26 ms·

Warren Buffett throws in the towel on newspaper empire

126 points by doctoroctogon 7y ago

turk73 7y ago
If I ever become a bilionaire, or frankly just get a little more than I have now, my next move is: RETIRE. What the hell is wrong with people like Buffett? He knows he can't buy more time in this life. Same with all the psycho billionaires. Why not give someone else a chance Boomers?
- _red 7y ago
  This assumes the purpose of life is to do nothing, that sitting on a beach forever is somehow heaven. Not everyone sees life that way (interestingly such views of work = hell is probably negatively correlated with success).
  - marvin 7y ago
    That's practically a tautological argument though. People who don't like expending a lot of effort on certain things will necessarily have less success at performing said things. And people will also necessarily have different preferences on how to spend their time and energy, and different amounts of time and energy as well. Would also like to point out that "sitting on a beach forever" is not the negation of spending all your time an energy on solving the problems that the capitalist economy rewards. There's plenty of people out there who have a passion for things that aren't expected to earn money, but for whom the best option for actually making money is something that's quite boring.
  - aedron 7y ago
    Someone recently pointed out to me, that if your idea of bliss is to just lounge and do nothing, you might be depressed. Certainly if you hate what you're doing so much that the best thing you can think of is to do nothing, Office Space style, that is a pretty bleak outlook.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      I think the point with being able to lounge forever is that you're free to pursue whatever interests you have. You're not shackled by having to make ends meet, so your passion projects don't have to suffer.
      - philwelch 7y ago
        Warren Buffett’s passion project is investing though.
    - blackearl 7y ago
      Reaching nirvana is far from depressing.
  - adwn 7y ago
    Who said anything about "doing nothing"? Retiring is not the same as doing nothing; in particular, retiring does not necessarily imply only "sitting on a beach forever". There are people for whom life means more than just work, and for whom the end of working does not mean the end of living. For what it's worth, turk73's attitude regarding work only being a means to earn money is just as misguided and narrow-minded.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Retiring is about finally doing something purely out of personal interest, rather than for enough profit to pay your bills. Sitting on a beach forever is okay, if you like that sort of thing. It's also okay to write a novel that no one will ever read, or to crash remote controlled helicopters and then repair them. It's also okay to plant a hummingbird, butterfly, and honeybee garden, and buy a big macro lens. Or maybe ride a motorcycle all over the continent. Or move to Florida and do Florida things. Or move to Wyoming and manage a herd of 15 cattle on a plot that the real ranchers call "Flyspeck Ranch". Or open an ice cream shop that turns a profit only 20 days per year. Retirement is as varied as the people who are no longer bound to conform to a work standard.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    It's a shame to see a community so enthusiastic about hobbies and open source and self driven personal improvement to vote up a notion that not working = doing nothing, and that wanting to retire is a view that "work = hell" and is "negatively correlated with success." Retiring isn't to do nothing. Retiring is to uncouple my productivity from the economic value I produce.
    - magduf 7y ago
      I think what some people are missing here is that, for people like Buffet, the stuff they do for work IS their "hobby". Try this thought exercise: if you suddenly became a billionaire, and didn't need to work for a paycheck any more, would you continue to write software (I'm assuming you're a developer like most on here)? Personally, I would. I probably wouldn't do it 8 hours a day, but I'd find some fun project to work on, and spend some time on that. It'd be my hobby, when I'm not doing something else I enjoy like traveling or skiing or whatever. I didn't get into this field just for the money, I did it because I like computers. Buffet likes investing. What else is he going to do with his spare time?
      - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
        I wish there were more part time opportunities for professionals. Yeah, I'd keep doing ML (my day job), but I wouldn't do it 8 hours a day. Unfortunately, nearly all of the ways to to do it require that it's either a fulltime job or not a job at all. If there were a way to work 4 hours a day, or 8 hours a day 9 months of the year or something, turning off my email/slack/meetings outside that window, I'd be all about that. I'd love to slowly retire, putting in less and less time every year. But the job market doesn't seem to support that, so it's full time or no work for me (unless I put in the huge effort to build up a freelancing portfolio, which doesn't seem to be as much of a job market in ML yet?). Given the choice, I'd choose no work, and make my own work for fun.
        magduf 7y ago
        Maybe you should look into some other kind of programming hobby? Any why can't you do ML on your own anyway? Does it require too many computational resources? (serious question, I know almost nothing about the field) Personally, I could easily work on some kind of OSS project if I suddenly found myself with lots of free time. I can do C, C++, Python, etc., so it wouldn't be hard for me to find an existing project to contribute to, or make my own.
- misthop 7y ago
  Most (all?) Billionaires get there due to immense drive, and possibly a need to succeed. You can't really turn that off - there is always more to do, or even more success. That said, someone like Bill Gates is probably closest to what you are describing. After making billions didn't retire, but moved from making the money to making the money work for humanity
