By Alec Hogg
It’s a dozen years since I took my first pilgrimage to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway AGM. Among the motivations was that we never knew how long the show would last – at 75 and 82 respectively, Father Time seemed to be rapidly catching up the AGM’s stars, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
Over the weekend, these two wise men of the investment world – now 87 and 94 – showed little the worse for another 12 years of wear. They were as sharp as ever when answering five hours of questions that ranged from their belated love of Apple Inc (now Berkshire’s biggest shareholding) through to a memorable zinger from Charlie aimed at Elon Musk.
Munger is described by his family as “a book with ears”. And at the last of the once regular press conferences following the AGM, Buffett told me his reading had slowed some, because he then “only” read two books a day.
Bookworms like the Berkshire duo are living proof of how to best exercise the most complex organ in our body. Proving, too, that as we age, reading delivers some other rather attractive fringe benefits. So for those who refuse to turn into doddering old fools…
