Warren Buffett: Investor. Teacher. Icon.

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Quick: It's 5:30 A.M. in Omaha, Nebraska...
We've driven eight hours to get here. Super excited.
Quick: ...and something special is about to happen.
You can feel the energy through the crowd.
You only have to stand here.
Thousands of people, the faithful from around the world.
I'm coming from Shanghai.
We're from Belgium.
Ontario, Canada.
Quick: Every year, they come here, to see the star attraction --
Warren Buffett... -Hi.
Quick: ...an unassuming 87-year-old
and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
Hi, everybody.
He's got plenty to say -- and not just about investing.
Try to find your passion.
You may not find it the first time,
but don't sleepwalk through life.
Find something that you really enjoy doing if you can do it.
His focus on ethics, humility, and other life lessons
has had a profound influence on so many.
An NFL superstar... Go.
...planning for life after football...
He's a great human being.
It's like speaking to your father.
Just kind of learn different ins and outs of the business world.
Quick: ...a military veteran who did two tours in Afghanistan.
Pysh: I had a really simple idea, and the idea was,
who's the best person in the world at investing,
and how do they do it?
And, of course, it led me to Warren Buffett.
...and a generation of kids looking to their future.
I'm actually in the process of getting a stock next week.
-Which one? -The Berkshire Hathaway.
Quick: As chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway,
he's built a corporate empire worth half a trillion dollars.
How are you? -Good.
Really good to see you.
I'm Becky Quick.
I've been covering Buffett the investor
and Buffett the teacher for more than a decade.
It's unbiased advice from somebody
that's been around a long time.
It does work, and they listen.
Tonight, a different side of Warren Buffett
told by the people whose lives he's changed.
♪♪♪
If you want to know how Warren Buffett got his start,
just watch.
Basically what you do is you go like this...
and with that.
Then you'd slap it.
And then you'd just...
slide it right down. -[ Laughs ]
Quick: A man now worth some $80 billion
started out by delivering newspapers...
When you let it go, just...
...nearly 75 years ago.
All right, so you fold it?
That's it. You got it.
You want to get way down.
[ Laughs ]
I'm a terrible paper girl.
Today, the world's richest paper boy is still at it.
Man: Yeah!
This contest has become one of the highlights
of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting.
Buffett: Okay, Bill.
Even Bill Gates gets in the game.
Sorry about that.
The yearly gathering showcases the 60-plus companies
the Berkshire owns and dozens more it invests in.
It's a free market festival.
Rah, rah, rah!
Quick: But for all the antics,
the main attraction is this --
two guys on a stage for five hours --
Buffett and his long-time partner Charlie Munger.
These sessions have been captured on grainy recordings
and were locked away for years.
Now Buffett has given the entire archive to CNBC,
a gold mine of wisdom and wit from the oracle himself...
Good morning. I'm Warren, this is Charlie.
He can hear. I can see. We work together.
[ Laughter ] ...a performance like no other...
It's a good habit to trumpet your failures
and be quiet about your successes.
And we have more to trumpet than we have to be quiet about.
...and the longest-running show in Omaha.
What do I have to do to become your successor?
Probably shoot me. [ Laughter ]
The questions that you seem to get at the shareholder meetings
over the last decade or two
are different than questions that you hear at just
about any other publicly-traded shareholder meeting.
-Yeah. -Why do you think that is?
We've got a partnership feeling toward the people
that have given us their money, and we don't screen them,
and they can ask whatever's on their mind.
Hello, my name is Erin Bayer,
and I kept thinking at the opportunity
to ask you a question today
that I should make it one that would change my life.
Well, that question is do you know any eligible bachelors
living in the New York City area?
[ Laughter ]
Well, you certainly have the approach toward life
that Charlie and I wouldn't have.
[ Laughs ]
When did you first start getting
some of these life-lesson questions?
Yeah, they life ones,
they probably started certainly in the 1980s.
We never said anything was off limits.
We wouldn't tell them what we were buying or selling,
but they could talk about anything else.
And it makes it more interesting.
It's far more interesting
than if you're just reading a bunch of numbers
from the 10-K or something of the sort.
You don't have to be right on everything.
You don't have to be right
on 20% of the companies in the world
or 10% of the companies in the world or 5%.
You only have to get one good idea every year or two.
You're obviously an incredible investor.
But when I've asked you in the past
what you'd like to be remembered for,
you said you want to be remembered as a teacher.
-Yeah. -Why is that?
Well, I've gotten so much from other teachers.
Quick: And he's passed it along.
just ask any of the thousands of people lined up outside.
-I'm Bobby. -I'm Molly.
Quick: Like Bobby and Molly Laughlin from Los Angeles.
What brought you two to the annual meeting last year?
