Teledyne

DOUG KASS: I thought you would say that — You’re going to move — Berkshire will likely move — to a more centralized style, or approach, to management. My question is, in the past you’ve demonstrated a great deal of respect for Dr. Henry Singleton, the founder and longtime CEO of the diversified conglomerate Teledyne. You have written about Singleton, quote, “Henry is a manager that all investors, CEOs, wouldbe CEOs, and MBA students should study. “In the end, he was 100 percent rational, and there are very few CEOs about whom I can make that statement,” close quotes. Prior to his death, he broke up Teledyne into three companies. Dr. Singleton told our mutual friend, Lee Cooperman, that he did it for several reasons. There was one reason in particular that Lee mentioned to me that I want to ask you about. According to Singleton, Teledyne was getting very hard to manage for one CEO. What would you say about the Berkshire situation, given your company’s greater complexity, size, and the management issues that you faced in the last three years? CHARLIE MUNGER: It was the wrong stock. But he was an enormously talented man and that cool rationality was to be admired. I like our system better. We’re more avuncular than Teledyne was.

CHARLIE MUNGER: But, you know, I’ve seen people subject to — Teledyne and Litton, those people, swept every dime every day, basically. And it was a little more economic, but it created a tone in the company that — which I think is less desirable than ours.