  - ascar 7y ago
    Bill Gates and Warren Buffet apparently know each other pretty well, maybe they can even be called friends, and Buffet trusts Gates enough to give his foundation $3.6 billion. Imho the Netflix documentation "Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates" is worth watching for a variety of reasons.
- SantalBlush 7y ago
  An old man once told me, "Stay busy, stay happy." So far, I've found it to be true (as long as the work can be rewarding).
- leetcrew 7y ago
  very successful people tend to either like what they do or at least enjoy being busy. it's not really about getting more money, although if you enjoy business, money is one of the main indicators of success.
- Jagat 7y ago
  and do what? This is what makes him feel alive and purposeful. If you're suggesting he sit on a beach and sip margarita, people like him can't do that for a long time without feeling the opposite of alive.
- nabla9 7y ago
  If you have played poker for 40 years, why not just stop. What the hell is wrong with poker players? They know they can't buy more time in this life. Same with all the psycho bowlers in bowling alleys. Why not give someone else a chance Boomers?
- douglaswlance 7y ago
  1. Wealth is not zero sum. 2. He enjoys what he does. 3. The more wealth he generates, the better off the world is.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    I don't know how you can think 3. is true. There are many situations that increase wealth without making the world a better place. For instance he could wage a war, turn war prisoners into slaves and take their land. He would be very wealthy but it wouldn't make the world a single bit better. The reason why trickle down doesn't work is because there is no accountability. There are good and bad ways to make money but trickle down doesn't make that distinction.
    - treve 7y ago
      This is probably about Warren Buffer specifically, who has donated a majority of his wealth to things like the Bill and Melinda gates foundation. You're 100% right of course that most billionaires makes the world a worse place, but I'd argue he's one of the exceptions.
      - throwlaplace 7y ago
        people love to repeat things. he hasn't donated anything yet. he donates when he dies.
        sudofox 7y ago
        Both Bill and Warren have donated ~35 Billion to charity respectively in their lives. Both have also dedicated to the giving pledge.
        hodder 7y ago
        Please don't pull fake facts out of your anus.
        ticmasta 7y ago
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  If you suddenly had a massive amount of resources you’d use it to... achieve nothing? And you think that’s the enlightened option?
  - blackearl 7y ago
    You must not be a Buddhist
    - cat199 7y ago
      realizing this is a bit tongue in cheek, but technically one can make a pretty solid argument that a true buddhist shouldn't own anything either..
- Zenst 7y ago
  It's easy to armchair a retirment, but the reality is that for many they become bored. When you retire you get to do what you want and enjoy as a focus, Mr Buffet enjoys his work and ventures, and dare say that had he put his feet up and stepped away at the first opertunity when he was rich enough decades ago, he may well very well be dead today. I can't attest personally but can relate on some level, work wise I spent lots of times in hotels and the novelty and indeed fun of staying at a hotel, completely pailled and at the stage that I just wanted to cook myself some beans on toast and that compared to hitting a 5* restaurant was more of a calling in the end and shows that variety is the spice of life and you can have too much of a good thing. At least for me and I'm sure others have had there own comparable situations. But do talk to people who have retired for a while and many will miss work. Heck, school at the time seemed boring and many couldn't wait to reach adulthood and yet after a decade of work, you appreciate how much more fun school days actually was. So whilst working, easy to aspire towards retirement, but retirement is what you make it and totally up to you, so many retired people do work, or volunteer work - because they enjoy it.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    School, as an experience, is hell compared to work; excruciatingly boring, filled with unpleasant interactions and zero agency. The only upside of school is longer holidays. Work is fulfilling if you self-identify with what you do. If you don't, it's an act of self-denial, and retirement is more likely.
    - Zenst 7y ago
      May I ask, are you under 40? As it was around that age in which the memories of all those adults saying "school, best time of your life, enjoy it whilst you can" and thinking "you crazy fool, silly adults" and retrospectively at 40, thinking "Hmmm, now I get it, now I get it".
      - barrkel 7y ago
        I am not, alas. I enjoyed college more than school because I specialized in more things that I was better at, whereas school moved way too slowly in the things that interested me (I was the kind of guy who bunked off school and did math problems from the textbook in the woods) and forced me to attend things I deeply disliked, to this day. And besides all that, the degree to which I "fitted in" was mediocre; it was no social picnic. My 30s were much better than my 20s, and 20s better than my teens; though some of my fondest memories are of the ages 10~14, outside school not in it, reading books and following my programming interests divorced of curriculum. I'm hoping the rest of my 40s are a similar step up from my 30s; and we've got a baby boy on the way in a couple of weeks. We'll see.
- huherto 7y ago
  I don't agree with you but I think these are valid and important questions that need to be discussed. It shouldn't be downvoted like that.
  - ticmasta 7y ago