Well, we were getting married in August,
and I figured that it's such a big part of my life,
I wanted her to experience it.
I think it was an actual requirement of our marriage
that I attend the annual meeting with Bobby.
-Yeah. -So [laughs] it was high stakes.
Quick: Bobby runs a small investment firm from his home office.
His inspiration is always within reach.
Bobby: It works. I mean, what he's doing works.
It's a lifestyle and a philosophy, if you will,
that has yielded incredible results.
Quick: For Bobby, those results aren't just about
making huge sums of money.
He got something else from Buffett,
something that caught us by surprise.
Bobby, you told us you weren't sure that you'd still be alive
if it weren't for Warren Buffett.
That's a pretty incredible statement.
Yeah, it's true.
Quick: Bobby grew up in Maryland.
Bobby: Very normal life.
Great brother, two loving parents.
Wonderful schools.
Quick: A star gymnast.
Bobby: Maryland state champion.
I had traveled all around the United States and competed
and did the whole thing.
I had a really decent trajectory.
[ Cheers and applause ] Quick: When he was just 18,
that trajectory turned into a free fall.
I got my wisdom teeth out, and it was a very minor surgery.
They prescribed painkillers, and I was taken by them.
It happened so fast and I had no real idea
that it was happening when it was happening.
And it took me on this course
of just utter decimation of everything.
Quick: Like so many others, he became addicted.
And you were taking these as prescribed by a doctor.
Correct.
Quick: Bobby ended up in rehab.
One of the things he was told there
was to follow in the footsteps of people he admired.
Bobby: It is just luck that I was able
to come across Buffett at that time.
There aren't many people like him,
and, really, what he's doing is he's being totally honest.
It's not complicated.
Nothing could be more simple than trying to figure out
what you find admirable and then decide, you know,
that the person you really would like to admire is yourself.
And the only way you're gonna do it
is take on the qualities of other people you admire.
Quick: And that's just what Bobby did --
using the kind of integrity he saw in Buffett
as his guide to recovery.
It's just a matter of choice. Anyone can be honest.
It's hard, but anyone can be honest.
Anyone can be ethical.
It's hard, but it's available.
And those are the kinds of things that I love.
All right, let's -- wait, let me put some salt in it.
Quick: He's been clean now for five years.
-Good. -Good.
Molly: When you meet someone and you are envisioning
your life with them and marrying them,
what they value is really important.
I think something
that Warren Buffett has really taught Bobby
is that you should be totally in love with your life
and design a life that you get up
and you want to live every day,
and I think that's beautiful.
Quick: I asked Bobby if he was worried about
sharing the details of his addiction.
His reasons for talking about it all come back to Buffett.
Bobby: Warren Buffett's a philanthropist, right?
So he's piled up all these assets over the years,
and now he's giving them away.
And I like the idea of being able to help other people, too.
I obviously don't have the kind of assets he has,
but I think, "Well, what is it
that I do have that I can share with other people?"
And the experience that I have of being
where I was and being where I am now,
I think, can help a lot of people.
Quick: Still ahead...
Announcer: 30, 20, 10 -- touchdown Nebraska!
...a superstar looks to the future with Buffett by his side.
We feel like we're kind of untouchable
and nothing's gonna go wrong,
especially when we're in the limelight
and everything's going well.
But you got to understand that football's only for so long.
But first, from war to Wall Street.
A combat veteran gets his bearings with a little help.
Pysh: I studied these people like Warren and Charlie,
and you start asking yourself,
why are these guys different than everyone else?
♪♪♪
Quick: It was nearly a decade ago on the battlefields of Afghanistan.
Pysh: Hey, Rodger, we have enemy pinned down here in the south.
A young army officer named Preston Pysh
was conducting combat missions --
close to 100 of them.
I was out flying missions, probably five days a week,
managing an entire company of attack helicopter pilots.
But even then, something back home had captured his attention.
And the drama continues on Wall Street.
Three of the five biggest investment banks are gone.
The federal government taking more steps to try
and ease this credit crisis.
The financial crisis was big news in 2008,
but you were in Afghanistan, and you were fighting a war.
How does this even make it to your radar?
When you're in Afghanistan, you've got your mission,
you're doing all those things,
and you're super focused on all those things.
And it consumes 14-hour days.
But at the same time, you need an outlet.
So you chose the financial crisis?
-Yes. -44.50 on 800 going on now.
Quick: The economy was collapsing,
and like so many others,
Pysh was in a losing battle with his investments,
looking for something or someone to help.
I had a really simple idea, and the idea was,
who's the best person in the world at investing?
How do they do it?
And, of course, it led me to Warren Buffett.
And so I just started reading everything
I could get my hands on with Warren Buffett.
