One of my goals last year was to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting. I wasn’t able to attend last year because of work. This year, I decided that it was finally time for me to go. It turned out to be a great trip and interesting experience!
I started to look for hotels around that area four months prior to the meeting. Every single hotel within 10 mile radius had already been booked. I then decided to search for hotels/motels in the neighboring city of Council Bluffs. I ended up finding an open room at Motel 6 and booked it for $60 a night. It worked out well since Council Bluffs is only a ten minute ride to all the Berkshire events.
Since I’ve never been there, I decided to search the events of the meeting online. I wasn’t able to find much information which is why I’m posting this entry. I’m going to break it down day by day for all the newbies:
Day 1 (Friday): Drove from Chicago to Omaha, NE which took about 8 hours. Checked into my motel and headed straight to the cocktail reception. The cocktail reception was located at the Regency Mall which was closed to shareholders only. There was an open buffet line (took about 30 minutes to get food) and OPEN BAR! The only downside was that it was JAMMED PACK. In addition, there are discounts at Borsheim Jewelry store if you’re interested.
Borsheim Cocktail Party Berkshire Hathaway
Day 2 (Saturday): (By the way, cameras are prohibited but I NINJA-ED these pictures)
Berkshire Meeting
Over 35,000 attended
Saturday is the actual meeting located at the convention center. We got there around 7am and I think the doors opened at 8am. There was already a long line but if you value sleeping more, you can still get decent seats before 9 am. The meeting starts a 9am with about 6 hours of Q and A with Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. It was definitely an experience to able to hear the greatest investor of our time speak about stocks, the economy, and even his beliefs. Charlie Munger is absolutely hilarious. Around 11 am, someone asked Warren a question about how he would invest money if he didn’t have time to actively managing it. Warren responded by telling him to invest in index funds. Turned out the person that asked
the question was……. Tim Ferriss!
I ran up to the top section and managed to introduce myself to him. This guy is one my heroes and I certainly didn’t expect to meet him there. Turned out to be a really cool guy as he chatted with us for a couple hours. If you guys ever see him around, I recommend you go up to him and introduce yourself. He’s a fun guy to get to know with tons of stories.
Tim Ferriss
After the meeting, there’s more fun at exhibition hall where you can see all the discounts given for Berkshire companies including Geico, See’s, and tons of free candy from Mars/Wrigley!! By the way, I just happen to see this guy walk right next to me in the exhibition hall:
Bill Gates walking right next to me
The day ends with a BBQ in the tent in front of Nebraska Furniture Mart where there are discount a plenty for all types of items. Day 3 is also another shopping event at Borsheims where there are special events. I didn’t attend those. Overall, I was able to meet Tim Ferris, see Warren, Munger, and Bill Gates, meet some very interesting people, and eat some good food. Was it worth it? What do you think? =) I hope this helps some of you guys/gals thinking about attending next year.
Posted under Berkshire Hathaway
This post was written by Jay on September 8, 2008
Great experience! Thank you for sharing.
I always wonder about Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meetings. It seems almost like a cult rather than a shareholder meeting. Serving free alcohol near a jewelry store. I’ve seen that done in Mexico when I was on a cruise. It seemed like a sneaky way to get people to buy things without their better judgment. In fact it seems that the shareholder meeting is just a big convention pushing products of companies Berkshire holds. I wonder if Warren gets any kick backs or favors for all the business he brings to that area. Then that scandal with AIG some years back really made me wonder about things. Of course the government didn’t look at AIG closely back then like it should have. Now AIG a insurance company is a government bail out with AIG stock around $2 a share.