    What questions? It was a personal, emotional response with no substance that insulted more mature people because they have the nerve to keep playing the game and not go die in the corner. Down-vote away!
- philwelch 7y ago
  Retired people live off the returns from their investments, and since that’s where their income comes from, they usually make decisions about managing those investments from time to time.
- shawnz 7y ago
  At what point should he have said "This is enough"? Most people think just being able to live comfortable lives for themselves is "enough". But those people also can't donate 50 billion dollars to charity like Buffet has. Do you think it would have been a net positive if Buffet gave up investing after his first million?
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    200x median annual income is "enough". That's 5x median to live on, and 1x median for a fiduciary manager to make sure it lasts forever. 5x median is enough to not worry about money, ever, yet also not so much that one can afford to waste any of it. It lets you have nice things, but not stupidly decadent things. It's still conceivable to spend all that in one year, just on ordinary consumer purchases, services, and travel. Measuring in terms of median incomes is also a good proxy for how many full-time servants one can afford to hire and employ indefinitely without disgruntlement. At 5x, that's enough for a 2.5x lifestyle, plus a 1.1x personal assistant, and a 1.4x property manager. That kind of enough is "enough". So no, he should not have given up after his first million. He should have stopped at around $12M instead. It's fine if he keeps working, but really, after that, it's more of a benefit to others if he spends the excess rather than investing it.
    - shawnz 7y ago
      But that leaves nothing left for philanthropic efforts, that's what I'm saying. How would that have been better?
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        I think you may overestimate the impact of philanthropic efforts. Everything he put into philanthropy could have been spent into the economy by other means. Such as higher employee wages. I take it as axiomatic that a person with a plethora of money cannot understand the problems of a person with a dearth of money well enough to implement effective solutions.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  “If I ever become a bilionaire, or frankly just get a little more than I have now, my next move is: RETIRE.” I am in the same boat but that’s why we (and a lot of other people) will never make that money. These guys seem to really enjoy business and it’s their favorite thing to do. They have the freedom to do whatever they want but they choose business. Looking at my CEO’s published salary I would retire within one or two months of making that much money. But I will never get there because I am not willing to put that much energy into work.
  - DataWorker 7y ago
    It has little to do with work effort. Many of the hardest workers are dirt poor. Necessary perhaps, sufficient, hardly!
  - growlist 7y ago
    > I am in the same boat but that’s why we (and a lot of other people) will never make that money. This gets repeated fairly often and intuitively it makes sense. I'd love to hear a counterexample though - of a naturally lazy person that motivated themselves hard enough, for long enough, purely to make enough money to enable themselves to be stylishly lazy forever.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - marvin 7y ago
      Mr. Money Mustache, an early Financial Independence blogger, quit working after having invested enough to mostly live off the expected 4% returns of his investment portfolio. Granted, I don't think there's any evidence at all that he is lazy, but he certainly doesn't project the image of a high-powered workaholic business executive. A few years after retiring, his personal finance blog has at times made an income in the mid-six figures, assuming he was telling the truth in a forum comment somewhere. I've read stories of early retirees saying that they've made more money than ever after retiring, because the independence freed them from the downside of risky business decisions.
  - 7y ago
- BeetleB 7y ago
  > Why not give someone else a chance Boomers? Actively investing and giving people your money is giving others a chance. Retiring and keeping the money in an account and living off of it is a lot less so.
- gtk40 7y ago
  It's also worth noting that while most of the Baby Boomers are around typical retirement age, Buffet was actually born in 1930, over a decade before the "Baby Boom" after WWII ended. His children are boomers, however.
thrownaway954 7y ago
paywall
- jumbopapa 7y ago
  Block Javascript.
  - jaredwiener 7y ago
    and people wonder why newspapers cannot make money
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      We all don't like the idea of not being paid for our work, but somehow it's the duty of these journalists, editors, publishers, prints, etc to do so.
      - lixtra 7y ago
        It's the same everywhere. We want to be paid but reach is even more important.[1] [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micropiracy9-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micro...
        jaredwiener 7y ago
        "As economies mature and flourish and people and companies begin buying legitimate versions, they usually buy Microsoft because most others already use it. It’s called the network effect." There's no interoperability with news. And these economies are mature. This is just theft.
      - marvin 7y ago