And then Pysh came across one of Buffett's
most important lessons --
buy stocks for the long haul, not to make a quick buck.
I really think it is not a bad mind-set
that whenever you buy a stock, just say,
"Would I be happy buying this stock
if the market closed for five years?"
Because then you're buying a business if you say yes to that.
It was like this haze kind of came up.
And you're like, "Hold on,
this is really starting to make some sense."
And you're looking at it as buying one share of stock
is owning a business.
It made so much sense, Pysh felt compelled to share it.
All right, great.
Sorry for all the delays and the technical issues.
I'm a total amateur at this.
I didn't even know what a podcast was.
I never listened to one.
He and his friend Stig Broderson began pumping out a weekly show
called "The Investor's Podcast."
Stig, talk to the audience about the deal
that Buffett did back whenever he bought some preferred stock
in Bank of America.
More than 180 episodes later,
Pysh himself is considered an authority on Buffett.
Man: Please join me in welcoming Preston Pysh.
[ Applause ]
And this is about value investing.
It's all about owning a business when you buy one share.
It comes down to personalities.
Quick: Now Pysh has a following all his own.
Preston is my mentor now.
It's really important to have great role models,
great teachers you can learn from.
Quick: Once a year, Pysh and his groupies
make the trek to Omaha...
Oh, the Preston Pysh crowd! How are you?
...to hear from Buffett firsthand.
Buffett: I like looking at the details of a business,
whether we buy it or not.
I mean, I just find it interesting
to study the species.
Pysh: When you're at the meeting,
they're unfiltered, they're talking for hours,
and you're hearing their thought process.
And for me, that's the important part,
is to hear how they go about
thinking through their decision-making,
because that's how you can learn from that
and try to replicate it.
Man: You don't have a name tag.
-Yeah, I need a name tag. -Everybody knows who you are.
Quick: When Pysh began, he focused on Buffett's investment advice
but now finds himself drawn more to Buffett's principles.
We're looking at him as a moral compass.
We want to take the exact same approach.
I've got to add value to these people's lives
by making sure that I'm saying things that are appropriate
and that are thoughtful.
It sounds like you feel a real responsibility.
Absolutely, yes.
Big time.
Buffett, too, feels a responsibility.
He knows Pysh and countless others are listening.
Well, we've been around a long time, so we're known,
and we do have a decent record over time.
And I think people can tell when you're saying
what you believe versus talking points.
Man: 100 years from now, Warren and Charlie,
what would each of you like to be remembered for?
Old age. [ Laughter ]
If you really ask me, I'd probably like teacher.
I enjoy teaching a lot.
Perry-Mason: He's one guy I have been following
since I was in my 20s
and watching exactly what he does.
Quick: Buffett's students are everywhere.
And for years, Gail Perry-Mason has counted herself among them.
Today, she's a senior director at a major investment firm.
But in her early 20s, she was a single mom
working as a secretary in Detroit,
trying to break into the financial world.
Perry-Mason: They said, "Okay, maybe
we'll let you be a broker for like 90 days."
If it doesn't make it, you'll go back
to be a licensed secretary.
But that's crazy.
You were there, you were willing to learn,
and they weren't gonna give you the opportunity?
They didn't have a lot of people in the business
at that time that were single mothers and African-American.
And there were still not a lot of African-Americans
in the financial industry.
Quick: It wasn't long before Gail was thriving,
but she could also see that her city was under economic siege.
What do you spend most of your money on?
Somebody tell me.
Really, want I wanted to do was teach people in Detroit,
teach women, teach African-Americans,
teach minorities about investing.
Quick: And then she got an idea after reading about a summer program
for children of the 1%.
Rich kids camp is a camp that they charge $10,000
for the child to come.
-What? -Yes, $10,000.
So I knew I couldn't afford it for my own children,
and I knew a lot of the kids in Detroit
could not afford a camp like this.
So I decided I'm gonna do it myself.
But I would charge $75, and we would put $50 in a bank account.
Perry-Mason: I want everybody in here to have more opportunities.
And that's what Warren Buffett wants you to have, too.
Quick: She signed up 35 kids ages 8 to 18
for a camp that she called Money Matters for Youth.
2 decades later, the program is bursting with 200 campers
and a wait list.
Local sponsors help offset the cost.
Did you guys even know what a stock was
when you showed up at this camp?
-No. -No, not really.
No?
Quick: Did they even care?
How many kids want to spend a week
of their summer studying finance?
Jones: The first day I can remember, like, coming in.
I didn't know there was a uniform, so I was like,
"Oh, there's a uniform to this camp?"
But after I got to learn and take away from things,
I was like, "I love it."
Quick: That was eight years ago.
Claire Jones has been coming back almost every summer since.
