Two Things I Regret
This is a sad story to start off season 3 with, but it’s worth telling so here it goes…
Our CEO Brent called me into his office a while back to talk about something. He’d been out of town for a few days and was opening his mail, including a good sized box. “What’d you get?” I asked.
“Oh,” he sighed and pushed it aside.
I looked inside and saw some peanut brittle and a copy of the new edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. It was a care package sent to get him excited about an upcoming lunch he’d been invited to have with Charlie Munger, but Mr. Munger had passed away a few days before.
People way more qualified than me have written about the life and impact of investing luminary and business philosopher Charlie Munger, so I won’t do that here. Instead, I’ll just add (instead of “nothing”) “Thank you” and “What a run” and admit something that made me tear up when I learned of his death: I never met him.
You’d think that having worked in the investing space for 20 years and been a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder for longer that I’d have run into him or bothered to attend an annual meeting of either Berkshire or Daily Journal Corporation. But I didn’t.
I had opportunities, sure, but getting to Omaha or L.A. seemed hard, something else would always come up, and it was easier to read a recap or watch the webcast. I regret that reasoning.
What’s more, you’d think I would have learned. See, one of my other big regrets is passing on the chance to see Joe Strummer (I loved The Clash) perform at the Olympia Theater in Dublin, Ireland, in November 2001. I was in college at the time and the ticket seemed expensive, the concert was on a weeknight, and I had an exam to study for. Strummer died a year later.
The learning I haven’t learned? The only thing you can’t make more of is time. Use it wisely, and thank you for being here.
-Tim