        At this point, the problem with content subscriptions is ease of use and "fuck you, customer" experiences rather than willingness to pay. I'd gladly pay, say, $200 per year to never see a paywall or commercial and never have to worry about account registrations or overcharging. But after paying $100 in for a single article I read in a Norwegian newspaper last year, due to a weekly subscription that had "compulsory auto-renewal" in the small print, and no payment confirmations other than the account statement of my rarely-checked bank account... Let's say I'm not so keen on managing 30+ subscriptions to different providers, keeping up with their terms of service and ensuring they don't screw me. I'll gladly pay when a company is able to figure out the proper UX for this, and the content producers get their heads out of their asses and consent to a sane distribution agreement with them.
rvz 7y ago
Not sure why this is on HN these days. But then again, this is just another businessman pulling out of the newspaper business. Move along now, nothing to see here.
jumbopapa 7y ago
I recently read The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life and a lot of that book focused on newspapers. Buffet delivered papers as a boy, had a big legal battle to buy a local Buffalo, NY paper, won a Pulitzer at the Omaha Sun for coverage of a scandal at Boys Town, and he was very close to Kay Graham of The Washington Post. I'm sure this was an emotional decision for him.
- misiti3780 7y ago
  I read that book too and is it just me, or could it have been like 400 pages smaller? I felt like it had so much useless information in it.
- aantix 7y ago
  He definitely invests in what he’s familiar with. Which is why it perplexes me when tech people are so diversified with their holdings, there’s little opinion built in. You have a competitive advantage. You see the tech tools that are utilized every day in your offices. You can understand neural networks and whether Tesla’s auto pilot OS technically reasonable. You have the knowledge and skills to properly assess tech companies and their products. You’re an insider in some respects. Make an assessment, place your bets.
  - Rooster61 7y ago
    He also tends to avoid stocks with volatility. And tech has historically been relatively volatile. As a software engineer, I also tend to not invest in big tech companies. YMMV though.
    - aantix 7y ago
      Why is that? Why avoid a Apple, etc?
      - munchbunny 7y ago
        If you work in tech and get compensated with tech money and hold tech stocks as part of your compensation, then your net worth is already tied in a substantial way to tech as an industry. Buying more tech stock increases how much your net worth will swing based on tech industry trends. Bigger risk, bigger returns. Oftentimes risk is opposite of the goal. As long as you're aware of the interlinked nature of tech stocks in the tech industry, then by all means buy more, but if you're planning for retirement and you don't have a nest egg that's invested on lower risk with more modest returns, you might want to think twice about putting more eggs in the tech basket.
kerkeslager 7y ago
I'm surprised it has taken this long, TBH.
antr 7y ago
Deceiving headline, here's the real transaction: > Berkshire is lending Lee $576 million at a 9% annual rate for the purchase and to refinance other debt.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Which is to say, he expects the newspaper business to not return 9% - otherwise he would keep it.
  - smabie 7y ago
    That’s not true, it’s about risk-adjusted returns. What Buffet presumably believes is that a 9% loan has a better reward/risk ratio than the newspaper business. As long as a return is greater than the borrowing rate, you csn synthetically make any return you want. This is why risk is important, because leverage is going to multiply it as well.
- StillBored 7y ago
  Which is crazy, makes you wonder what the terms of the debt being refinanced are.
monkeynotes 7y ago
9% interest! Buffet thinks the industry is toast, Lee is making a huge gamble (betting against someone who is known to make good predictions) and Buffet might never see that money again if the business goes bankrupt. Pretty odd transaction, maybe someone can explain how it is mutually beneficial.
- danvoell 7y ago
  9% interest! Are you saying that is good or bad? If Buffet is getting interest, at least he is getting money off the table sooner than later. It's less risky than taking an equity stake. The loan is for a lot more than the sale. The loan is probably cheaper money than Lee can get elseware while the sale price for Buffet is probably a better sale price than if he just tried to fire sale the assets. Buffett is an infamous "one last puff" investor. While newspapers are heading down a continual decline, there is still some money to be made for a while.
  - yes_man 7y ago
    I think the original comment meant that a 9% interest for a loan is quite steep and might be signaling Buffett's lack of confidence in media as an industry and its ability to generate value in the long term. However in a deal like this 9% might not be unusually high since the article mentions it is mostly being used to "refinance existing debts" so the high interest is probably a premium on that part
- nroets 7y ago
  Perhaps Buffett sees that bold action is needed to optimize profits e.g. cutting jobs or asset stripping. He definitely doesn't have have time to be make these bold decisions. And he may not want to cloud his reputation by being in control while the jobs are cut. A third possibility is that Lee has synergies that Berkshire doesn't have e.g. Lee can give it scale.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Arguably being a big investor type probabbly has a lot to do with knowing ... when you're not in a position / maybe not good at the thing that needs to be done.
PaulHoule 7y ago
Is that the same Lee Publications that makes trade publications for agriculture and similar sectors?
- jaredwiener 7y ago
  Among other things: https://lee.net/markets/ https://lee.net/markets/ // https://www.agupdate.com/ https://www.agupdate.com/
hodder 7y ago
Who is Warren Buffet? The submission should be edited to reflect the guy's actual name: Warren Buffett
starpilot 7y ago
Can we fix the headline typo? It's Buffett.
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.md/pWYFr http://archive.md/pWYFr