Jones: This camp really does teach you things,
like etiquette and the financial market,
which I know I don't get taught in school.
So I think it's a great experience.
Perry-Mason: What have you learned so far that you will take with you?
So they start with budgeting, they start with everyday --
how to manage your allowance. -Mm-hmm.
You know, how to work and get an allowance,
and take that money and save the money.
Quick: And every year, they study one of Gail's heroes.
-Who is this guy here? -Warren Buffett.
-Warren Buffett. -All right.
I read about him that he graduated from college
at 20 years old with over $10,000.
He started investing at a very young age,
and now he's one of the richest persons in the world.
Quick: She encourages her campers to act like Buffett,
from his daily routine...
He reads six hours a day.
Quick: ...and charitable giving...
Said that he gave 99% of his money away.
Quick: ...to starting his first job as a kid.
CJ Watson is just 10 years old.
Quick: What's your business?
It's called CJ Janitorial Service.
I clean this three-story building.
It's at my mom's job.
How much money do you make for doing that?
$20 an hour.
-That's fantastic. -Yes.
Quick: His friend, Robert Herndon, has a volunteer gig
at a local radio station. -Good morning.
-Hi, Angie. -[ Chuckles ] How you doing?
Quick: But that doesn't mean he's not making a few bucks.
Herndon: I save a lot of my money.
Anybody ever need to borrow money from you?
My mom sometimes doesn't have the money on her,
so she asks me
instead of going all the way to the bank and back.
But sometimes, I'll have a fee of interest.
[ Chuckles ] You charge your mom interest?
Yeah.
How much interest do you charge her?
-Sometimes $20. -[ Laughs ]
Quick: Sounds like a mogul in the making.
All it takes is a little teaching and time.
Always look at the framing of the shot.
Perry-Mason: Kids are like Kodak film.
They need exposure and development.
I use money as a tool.
They take this tool, and they learn how to give back.
They learn life skills.
They're exposed to different things.
This is a camp of opportunity.
Perry-Mason: Everybody in here could be a billionaire.
Every single person.
Quick: And, perhaps, her favorite lesson...
The main thing I learned in studying from Warren Buffett,
it's not about the stocks he picks.
The more money he makes, the more money he gives.
Later, Gail surprises her campers
with a field trip of a lifetime.
But first, our own trip -- back to the beginning.
I was obnoxious.
[ Both laugh ]
And teachers did not want me in their class.
♪♪♪
Quick: At Eppley Airfield in Omaha,
it's one of the busiest days of the year.
But it's not Thanksgiving or anywhere near Christmas.
No, the busiest time at this airport
comes in early May
when thousands of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
come to town.
All right, so it's Monday after Berkshire weekend.
-Yeah. -How are you feeling right now?
Shot Shot.
I'm just completely wasted.
Quick: Jim Ross isn't complaining.
He manages the Hudson Booksellers store at Eppley,
and he couldn't be happier.
What happens at the book store?
It's our biggest time of the year.
The day after the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting,
every year, it's a huge day.
So this is your Thanksgiving, your Christmas, your Super Bowl.
All rolled into one, yes, yes.
Yes, it is. -Hi, nice to meet you.
Quick: The authors camped outside Ross' store are happy, too.
Their books are all about Warren Buffett,
and they can sell hundreds over the meeting weekend.
If there were more people in the United States
that were like Warren Buffett, we'd be a better country.
Oh, sure.
Writing about Buffett is an industry unto itself.
Ross: "Ground Rules." "Warren Buffett Wealth."
"Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist."
There are more than 75 books in print
with more than 2 million copies sold worldwide about him...
Oh, here's "Warren Buffett Way." This is the newest edition.
...his business partner, Charlie Munger...
"Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger."
...or Berkshire Hathaway's strategy of value investing.
"Investing Between the Lines."
It's about candor in operating a publicly-traded company.
Quick: At Hudson Booksellers, Ross does about 20% of his yearly business
in just three days over the shareholders weekend.
Over here, we have kind of a whole array of books
over all the years --
Buffett- and Munger-related titles.
And it's not just books about them.
Devoted fans also snap up
whatever Buffett and Munger are reading.
"Shoe Dog" is a book that Warren recommended
to everybody this year.
That started 20 years ago at the 1998 meeting
with an audience question.
Man: And I'm wondering if you could you help me
with my summer reading list.
-Charlie? -Yeah.
I have recently read a new book twice, which I very seldom do.
And that book is "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
He's got a mind that is always asking, "Why? Why? Why? Why?"
Quick: That Sunday as the crowds were leaving Omaha,
Ross was swamped with hundreds of requests.
You know, we'd have 300 people wanting that particular title.
You keep four on hand.
And they would say,
"It was Mr. Munger who had recommended it."
A light bulb went off in his head.
