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Bill Gates says he almost skipped his first meeting with Warren Buffett in 1991, but a push from his mother led to a daylong conversation that reshaped how he thought about business and began a long-running friendship.
In a 1996 Harvard Business Review essay, Gates recalled doubting the value of taking a full day away from Microsoft to meet a famous stock picker and talk "P/E ratios." He agreed only after learning that Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, whose leadership he admired, would also be there.
Once they sat down, Buffett steered the conversation to newspapers, IBM (NYSE:IBM) and how industries change. "He [Warren Buffett] asked good questions and told educational stories. There's nothing I like so much as learning," Gates wrote, adding that he had never met anyone who thought about business so clearly.
That first meeting on July 5, 1991, at the Gates family's weekend home also exposed Gates to an analytic exercise Buffett likes to use: pick a year, list the 10 most valuable companies, then jump ahead about 20 years to see which endured.
Gates said Buffett's enthusiasm for the exercise was contagious and instead of leaving after a couple of hours as he had planned, he stayed all day and later agreed to visit Nebraska to watch a football game with him.
Their shared curiosity later extended into philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Buffett's Giving Pledge, with both men emphasizing learning and long-term thinking. Buffett's longtime partner, Charlie Munger, has described him as a "learning machine," highlighting his habit of spending much of each day reading.
After Gates resigned from the Microsoft board in 2020, Buffett began easing away from center stage at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK) (NYSE:BRK), too, over the past year. In a Thanksgiving letter released this week, the 95-year-old Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders he will no longer write the company's annual report or talk for hours at its meetings, saying he is, in his words, "going quiet. Sort of."
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