126 points by doctoroctogon 7y ago

If I ever become a bilionaire, or frankly just get a little more than I have now, my next move is: RETIRE. What the hell is wrong with people like Buffett? He knows he can't buy more time in this life. Same with all the psycho billionaires. Why not give someone else a chance Boomers?

_red 7y ago
This assumes the purpose of life is to do nothing, that sitting on a beach forever is somehow heaven. Not everyone sees life that way (interestingly such views of work = hell is probably negatively correlated with success).
- marvin 7y ago
  That's practically a tautological argument though. People who don't like expending a lot of effort on certain things will necessarily have less success at performing said things. And people will also necessarily have different preferences on how to spend their time and energy, and different amounts of time and energy as well. Would also like to point out that "sitting on a beach forever" is not the negation of spending all your time an energy on solving the problems that the capitalist economy rewards. There's plenty of people out there who have a passion for things that aren't expected to earn money, but for whom the best option for actually making money is something that's quite boring.
- aedron 7y ago
  Someone recently pointed out to me, that if your idea of bliss is to just lounge and do nothing, you might be depressed. Certainly if you hate what you're doing so much that the best thing you can think of is to do nothing, Office Space style, that is a pretty bleak outlook.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    I think the point with being able to lounge forever is that you're free to pursue whatever interests you have. You're not shackled by having to make ends meet, so your passion projects don't have to suffer.
    - philwelch 7y ago
      Warren Buffett’s passion project is investing though.
  - blackearl 7y ago
    Reaching nirvana is far from depressing.
- adwn 7y ago
  Who said anything about "doing nothing"? Retiring is not the same as doing nothing; in particular, retiring does not necessarily imply only "sitting on a beach forever". There are people for whom life means more than just work, and for whom the end of working does not mean the end of living. For what it's worth, turk73's attitude regarding work only being a means to earn money is just as misguided and narrow-minded.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Retiring is about finally doing something purely out of personal interest, rather than for enough profit to pay your bills. Sitting on a beach forever is okay, if you like that sort of thing. It's also okay to write a novel that no one will ever read, or to crash remote controlled helicopters and then repair them. It's also okay to plant a hummingbird, butterfly, and honeybee garden, and buy a big macro lens. Or maybe ride a motorcycle all over the continent. Or move to Florida and do Florida things. Or move to Wyoming and manage a herd of 15 cattle on a plot that the real ranchers call "Flyspeck Ranch". Or open an ice cream shop that turns a profit only 20 days per year. Retirement is as varied as the people who are no longer bound to conform to a work standard.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  It's a shame to see a community so enthusiastic about hobbies and open source and self driven personal improvement to vote up a notion that not working = doing nothing, and that wanting to retire is a view that "work = hell" and is "negatively correlated with success." Retiring isn't to do nothing. Retiring is to uncouple my productivity from the economic value I produce.
  - magduf 7y ago
    I think what some people are missing here is that, for people like Buffet, the stuff they do for work IS their "hobby". Try this thought exercise: if you suddenly became a billionaire, and didn't need to work for a paycheck any more, would you continue to write software (I'm assuming you're a developer like most on here)? Personally, I would. I probably wouldn't do it 8 hours a day, but I'd find some fun project to work on, and spend some time on that. It'd be my hobby, when I'm not doing something else I enjoy like traveling or skiing or whatever. I didn't get into this field just for the money, I did it because I like computers. Buffet likes investing. What else is he going to do with his spare time?
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
      I wish there were more part time opportunities for professionals. Yeah, I'd keep doing ML (my day job), but I wouldn't do it 8 hours a day. Unfortunately, nearly all of the ways to to do it require that it's either a fulltime job or not a job at all. If there were a way to work 4 hours a day, or 8 hours a day 9 months of the year or something, turning off my email/slack/meetings outside that window, I'd be all about that. I'd love to slowly retire, putting in less and less time every year. But the job market doesn't seem to support that, so it's full time or no work for me (unless I put in the huge effort to build up a freelancing portfolio, which doesn't seem to be as much of a job market in ML yet?). Given the choice, I'd choose no work, and make my own work for fun.
      - magduf 7y ago
        Maybe you should look into some other kind of programming hobby? Any why can't you do ML on your own anyway? Does it require too many computational resources? (serious question, I know almost nothing about the field) Personally, I could easily work on some kind of OSS project if I suddenly found myself with lots of free time. I can do C, C++, Python, etc., so it wouldn't be hard for me to find an existing project to contribute to, or make my own.
misthop 7y ago
Most (all?) Billionaires get there due to immense drive, and possibly a need to succeed. You can't really turn that off - there is always more to do, or even more success. That said, someone like Bill Gates is probably closest to what you are describing. After making billions didn't retire, but moved from making the money to making the money work for humanity
- ascar 7y ago
  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet apparently know each other pretty well, maybe they can even be called friends, and Buffet trusts Gates enough to give his foundation $3.6 billion. Imho the Netflix documentation "Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates" is worth watching for a variety of reasons.
SantalBlush 7y ago
An old man once told me, "Stay busy, stay happy." So far, I've found it to be true (as long as the work can be rewarding).
leetcrew 7y ago
very successful people tend to either like what they do or at least enjoy being busy. it's not really about getting more money, although if you enjoy business, money is one of the main indicators of success.
Jagat 7y ago
and do what? This is what makes him feel alive and purposeful. If you're suggesting he sit on a beach and sip margarita, people like him can't do that for a long time without feeling the opposite of alive.
nabla9 7y ago
If you have played poker for 40 years, why not just stop. What the hell is wrong with poker players? They know they can't buy more time in this life. Same with all the psycho bowlers in bowling alleys. Why not give someone else a chance Boomers?
douglaswlance 7y ago
1. Wealth is not zero sum. 2. He enjoys what he does. 3. The more wealth he generates, the better off the world is.
- imtringued 7y ago
  I don't know how you can think 3. is true. There are many situations that increase wealth without making the world a better place. For instance he could wage a war, turn war prisoners into slaves and take their land. He would be very wealthy but it wouldn't make the world a single bit better. The reason why trickle down doesn't work is because there is no accountability. There are good and bad ways to make money but trickle down doesn't make that distinction.
  - treve 7y ago
    This is probably about Warren Buffer specifically, who has donated a majority of his wealth to things like the Bill and Melinda gates foundation. You're 100% right of course that most billionaires makes the world a worse place, but I'd argue he's one of the exceptions.
    - throwlaplace 7y ago
      people love to repeat things. he hasn't donated anything yet. he donates when he dies.