I went to Mr. Buffett, and I said,
"You know, two years in a row now,
I'm getting slammed, and we don't have the product on hand.
Tell you what, you give us a head's up,
you tell us what you guys are reading,
what you're gonna recommend at the meeting,
and we'll stock it."
And his first reaction to me was, "What if no one asks?"
I said, "Fat chance." -Yeah.
He said, "All right."
He said, "I'll tell you what. I'll give you Charlie's number."
Quick: Now Ross calls Munger
three months before every annual meeting
to find out what books they'll be recommending,
and then stocks up.
This is probably, oh,
the most definitive volume out
on Mr. Buffett's life of permanent value.
It is, I don't know how many pages.
Now, we have to carry it because I'm in it.
He's in it for good reason.
Jim Ross has known Warren Buffett all his life.
Ross: I grew up with his children.
I grew up with Susie and Howie and Peter.
We all went to public schools.
We went to Dundee and Lewis and Clark
and Central High.
So I've known them a good many years.
It never seemed like he was kind of up on a pedestal.
-No. -He was just your friend's dad.
Yes. Yeah, no, he always was.
He was very much a regular guy, and he still is today.
You know, he pumps his own gas, he drives his own car.
You see him out to dinner.
I see him when he votes.
I mean, yeah, he's just a regular guy.
Quick: If there's anyone who understands Buffett's connection
to Omaha, it's Jim Ross.
We asked him to show us around his home town.
There, straight ahead, is the Kiewit Plaza.
And that is where Berkshire Hathaway runs their empire.
I can remember, quite frankly, as a kid, we used to play poker
with Howie, and his dad would come down
in the middle of the night in a bath robe.
In those days, he drank Pepsi,
and Howie used to call him Pepsi Warren.
All the kids were raised not in any sense of privilege at all.
I can remember Howie arguing with his mother
over his $5-a-week allowance.
This is the house that Charlie Munger grew up in here in Omaha.
His dad was a very prominent attorney.
And there were a number of judges in the family
and several generations that went to Harvard.
And right up the hill is the Warren Buffett residence
that he's lived in since the late '50s.
Quick: Ross still lives right down the street.
Ross: You know, they lived in New York for a while.
And at one point, Warren said, "I don't have to do this here.
I don't have to live in New York City.
I can go back to my home town."
And in the 1950s, long before people realized
what could be done on a computer,
he was doing it, you know, with a phone
and moved back to Omaha.
He wanted to raise his family in a small-town environment.
And he said, "You know, I can thoughtfully make decisions
in little, old Omaha."
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Quick: But that history isn't tied just to Omaha.
There's another place that helped shape Warren Buffett.
What'd you think of Washington?
Well, I --
it wasn't so much what I thought of Washington.
I hated leaving Omaha.
In his teen years, Buffett lived here,
after his father was elected to Congress.
Buffett: Now, there's the Marlyn.
This whole thing over here is the Westchester.
Now, there's Alban Towers.
This is where he started to form his thoughts
about business and life.
But not before making a few mistakes.
I was rebellious at first in school for about a year.
Made a real pain of myself,
and then I calmed down after a while.
Buffett says his adjustment to D.C. was rocky,
and he often acted out.
-That's the Sears there. -Right here?
Yeah.
Quick: Even shoplifting at the old downtown Sears.
I wasn't doing it for any reason except rebelling,
and that ran out after a while.
Yeah.
Our first stop was his boyhood home.
That lawn seemed so big when I was mowing it
or digging weeds in it. [ Both laugh ]
Now it's nothing.
Quick: When's the last time you saw this house?
Well, I may have driven by it 30 years ago or so,
but I haven't been in it since 1952.
Mrs. Wilcox? Hi, I'm Warren Buffett.
It's a real pleasure meeting you.
How long have you lived here, Mrs. Wilcox?
32 years.
32 years.
Yeah. Oh.
Did you know he had lived here before?
Of course.
Yeah. See my spacious room.
I used to store my money there. I might find some that I left.
[ Laughter ]
Does the room look like you remembered?
Yeah, it -- I mean, it looks a little smaller,
but not a lot smaller. -Thank you so much.
-Mrs. Wilcox, thank you. -It's been a pleasure.
Quick: At one point, Buffett and two friends even ran away from home,
something he laughs about now.
We got out to Wisconsin Avenue, and we started hitchhiking.
And three kids hitchhiking was not the easiest thing to do.
And the first guy that picked us up was a real nut.
And we all got in the car, and we said to him,
"Where are you going?"
And he said, "I'm going to hell, do you want to come along?"
And we immediately decided that this was
not exactly what we expected.
So he said that a few more times,
and we told him we'd reached our destination and got out.
Well, eventually, we got to Hershey Pennsylvania.
