Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger take the afternoon shareholder questions at the 1996 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, covering concentration versus diversification, why they stay inside their circle of competence, and how they judge whether a manager is any good. Buffett argues that diversification is protection against ignorance and that three wonderful businesses are safer than fifty well-known ones, while Munger dismisses modern portfolio theory as a form of dementia. They also work through Disney and the value of owning a character no agent can renegotiate, the insurance float they would not trade for seven billion dollars in cash, why Wall Street firms are more like a brain surgeon than the Mayo Clinic, and why they use the government bond rate rather than a risk premium when discounting cash flows.
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