I sense some judgment from the Bloomberg reporter here re: the Oracle Of O not knowing how to check voicemail to which we say, why should he? Big B’s got 5 nubile young secretaries perched on his desk hired exclusively for that purpose (in addition to, of course, being available on the ready for some motorboating action, and feeding him Oreo Blizzards).
Billionaire Warren Buffett said he was approached a year ago about insuring Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s assets before the investment bank filed for bankruptcy and didn’t receive financial documents he requested.
Buffett was asked about backing Lehman while Barclays Plc weighed a bid for the firm, he said today at a conference. He didn’t receive the information that he requested be sent to him by facsimile and later learned that there was a voice mail that he missed because he didn’t know how to retrieve it, Buffett said. New York-based Lehman filed for bankruptcy a year ago.
Update: A Fortune reporter caught up with WB later and he had this to say, which makes me question the whole story:
I caught up with Buffett afterward, and asked him whether, in retrospect, he might have gone for the deal. He pulled the simple little Samsung phone out of his pocket and pondered it for a moment. It’s entirely possible, he suggested. “I don’t know.”
I would possibly buy the “I don’t know how to check voicemail line” if he was one of those olds who, like, didn’t interact with technology whatsoever. Had other people check his email, had an assistant carry his phone and take calls, etc. The fact that he has the cell in his pocket seems to indicate he knows damn well how to how to retrieve a message, and that this story is a crock, cooked up for the ladies in the audience (the conference was for Fortune‘s Women In Power), which would obviously make sense.
In unrelated news, Dick Fuld saved money on his car insurance by witching to GEICO…
This elderly strike again…
@1 or switching
-1
“I was going to save the world, but then didn’t because I didn’t know how to open the door to the phone booth…oops.”
-If Superman was Warren Buffet.
Ah, the olds.
BS. He would never take that kind of chance. He’s just trying to make himself look good.
He would probably have put in a low ball bid (given that the situation was fluid) and walked away saying he tried.
I am the sage of Okalahoma, or Idaho, or some goddamned place with a shitload of cows and corn. I cannot be bothered with modern technologies like faxes and telephone answering machines.
My VCR is state of the art, but for some reason the time is off. It keeps blinking 12:00 AM. Can somebody please advise me how to make it work.
BTW, Motorola is going to make a killing on these VCR contraptions one day.
Dick Fold used the forms to wipe some rib sauce off of his gorilla
I thought about saving Lehman last year but I got side tracked tweaking my fantasy football line up and evaulating proposed trades from other players in my league. My bad Fuld.
I hate when that happens.
He looks so regal with that blizzard.
You all can suck on my Primerica prestige, peasants.
Primerica analyst
Hark unto thee: God does not check voicemail. You must use the direct prayer line.
“Cawl me, Warren. You better cawl. I’m not gonna tell you again.”
@14:
Of course, of course, right away, Charlie. We’re still friends, right??!
I’m just having a little trouble with my telephone. I pick it up, and there’s no dial tone. And now, I just noticed, the curled wire is missing! Everything is going to hell out here in Iowa.
- The Sage of Ohio, or Iowa (I forgot which one it is)
You know, in the movie he’s played by Don Knots.
I’ll drink some of your milkshake.
Dennis Kneale
@9 thanks a lot. dick.
Imagine how WB would react if he had left a VM at DQ about coming to pick up an Oreo Blizzard in 10…only to get there and hear they missed his VM because they ‘didn’t know how to retrieve it’.
DQ would be spunoff and shorted into the ground before you could say derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.
NS and WB
I got you beat. I was gonna buy LEH, but then the night before I got so hammered on Boone’s that I woke up at 12:30 the next day draped over the grand piano at John Thain’s house. The rest as they say… is history.
KL
LETTERMANTHISWEEKFACETHENATIONMEETTHEPRESSLATEEDITIONALPUNTO
@20 ftw
Based on this tidbit, I hereby dub him the Orifice of Omaha. What an a$$hole!