That's a long way.
It's quite a ways, yeah.
We worked our way back to Washington,
and my mother's first comment was,
"How come you came back so soon?"
[ Both laugh ]
Next, around the corner to his junior high school.
Of course, I made my friends from Washington here.
And then Wilson Senior High.
And a very surprised principal.
-Hi. It's a real pleasure. -Nice to meet you, sir.
Yeah, we're just here for the first time in 60 years.
Really? Been that long? It's been that long, yeah.
Well, it's changed a little bit since you've been here. Yeah, yeah.
You don't look as scary to me as Mr. Nelson looked.
[ Laughter ]
Quick: Back then, nobody was asking him for pictures.
But today, Buffett seems happy to oblige.
Here we go. Use this with your banker.
Let me be giving her a stock tip.
Be grabbing my billfold.
-We got to show something. -Oh!
Quick: Eventually, Buffett found his footing here,
and his high school yearbook called it right --
future stock broker.
Before I came to Washington, I had about $120,
and when I left, I had about $10,000.
Coming up,
a giant on the field, a giant in his field,
and a pre-game surprise.
Quick: And all of a sudden,
you hear that Warren Buffett wants to meet you.
I was actually in the locker room,
getting ready to play against Oklahoma, one of our big rivals,
and I was like, "Of course I'd love to meet him."
♪♪♪
Oh, I like that. Look at that.
There we are, everybody.
Quick: Walking the floor at last year's Berkshire Hathaway meeting,
we noticed someone stopping traffic at the corner
of Justin Boots and Fruit of the Loom Drive.
Man: Mr. Nebraska Football.
If you don't recognize the guy in the checked jacket and tie,
it's because he's not wearing his work clothes.
He's Ndamukong Suh, NFL superstar,
one of the highest-paid defensive players in the league,
and right at home alongside Warren Buffett.
I loved The Wall Street Journal story last year
that called you a secret finance nerd.
Let's talk a little bit about that, because --
This guy's smart. Believe me.
Yeah, you're not somebody who is just a football player.
You are known on field for your very aggressive tackles,
the way you go after people,
but let's talk about the finance side of things.
How'd you get interested?
Well, I've always loved numbers.
So I like to be involved and understand what's going on
and not just a person
that just always wants to take great advice,
which I've been lucky enough to know somebody
who can give me some great advice.
So understanding my investments
understanding how to be sustainable,
and understand how I can progress my family
to the future is gonna be huge.
Quick: They first met nine years ago.
Suh was still in college, getting ready for a big game.
A quick introduction.
He told me about it when we talked one-on-one.
It's 2009.
You're at the University of Nebraska.
You are this guy who is not only an awesome football player,
but also focused on business.
And all of a sudden, you hear
that Warren Buffett wants to meet you.
What do you think?
I was super surprised.
I was actually in the locker room
and getting ready to play against Oklahoma,
one of our big rivals.
And I was like, "Of course I'd love to meet him."
Got to speak, and then went off and won the game.
Announcer: Tackled by Ndamukong Suh.
It's true. It was an Oklahoma game,
and I was an honorary coach for one quarter,
and I built up a commanding 7-0 lead,
and Ndamukong held it for me.
Announcer: Field stopped for no gain.
Ndamukong Suh just blew by.
What happened? What was the next step?
A good friend of mine challenged me to look for a meeting
and ask for a meeting to sit down with him.
Quick: Suh, who was getting a degree in construction management,
reached out.
To his surprise, Buffett reached back.
And I was like two hours early before the meeting --
a little nervous, to say the least.
It was like speaking to my father.
Just easy conversation, easygoing.
We actually sat there for three, four hours.
And what as your game plan walking into that meeting?
What did you want to talk to him about?
I just wanted to get at his philosophy
and really ask him for a mentorship,
have something that was ongoing.
You ready? -I'm ready. Okay.
Quick: The rookie and the veteran hit it off...
Go. -Oh!
Oh, oh, oh! Okay.
Quick: ...and have been friends ever since.
Suh recently signed a 1-year $14-million deal
with the Los Angeles Rams...
Glad Ndamukong's finally in.
...adding to the tens of millions
he's already made over his pro career.
I always play with a chip on my shoulder,
and that's really kind of my focus.
Warren, it seems to me that athletes, movie stars,
people who are newly into money like this
probably have a lot of people who are going after them,
trying to prey on that money and find ways of doing it.
What advice have you given Ndamukong?
That always happens, and then there's some smart guys
like Ndamukong that recognize that.
Quick: With some guidance from Buffett,
Suh has invested in real estate, restaurants, and tech,
including the maker of a smart coffee mug.
You are in an extremely rare position --
somebody who's already followed this through
while you were still so young in your career.