      - sudofox 7y ago
        Both Bill and Warren have donated ~35 Billion to charity respectively in their lives. Both have also dedicated to the giving pledge.
      - hodder 7y ago
        Please don't pull fake facts out of your anus.
      - ticmasta 7y ago
chrisseaton 7y ago
If you suddenly had a massive amount of resources you’d use it to... achieve nothing? And you think that’s the enlightened option?
- blackearl 7y ago
  You must not be a Buddhist
  - cat199 7y ago
    realizing this is a bit tongue in cheek, but technically one can make a pretty solid argument that a true buddhist shouldn't own anything either..
Zenst 7y ago
It's easy to armchair a retirment, but the reality is that for many they become bored. When you retire you get to do what you want and enjoy as a focus, Mr Buffet enjoys his work and ventures, and dare say that had he put his feet up and stepped away at the first opertunity when he was rich enough decades ago, he may well very well be dead today. I can't attest personally but can relate on some level, work wise I spent lots of times in hotels and the novelty and indeed fun of staying at a hotel, completely pailled and at the stage that I just wanted to cook myself some beans on toast and that compared to hitting a 5* restaurant was more of a calling in the end and shows that variety is the spice of life and you can have too much of a good thing. At least for me and I'm sure others have had there own comparable situations. But do talk to people who have retired for a while and many will miss work. Heck, school at the time seemed boring and many couldn't wait to reach adulthood and yet after a decade of work, you appreciate how much more fun school days actually was. So whilst working, easy to aspire towards retirement, but retirement is what you make it and totally up to you, so many retired people do work, or volunteer work - because they enjoy it.
- barrkel 7y ago
  School, as an experience, is hell compared to work; excruciatingly boring, filled with unpleasant interactions and zero agency. The only upside of school is longer holidays. Work is fulfilling if you self-identify with what you do. If you don't, it's an act of self-denial, and retirement is more likely.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    May I ask, are you under 40? As it was around that age in which the memories of all those adults saying "school, best time of your life, enjoy it whilst you can" and thinking "you crazy fool, silly adults" and retrospectively at 40, thinking "Hmmm, now I get it, now I get it".
    - barrkel 7y ago
      I am not, alas. I enjoyed college more than school because I specialized in more things that I was better at, whereas school moved way too slowly in the things that interested me (I was the kind of guy who bunked off school and did math problems from the textbook in the woods) and forced me to attend things I deeply disliked, to this day. And besides all that, the degree to which I "fitted in" was mediocre; it was no social picnic. My 30s were much better than my 20s, and 20s better than my teens; though some of my fondest memories are of the ages 10~14, outside school not in it, reading books and following my programming interests divorced of curriculum. I'm hoping the rest of my 40s are a similar step up from my 30s; and we've got a baby boy on the way in a couple of weeks. We'll see.
huherto 7y ago
I don't agree with you but I think these are valid and important questions that need to be discussed. It shouldn't be downvoted like that.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  What questions? It was a personal, emotional response with no substance that insulted more mature people because they have the nerve to keep playing the game and not go die in the corner. Down-vote away!
philwelch 7y ago
Retired people live off the returns from their investments, and since that’s where their income comes from, they usually make decisions about managing those investments from time to time.
shawnz 7y ago
At what point should he have said "This is enough"? Most people think just being able to live comfortable lives for themselves is "enough". But those people also can't donate 50 billion dollars to charity like Buffet has. Do you think it would have been a net positive if Buffet gave up investing after his first million?
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  200x median annual income is "enough". That's 5x median to live on, and 1x median for a fiduciary manager to make sure it lasts forever. 5x median is enough to not worry about money, ever, yet also not so much that one can afford to waste any of it. It lets you have nice things, but not stupidly decadent things. It's still conceivable to spend all that in one year, just on ordinary consumer purchases, services, and travel. Measuring in terms of median incomes is also a good proxy for how many full-time servants one can afford to hire and employ indefinitely without disgruntlement. At 5x, that's enough for a 2.5x lifestyle, plus a 1.1x personal assistant, and a 1.4x property manager. That kind of enough is "enough". So no, he should not have given up after his first million. He should have stopped at around $12M instead. It's fine if he keeps working, but really, after that, it's more of a benefit to others if he spends the excess rather than investing it.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    But that leaves nothing left for philanthropic efforts, that's what I'm saying. How would that have been better?
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      I think you may overestimate the impact of philanthropic efforts. Everything he put into philanthropy could have been spent into the economy by other means. Such as higher employee wages. I take it as axiomatic that a person with a plethora of money cannot understand the problems of a person with a dearth of money well enough to implement effective solutions.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
“If I ever become a bilionaire, or frankly just get a little more than I have now, my next move is: RETIRE.” I am in the same boat but that’s why we (and a lot of other people) will never make that money. These guys seem to really enjoy business and it’s their favorite thing to do. They have the freedom to do whatever they want but they choose business. Looking at my CEO’s published salary I would retire within one or two months of making that much money. But I will never get there because I am not willing to put that much energy into work.
- DataWorker 7y ago
  It has little to do with work effort. Many of the hardest workers are dirt poor. Necessary perhaps, sufficient, hardly!
- growlist 7y ago
  > I am in the same boat but that’s why we (and a lot of other people) will never make that money. This gets repeated fairly often and intuitively it makes sense. I'd love to hear a counterexample though - of a naturally lazy person that motivated themselves hard enough, for long enough, purely to make enough money to enable themselves to be stylishly lazy forever.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - marvin 7y ago
    Mr. Money Mustache, an early Financial Independence blogger, quit working after having invested enough to mostly live off the expected 4% returns of his investment portfolio. Granted, I don't think there's any evidence at all that he is lazy, but he certainly doesn't project the image of a high-powered workaholic business executive. A few years after retiring, his personal finance blog has at times made an income in the mid-six figures, assuming he was telling the truth in a forum comment somewhere. I've read stories of early retirees saying that they've made more money than ever after retiring, because the independence freed them from the downside of risky business decisions.
- 7y ago
BeetleB 7y ago
> Why not give someone else a chance Boomers? Actively investing and giving people your money is giving others a chance. Retiring and keeping the money in an account and living off of it is a lot less so.
gtk40 7y ago
It's also worth noting that while most of the Baby Boomers are around typical retirement age, Buffet was actually born in 1930, over a decade before the "Baby Boom" after WWII ended. His children are boomers, however.