Haha you New Yorkers are a bunch of fags.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/14/2009-09-14_nyc__nanny_state_health_dept_considering_smoking_ban_in_parks.html
@24 really stupid story, no one cares. homo.
this happens to be a lot too, though it’s not so much that I don’t know how to check vm but that I’m just so bombed I can’t press the buttons.
-KL
Hey guys ;)
@ taxchick:
Any idea what that red thing is in his right hand? It looks like some kind of tassle or something, and he is gripping it with his pinky while he’s spooning his ice-cream.
@28/ pfluger
I believe what you see is a straw in the foreground; the straw of Orifice’s companion (interviewer?).. or perhaps it is a Twizzler hanging from LD’s mouth during his request that the Orifice buy his balls.
@24:
Come down to fuckin’ Rego Park, pal, and I’ll show ya a bunch of fags….
Warren better get his cholesterol checked. He is either eating Dairy Queen, Seese Candy or drinking Coke every time he gives an interview. The cost of product placement may be his life, and 50% of Berkshire Common A value.
I believe it. I heard he and Oliver Wendell Douglas share the same telephone pole out there in Hooterville.
Dear Mr. Pfluger
Mr. Buffet is actually holding the long red DQ spoon, an essential part of the Blizz eating experience, folded over. The long handle appears blurred in the photograph.
And that’s the inside scoop.
Mike Morhaime
President
Dairy Queen Blizzard Fan Club
@31 stakes in banks, ratings companies and over exposure in the insurance industry took care of the first 50%.
I thought he did buy Lehmans and the check was in the mail. But Lehman’s never received it so they d/k-ed.
@Taxchick:
The twizzler. That must be it. The Sage/Orifice of Indiana is obviously giving LD the business. LD, who is temporarily down on his luck. Greedy bastard, damned vulture….
If he wasn’t in Omaha, Omaha would have invented him.
He tried to be extravagant once and it sickened him.
He thinks a Blackberry is an expensive paper weight.
He is so tight, wallpaper seeks his advice on sticking to walls.
He is so aroused by business he thinks financial statements should come as a “fold-out”.
If he and Charlie Munger found and fought over a penny at the same time, copper wire would be suddenly created.
He is so tight fisted he once squeezed a charcoal briquet into a diamond.
He is so technologically untrained he thinks “Tweeting” is what happens when you try to desperately avoid breaking wind in the presence of Liz Claman.
He is the wealthiest Luddite in America
“I don’t always make money but when I do….I make boatloads of it. Stay thrifty my friends….”
Warren Buffett doesn’t check voicemail, voicemail checks Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett = Chauncey Gardiner.
@ 33/Mike Morhaime/DQ company shill:
Bullshit. Its a twizzler. Nothing else at that range in the photo is blurry, and you would have me believe that the red thing is a folded red DQ spoon??? Sell that BS to Chaz or DK.
My milkshake brings all the boyz to the yard…
I am fairly sure that this man shits in his own pants on a daily basis.
42, you have no idea.
@40
It’s called depth of focus.
The Twizzler Blizzler. Get Nails to promote em. Several hundred million units a year.
I gotta give the old fuck credit, he still jokes about gettin’ pussy.
@44:
Still not buying it. That thing is well within the range of focus, judging by the clarity of his hands, the spoon, and other items in that same depth of focus.
I believe the reason the object in question is blurred is because it is in MOTION, like someone was shaking the twizzler at the exact moment the image was captured.
Lucky pervert. Just call it what it is…
Didn’t know there was a vmail…? A vmail stopped him from saving LEH? YOU LIE!
@37 for FTMFW!
Warren always returns my voicemails.
Becky
ladies, hes clearly giving a hojo to a collie. RED ROCKET!
-dk?
Let’s hear the goddamn voicemail! It must be a great one… “Warren this is Dick…”
37 ftw
andrew rastrick is hurting me
Ah, a fax machine’s just a waffle iron with a phone attached!