That's not the case for all pro athletes.
What lessons should we take out of that?
Don't be complacent.
When you look at people who have created great wealth,
and even Warren Buffett himself,
he's made a majority of his money after he was 50.
And we're so young.
I think that's where guys got to understand
you're afforded a great opportunity,
but it also takes great responsibility.
An NFL star thinking beyond the game.
A young couple starting out.
A camp full of kids with big dreams.
Buffett's influence can be found
in unexpected ways in unexpected places.
Even here.
All right, so let's read this. You ready?
Quick: At a suburban home in Alabama, it's story time.
"Once upon a time, there was a tortoise named Buffett."
We can call him Warren Buffett.
Quick: But this isn't Dr. Seuss.
"He knew the way to win was by saving his money."
Is that what -- good or bad?
-Good. -That's right.
Quick: Seem a little strange?
Not to Ron Holt.
Buffett's fans may have turned him into an icon,
but few have lived out that devotion like Holt has.
Holt: To me, every single word I ever read
about Warren Buffett from day one made sense.
And I never questioned it.
I still don't to this day, and it's led me to where I am today.
All right, so there's actually a proper way to enter the home.
Quick: Next, a man who's cleaning up because of of you know who.
♪♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Chuckles ]
I appreciate that.
When you get to be 87, people stand and applaud at the start
because they're not sure
whether you're going to be around at the end.
Quick: There was a time as a young man
when Warren Buffett was afraid to speak in public.
Well, not anymore.
And it's very important to surround yourself
with people who are better than you are.
You are going to move in the direction
of the people you associate with.
Quick: Today, he loves to talk.
And they hang on his every word.
I'm cheering for you,
and I call tell you the best is yet to come.
Thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Quick: Some people follow rock stars.
Others Warren Buffett.
-You get it? -Oh, yeah.
Put your heel onto Mr. Buffett.
One, two, three.
Yeah, your number-one idol.
Yeah, he is. -Okay.
Quick: But few are quite as devoted as Ron Holt.
"Once upon a time, there was a tortoise named Buffett."
Quick: His faith is so complete,
it touches almost every aspect of his life.
What are we gonna learn today, you think?
-About how to make money? -Yep.
Is it better to save it?
-Yes. -Yeah.
Because when you save, what happens?
-You get more. -That's right.
Quick: But his story begins with a different book.
This book here, this is
"The Making of an American Capitalist."
It's the exact book I purchased in 1998.
Quick: Holt was 24 and working in a chemistry lab.
He wanted to start investing,
and hoped that the book would help him
understand the stock market.
I didn't really look at it as life-changing at the time.
But now when I look back on that moment,
it was the first day of the rest of my life.
He started studying Buffett and using the billionaire's life
as a blueprint for his own,
beginning with the concept of saving early.
Any money you save before you get out
and start having a family is probably where any dollar
is probably worth $10 later on,
simply because you can save it.
Holt: I didn't go out and have dinner dates,
I didn't do the things that would cost me money.
The second thing I did was I had these crazy part-time jobs.
I worked almost every industry you can think of.
He worked days, nights,
and weekends for more than six years --
enough to save $150,000 to buy, of all things,
a cleaning service that he named Two Maids & a Mop.
Do you do a lot of cleaning now?
Today, not so much.
In the early days, absolutely.
It was something I had to do to survive.
One thing Warren Buffett taught me
was the fact that sexy businesses
have a ton of competition.
There's very little in the way of competition.
Competition. Competition.
Competition. I always prefer no competition.
I wanted to own a business that was unsexy as it got.
You know, it still strikes me, as somebody who went to school
and got this degree in chemistry,
like a crazy thing to jump off that track
and decide, "I'm gonna go start a cleaning service."
Well, I'll tell you no one supported me back in those days.
Family members thought I was a bit crazy.
Maybe it was because I was so young and dumb
and thought I was gonna become the next Warren Buffett Jr.
And I never thought that I was gonna fail.
As unglamorous as this job is,
it's still something that a lot of people need.
Quick: By following Buffett's lead and staying frugal,
his company turned a profit in its second year.
And then he went after the big money -- franchising.
So this is our current footprint of our franchise owners
throughout the country. You'll see...
Quick: The business, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama,
boasts more than 60 franchises and 500 employees.
Two Maids & a Mop White Plains.
Holt says that in 2017, the company soaked up
over $13 million in sales.
Holt: 17 new franchisees are now a part
of the Two Maids & a Mop family.
When did you feel like you had made it?
I can still remember this moment.
I was driving through Tampa, Florida.
And I said, "Oh, my gosh, we are in a foreign city
and Two Maids & a Mop is here.
We're a real brand now."
Quick: A real brand built on the gospel of Buffett.