thrownaway954 7y ago

paywall

jumbopapa 7y ago
Block Javascript.
- jaredwiener 7y ago
  and people wonder why newspapers cannot make money
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    We all don't like the idea of not being paid for our work, but somehow it's the duty of these journalists, editors, publishers, prints, etc to do so.
    - lixtra 7y ago
      It's the same everywhere. We want to be paid but reach is even more important.[1] [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micropiracy9-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micro...
      - jaredwiener 7y ago
        "As economies mature and flourish and people and companies begin buying legitimate versions, they usually buy Microsoft because most others already use it. It’s called the network effect." There's no interoperability with news. And these economies are mature. This is just theft.
    - marvin 7y ago
      At this point, the problem with content subscriptions is ease of use and "fuck you, customer" experiences rather than willingness to pay. I'd gladly pay, say, $200 per year to never see a paywall or commercial and never have to worry about account registrations or overcharging. But after paying $100 in for a single article I read in a Norwegian newspaper last year, due to a weekly subscription that had "compulsory auto-renewal" in the small print, and no payment confirmations other than the account statement of my rarely-checked bank account... Let's say I'm not so keen on managing 30+ subscriptions to different providers, keeping up with their terms of service and ensuring they don't screw me. I'll gladly pay when a company is able to figure out the proper UX for this, and the content producers get their heads out of their asses and consent to a sane distribution agreement with them.

