailed about the financials that it lose my attention. Nevertheless, when I read, I always find philosophical advice and quotes about investments, business, management and life, from Warren Buffett himself and his partner, Charlie Munger.
So just wanted to share you one of his views, among many, in his recent annual shareholder meeting. I wish I could attend the meeting since I’m currently in the US but I have to own at least one share of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock. Too late now.
Anyway, this is what Warren Buffett thinks of Amazon and the CEO, Jeff Bezos.
We never owned a share of Amazon (AMZN, -0.28%) … I was too dumb to realize what was going to happen. I admired Jeff, but I did not think he’d succeed on the scale that he has, and I didn’t even think of the possibility that he’d do the things with the cloud services. I never even considered buying Amazon.
If you asked me if while he was building up the retail operation he’d also be doing something that would disrupt the tech industry, that would have been a long shot for me. I really underestimated the brilliance of the execution. It’s one thing to dream about, it’s another thing to do it … [Amazon stock] always looked expensive, and I really never thought he would do what he did today. I thought he was really brilliant, but I didn’t think he’d be where he is today when I looked at it three, five, eight years ago anyway.
Even Warren Buffett can be wrong sometimes and he admitted his mistakes. I think this is a trait that is truly admirable but often difficult to find in great leaders nowadays. As they get more accomplishments and higher roles and opportunities, they can become ‘untouchable’ and ‘always right’ person.
Something for us to ponder upon.
Dayana Omar 