Man: Ron really preaches that to all of us franchisees,
that we really need to be frugal with our money.
We're not fancy, we just do it well,
we do it at a fair price, and we make money.
Quick: While he's never met Warren Buffett,
Holt feels indebted to him,
and has tried to show his gratitude.
Really tried.
I desperately wanted just to say,
"Thank you for changing my life, Mr. Buffett,"
and I called his secretary over and over and over again.
They knew me by a first-name basis.
And they finally said, "You got to give it up."
I finally gave up and kind of accepted the fact
that we may never actually meet.
But for me, everything I've learned from him
and everything that I've put forth every day in my business
and in my personal life, even, is enough reward for me.
When we come back, headed to Omaha
and the kids from Detroit are all smiles.
What's the funniest reaction you got from any of the kids?
When I would say, "No pop on the bus going there."
"Warren Buffett has Cherry Coke. You know, like, why can't we?"
Follow the recipe of success, not the recipe of his diet."
Perry-Mason: Can somebody tell me
what company did Berkshire Hathaway own?
Quick: Gail Perry-Mason is a successful investment manager
and summer-camp founder.
I want to be a Warren Buffett in the making
'cause I want to achieve my goals.
For more than 20 years,
she's been teaching the book of Buffett to kids in Detroit.
10-10-80 rule, right? Yes.
Give 10%, save 10%, and live off 80%.
Quick: So you can imagine her excitement
when she finally came face-to-face with her idol
at a pro football game.
Perry-Mason: Oh, my God! There's Warren Buffett.
And I was like, "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
And he was like, "Sure, why not?"
She immediately thought of her campers.
I said, "Let me tell you about my babies."
And he said, "Your babies, how many do you have?"
And I said, "Well, I got thousands of them in Detroit."
And he says, "Do you?"
And I said, "Yes, I love teaching financial literacy.
We always learn about you every year,
and we all admire you."
So then he ended up saying,
"Why don't you bring them to the shareholders meeting?"
An invitation for 28 kids -- from Buffett himself?
The young investors must have been thrilled, right?
Most of the time, when I go to speeches like that,
all they do is just talk.
When I thought of Warren Buffett,
I thought of an old guy
who was just blabbering about stock and stuff.
Quick: And for the privilege of listening
to all that blabbering, these kids would have to travel.
Getting to Omaha
for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is not cheap.
How did you guys go about raising the money for it?
I started just calling people. "Can you help me with this?"
So, number one, we had a fundraiser.
And then we asked for a few sponsors.
Then something amazing happened
when Gail entered a drawing at a local charity event.
So they have this grand prize of a $25,000 ticket to Europe.
So I won.
-Are you kidding me? -I won.
I said, "I want these tickets to go to Omaha, Nebraska."
And they said, "You want to use this for Omaha, Nebraska?"
-Instead of Europe. -"Instead of Europe?"
I said, "Yes."
Quick: And when they reached Omaha, the kids soon found out
that Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger were...
I've had breakfast with Warren
when he has Coca-Colas and nuts.
...not what they had expected.
-Pretty damn good, too. -Yep.
If you keep doing that, Warren, you may not make 100.
Well...
Warren Buffett actually did comedy, and it made us laugh.
And I started getting into it
and started listening to his mistakes and whatnot.
Does it make you feel good to know that other guys like that
make mistakes, too? -Yeah.
Just know that we're not the only persons
or people who make them.
And even amazing people who have made billions of dollars,
they still make mistakes like every other
human being in the world. -Exactly.
Perry-Mason: Warren Buffett gave all these youth an opportunity.
Maybe, you know, we weren't, like,
sitting up front at the show or something.
We didn't need to.
We needed an opportunity to get in the door
with all the other shareholders.
Even though there's, like, thousands of people here,
you don't see a lot of kids,
you don't see a lot of people of color,
you don't see a lot of people who look like us.
And this is just an amazing experience for us to have.
Quick: While they didn't get to meet the man himself,
Joshua Hines and several others returned home so inspired,
they started investing.
I'm actually in the process of getting a stock next week.
-Which one? -The Berkshire Hathaway stock.
-Class B, right? -Yes.
-Hi. -Hello there.
Quick: Warren Buffett has spent a lifetime talking about success,
and these kids are all ears.
I just learned that patience is really
"slow and steady wins the race."
You have to remain true to yourself and humble,
and you have to remain patient.
-Anybody want to go back? -Yes.
-Yeah. -Absolutely.
Quick: An unlikely connection between an 87-year-old man
and a group of school kids --
the next generation to follow Warren Buffett.
Buffett: Anything your students do to invest in their mind and body,
it pays off in an extraordinary way.
Your best asset is your own self.
And you can become, to an enormous degree,
the person you want to be.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
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