Patience

Retrieved September 16th, 2020, from

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/01/10/mohnish-pabrai-what-ive-learned-from-warren-and-ch.aspx

Mohnish Pabrai: Well, I think what happens is that certainly with both of them, there is a tremendous amount in the public domain. But I think when I met Warren for lunch with my family, first of all, within about five minutes, he puts you at ease, and you think you're having lunch with your grandfather, which is great. But I think he's very cognizant of the fact that it's an important event for the people who are attending, and he wants to deliver value at that lunch. So anytime you would ask him a question, he would answer it in a manner where there was tremendous learning. So I'll give you an example. I asked Warren a question about Rick Guerin. When Charlie and Warren had started out, there were three of them. It was Charlie, Warren, and then the third guy, Rick Guerin, and they used to make investments together. They ran separate funds, but they used to work together. In fact, even when they did the See's deal, Rick, Charlie, and Warren had interviewed Chuck Huggins to be the CEO together. The three of them were firing questions to him together to figure out whether he was the guy.

Then Rick Guerin pretty much disappeared off the map. I've met Rick recently, but he disappeared off the map, so I asked Warren, are you in touch with Rick, and what happened to Rick? And Warren said, yes, he's very much in touch with him. And he said, Charlie and I always knew that you would become incredibly wealthy. And he said, we were not in a hurry to get wealthy; we knew it would happen. He said, Rick was just as smart as us, but he was in a hurry. And so actually what happened -- some of this is public -- was that in the '73, '74 downturn, Rick was levered with margin loans. And the stock market went down almost 70% in those two years, and so he got margin calls out the yin-yang, and he sold his Berkshire stock to Warren. Warren actually said I bought Rick's Berkshire stock at under $40 apiece, and so Rick was forced to sell shares at ... $40 apiece because he was levered.

And then Warren went a step further. He said that if you're even a slightly above-average investor who spends less than they earn, over a lifetime you cannot help but get rich if you are patient. And so the lesson.