rvz 7y ago

Not sure why this is on HN these days. But then again, this is just another businessman pulling out of the newspaper business. Move along now, nothing to see here.

jumbopapa 7y ago

I recently read The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life and a lot of that book focused on newspapers. Buffet delivered papers as a boy, had a big legal battle to buy a local Buffalo, NY paper, won a Pulitzer at the Omaha Sun for coverage of a scandal at Boys Town, and he was very close to Kay Graham of The Washington Post. I'm sure this was an emotional decision for him.

misiti3780 7y ago
I read that book too and is it just me, or could it have been like 400 pages smaller? I felt like it had so much useless information in it.
aantix 7y ago
He definitely invests in what he’s familiar with. Which is why it perplexes me when tech people are so diversified with their holdings, there’s little opinion built in. You have a competitive advantage. You see the tech tools that are utilized every day in your offices. You can understand neural networks and whether Tesla’s auto pilot OS technically reasonable. You have the knowledge and skills to properly assess tech companies and their products. You’re an insider in some respects. Make an assessment, place your bets.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  He also tends to avoid stocks with volatility. And tech has historically been relatively volatile. As a software engineer, I also tend to not invest in big tech companies. YMMV though.
  - aantix 7y ago
    Why is that? Why avoid a Apple, etc?
    - munchbunny 7y ago
      If you work in tech and get compensated with tech money and hold tech stocks as part of your compensation, then your net worth is already tied in a substantial way to tech as an industry. Buying more tech stock increases how much your net worth will swing based on tech industry trends. Bigger risk, bigger returns. Oftentimes risk is opposite of the goal. As long as you're aware of the interlinked nature of tech stocks in the tech industry, then by all means buy more, but if you're planning for retirement and you don't have a nest egg that's invested on lower risk with more modest returns, you might want to think twice about putting more eggs in the tech basket.

kerkeslager 7y ago

I'm surprised it has taken this long, TBH.

antr 7y ago

Deceiving headline, here's the real transaction: > Berkshire is lending Lee $576 million at a 9% annual rate for the purchase and to refinance other debt.

dsr_ 7y ago
Which is to say, he expects the newspaper business to not return 9% - otherwise he would keep it.
- smabie 7y ago
  That’s not true, it’s about risk-adjusted returns. What Buffet presumably believes is that a 9% loan has a better reward/risk ratio than the newspaper business. As long as a return is greater than the borrowing rate, you csn synthetically make any return you want. This is why risk is important, because leverage is going to multiply it as well.
StillBored 7y ago
Which is crazy, makes you wonder what the terms of the debt being refinanced are.

monkeynotes 7y ago

9% interest! Buffet thinks the industry is toast, Lee is making a huge gamble (betting against someone who is known to make good predictions) and Buffet might never see that money again if the business goes bankrupt. Pretty odd transaction, maybe someone can explain how it is mutually beneficial.

danvoell 7y ago
9% interest! Are you saying that is good or bad? If Buffet is getting interest, at least he is getting money off the table sooner than later. It's less risky than taking an equity stake. The loan is for a lot more than the sale. The loan is probably cheaper money than Lee can get elseware while the sale price for Buffet is probably a better sale price than if he just tried to fire sale the assets. Buffett is an infamous "one last puff" investor. While newspapers are heading down a continual decline, there is still some money to be made for a while.
- yes_man 7y ago
  I think the original comment meant that a 9% interest for a loan is quite steep and might be signaling Buffett's lack of confidence in media as an industry and its ability to generate value in the long term. However in a deal like this 9% might not be unusually high since the article mentions it is mostly being used to "refinance existing debts" so the high interest is probably a premium on that part
nroets 7y ago
Perhaps Buffett sees that bold action is needed to optimize profits e.g. cutting jobs or asset stripping. He definitely doesn't have have time to be make these bold decisions. And he may not want to cloud his reputation by being in control while the jobs are cut. A third possibility is that Lee has synergies that Berkshire doesn't have e.g. Lee can give it scale.
- duxup 7y ago
  Arguably being a big investor type probabbly has a lot to do with knowing ... when you're not in a position / maybe not good at the thing that needs to be done.

PaulHoule 7y ago

Is that the same Lee Publications that makes trade publications for agriculture and similar sectors?

jaredwiener 7y ago
Among other things: https://lee.net/markets/ https://lee.net/markets/ // https://www.agupdate.com/ https://www.agupdate.com/

hodder 7y ago

Who is Warren Buffet? The submission should be edited to reflect the guy's actual name: Warren Buffett

starpilot 7y ago

Can we fix the headline typo? It's Buffett.

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.md/pWYFr http://archive.md/pWYFr