WARREN BUFFETT: This Is How You Know You're Really Successful
He answered questions and talked about women, work and life.
The Oracle of Omaha published an essay for Fortune about being bullish on women. He also Tweeted for the first time.
We've included highlights from the chat.
Buffett, who is one of the most successful investors of all time, was asked about how he defines success by a student in the audience.
"Somebody said success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get. One doesn't preclude the other," Buffett responded.
"I would say when you get to be my age...if the people that you want to have love you, love you, you're a success," he said.
He explained that you can have all the money in the world and buildings named after you, but unless you have people that really care about you, you're not a success.
"If those people love you after they've seen you in action for many, many years, you're a success."
Well said.
Fortune's Seller noted that Fortune's Carol Loomis said that Buffett is the least prejudiced executive she knows. He does care about brains, though, but what's more important is someone's character, Buffett said.
He was asked about his female role models during the talk. He said his first wife opened his eyes to a lot of things and that Carol Loomis and Katharine Graham of The Washington Post are also his role models.
Fortune's Seller asked him about how he feels about going on Twitter.
"It's pretty daring, but I'll try," he said of the social media site.
His first Tweet was, "Warren is in the House."
Buffett, who doesn't even have a computer on his desk in his office, joked that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
The conversation then shifted back to women in the workplace.
"My job is to have the right people in the top slots for those businesses," he said. "Most of the time when we buy a business, the management comes with it."
He said that he doesn't have to change management very often, but when he does, he picks the best people to do the job. It doesn't make any difference what their age, sex, or educational background is.
"Talent is scarce... You want them to have a feeling of ownership...Therefore, we better have the most talented," Buffett said, adding, the "can't afford having a blacklist for who they will put in the job."
"We're not looking for big names, we're looking for big brains," he added.
The topic of succession also came up. Buffett, 82, said they spend more time on that at board meetings.
"If I should die tonight, it's very important who takes over tomorrow and it's very important that decision has already been made and that everybody's onboard among the board members on that decision. That is the key factor at Berkshire," he said.
He said the directors know that he won't be there one day and who they pick to succeed him is extremely important.
He said they have six directors under 60 and they are the "directors of the future." He added that three of those directors are women.
Former model Christy Turlington Tweeted at Fortune and asked Buffett the most important lesson he learned from his mother.
Buffett said that he didn't get along with his mother all that well. He later added that it bothered her that he didn't get along with her. He said that he learned his most important lessons from his father.
He said that his mother thought she was supposed to serve his father.
"She lived a life that was dictated by my father's interests and sort of the society at the time," he said, adding, that his mother was very very smart and that she was there to take care of the needs of the family.
He said he thinks it was bad for her that she had to serve his father and maybe deep down she felt it wasn't fair, but she also felt that was what she was supposed to do in life.
Another female audience member studying investing and finance in business school asked Buffett how she can stand out in finance.
He said he would advice anybody whether female or male to learn all you can about it and then try to build an audited record, even if it's a small entity.
"That's the minor league batting average to the major league scout," he said, adding they don't care about your gender if you can make money.
He said you can't "learn enough" about investments. He advised reading everything you can and doing investing of your own, even if it's just a hundred bucks.
Someone Tweeted and asked Buffett to have a Coke at Dairy Queen. Buffett explained that Dairy Queen is a "great social spot."