2022: It is ridiculous to have to split the Chairman and CEO roles.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I have another thing that interests me in the present scene.

We get all these suggestions from index funds, a letter saying we — the chairman and the chief executive officer are the same person, and that they have some professor somewhere that thinks that American business would work better if it had a separate — if Warren could split — we could split him in two and have each half work.

And to me it’s the most ridiculous criticism I’ve ever heard. It would be like — it would be like — Odysseus would come back from winning the battle in Troy and so forth, and some guy would say, I don’t like the way you were holding your spear when you won that battle. (Laughter)

And it’s some guy that’s never run any business and doesn’t know anything. I don’t think too much of this activity. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, let’s see. Somewhere in here — I may find it at some point. Ah, here it is.

We wrote in the annual report — in the third paragraph of a nine-page report — we said, “We’re going to treat everybody the same.” It may be a crazy concept we have, but we really feel that somebody that gave us their savings in 1960 or 1970 or 1980 and just left them with us, and trusted us, we feel that they’re entitled to the same sort of respect and attention that somebody that, you know, is accumulating, like crazy, assets under management and gets paid based on assets under management, that knows that they just need to have policies that essentially are popular in Washington.

The only thought they have is that Washington sometimes says that, you’re getting too damn big and we’re going to do something about you.

So, they try to be very sure that they’re doing things that people will cheer.

So anyway, I say, “Well, we’re going to treat you all alike.” We’ve got three million people — or shareholders — out there. We’re going to treat you all alike.

And on March 25th, about a month after I wrote that letter — it’s in the third paragraph, you’d think that they would get that far — that they had 101 million B shares — i mean, now, somebody ought to read to the third paragraph.

But anyway, we get a letter that says, “We would like to meet with you in advance of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to discuss Berkshire Hathaway’s perspective on governance and sustainability.”

Well, I have written probably more on that that’s been honestly written by the guy that runs the company. But why in hell would they think that we should meet with them and not you people all individually (laughs) that come here? (Applause)

I grew up in a very, very, very Republican household, but I feel like, you know, some raving populist or something.

But I just can’t imagine — well, anyway. You’ve heard it. (Laughter)

And, you know, somebody gets paid to — well, there’s a lot of people I’m sure in public relations and they hire advisors, because it looks better if they have advisors that tell them whether the chairman and the CEO should be the same person or not, and those people get paid for it. And then they discuss it at their board meeting and then, you know —

In the end, believe me, if 90% of Congress for some reason felt it was better to have the chairman and the CEO be the same person, the index funds (laughs) would not be writing those letters, because all they have to worry about is whether for some reason people start wondering why some institution should have 10% of the votes in every major corporation in the country.

And I like the idea of index funds. But it is interesting to watch where incentives and bureaucracy, and whatever it may be, lead people.

The guy that wrote me the letter’s probably a very nice guy. That’s his job.

Well, anyway, they didn’t get a special meeting. And you people are here, and we appreciate the fact you’re here. (Applause)