Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett's Omaha: A Hedge Fund Manager's Dispatches from Inside the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting (Hardcover)

by Jeff Matthews (Author)
Key Phrases: versatile investor, very chaotic situation, longtime shareholders, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, Bedford Ave (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

They come to Omaha by the tens of thousands, flocking to an annual meeting that has become legendary for investors, businesspeople, and fans of one of the most savvy capitalists on the planet. They come to eat steak, buy furniture at a discount, and bask in the brilliance of value investor extraordinaire, Warren Buffet.

Hedge fund founder, financial blogger, and professional skeptic Jeff Matthews got his own highly-coveted ticket to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting held only for shareholders and their guests--and proceeded to post reports on his blog, offering tempting glimpses into the much-discussed meeting. Now Matthews delivers a full-length account of his adventures at this infamous financial hoedown. In addition to offering a thoroughly entertaining first-hand account of Berkshire Hathaway's meeting, he answers questions investor's are asking, including:

• Does Buffett's famed penny-pinching cripple his companies?
• Why does Buffet--a bridge partner and best friend of Bill Gates--not own any technology stocks?
• How does the extremely rational Buffett square his well-known social progressiveness with his lily-white audience of investors?
• Is Buffet really an "Oracle"?
• What information, insights, and ideas do the meeting's attendees pick up-and how do they put this information to use in their own investments?
• Will Berkshire-Hathaway survive his death?

Matthews also applies his financial acumen to harvesting potent lessons from his experiences that you can use as you survey the investment field, from finding how the world’s greatest investor evaluates not only businesses but the people who run them, to the importance of “just reading and thinking” and the value of having a smart, cynical partner. With the dispatches from this exclusive financial carnival, Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett's Omaha puts you at the forefront of an investor's dream come true.

"There are very few secrets to be revealed about a man who really doesn’t have many secrets. But this book does take you inside that secret place – the Mecca of the Midwest. It’s very easy to read and full of classic Buffett-isms – well worth the pilgrimage for those of us who don’t own any Berkshire Hathaway shares or for anyone who wants to learn more about investing from the man who says the first rule of investing it to, 'read everything.'"
--CNBC.COM
From the Back Cover

Welcome to the “WOODSTOCK OF CAPITALISM”

Omaha Nebraska, Saturday May 3, 2008 The nation’s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Credit, has collapsed after 38 years of making home loans—-a victim of its own aggressive lending practices, soaring loan losses, and a credit squeeze that forced it to sell out at a fire-sale price.

Bear Stearns, which survived the Crash of 1929 without a single layoff and ranked among the top investment banks in the United States, virtually disappeared overnight after 85 years on Wall Street. Only an 11th hour rescue by JP Morgan and the U.S. Treasury prevented a world-wide financial meltdown.

And 31,000 people have converged on Omaha to hear what Warren Buffett thinks will happen now.

The “Oracle of Omaha” is in the building.

“After reading Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha, my view of Buffett has been radically changed. Jeff Matthews reveals some of Warren Buffett’s most interesting professional foibles and personal blemishes.”—Douglas A. Kass, Seabreeze Partners Management Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007160197X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071601979
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #449,437 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read - Insightful, Witty and Well-Written - Unlike the snoozefest Snowball, October 17, 2008

By	Bulls & Bears "Dennis" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I found this book to be an enjoyable read that, unlike Snowball, kept my attention straight through. I enjoyed Jeff Matthews' insight into the mind and personality of the "Oracle of Omaha". I would recommend this book to anyone - from wall street hotshots to young professionals just starting out.
Jeff also provides an in-depth look into the incredible following that hangs on Warren's every word... a comprehensive account that I had yet to see in previous Buffett books.
I would also suggest checking out his blog - I've been an avid reader of it since early 2006 and have enjoyed the majority of his posts. Like the book, Jeff's posts are full of his wit and astute perspective.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Warren and Charlie try to educate us?, December 18, 2008

By	Luk Chung Wing "Albert" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Every year, I read the Q&A of BRK Annual Meeting done by various nice people sharing their experiences in Omaha. To be frank, not all Q&A are that easy to understand without knowing the history and background of those subjects and this book supplements those history, ideas and background for newbie like me. Everyone will surely learn from that and this is so enjoyable.

Sometimes, I have this question come to my mind - `Why Warren and Charlie like to answer questions from different people on different subjects and share their successful ideas and thoughts with the other?'

Having read the Q&A for years and the book, I think what Warren and Charlie try to EDUACATE us their values towards money, life, friends, rationality, thoughts, integrity, giving-away, etc.

Years gone by, we could observe more and more talent value investors appears and found successful, such as Seth Klarman (I treat him as third generation). More and more people invest intelligently, behave more rationally and act positively. Warren and Munger are actually creating a group of rational intelligent people with handful gunpowder (money). To me, I think this group of people will grow larger and eventually change the world in way which leads us to a better world. It is a kind of cult.

Personally, from the Q&A and the book, it gives me the opportunity to stand down, read and think about the heroes/books that Munger introduced - like Benjamin Frank, John Rockefellers (esp. his Dear Father/Dear Son letters), Darwin, Richard Dawkins, etc. They change the way how I think, I behave. Thanks Munger for giving me the opportunity to meet these great men despite the fact that some of them are gone.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's Pretty Good, October 25, 2008

By	Aaron Koral (Tucson, Arizona, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a long time reader of Mr. Matthews' blog, JeffMatthewsIsNotMakingThisUp, I looked forward with anticipation to his book on his take-aways from the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings. Upon reading, I was not disappointed. The book is based on a series of blog posts from the first year Mr. Matthews attended the "Woodstock of Capitalism", as the Berkshire shareholder meetings are affectionately referred to.

The book, I should note, is not another biography of Warren Buffett like Roger Lowenstein's excellent "Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist". Nor is the book a distillation of Berkshire Hathaway's investment tenets such as Robert Hagstrom's "The Warren Buffett Way". The book focuses mainly on the type of questions Berkshire shareholders ask Mr. Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, as well as the answers they provide. The author then proceeds to offer his own take on the views shared by Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, as well as the questioners/shareholders themselves.

Mr. Matthews throughout his work offers some great contrasts between the public pronouncements by Mr. Buffett and the actions Berkshire Hathaway takes with its float and shareholder capital. An example would be Berkshire's use of derivatives on currency trades, while Mr. Buffett publicly pronounces the use of derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction".

Readers will also get the sense of the admiration the author holds for Mr. Buffett and the way he runs Berkshire shareholder meetings, which are unlike any other shareholder meeting for American publicly traded companies. One need only remember the time Bob Nardelli, then CEO of Home Depot, back in May 2006 not even answering shareholder questions about CEO compensation or having a truly independent board of directors.

The reason I give the book four stars is while the subject is both unexplored and given a breezy, easy-to-read treatment, I felt the book could have gone much further given the subject. I would have given the book five stars had the author contrasted the Berkshire shareholder meeting with that of another publicly traded company Mr. Matthews holds to see how Berkshire sets the standard for the way shareholder meetings should be run.

Overall, I found the book to be a pretty good read and you won't be disappointed with the treatment given by the author.