Motley Fool Money - The Buffett You Don't Know

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

Apple surprises. Walmart gets serious in India. Shake Shack raises the roof. T-Mobile and Sprint hope the third time’s a charm. Snap slumps. And Tesla’s CEO generates some electricity. Plus, CNBC���s Becky Quick talks about the new documentary, Warren Buffett: Investor. Teacher. Icon. Thanks to Blooom for supporting MarketFoolery. Get a month free with blooom401k.com/fool and use the promo code “fool”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a small business owner, you already know what it takes to keep everything moving. You're juggling customers, invoices, and about 100 decisions every day. Thankfully, taxes don't have to be one more thing on that list. With Intuit TurboTax, you can get your business taxes done for you with a full service expert. TurboTax matches you with your dedicated tax expert. Who knows your industry understands your business write-offs and gives you the personalized advice your business deserves. Upload your documents right in the app, hand everything off, and still feel like you're in the loop the whole way through. You can even get real-time updates on your expert's

progress right in the app, which makes it so much easier to stay on track. And you can get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with an expert today, only available with TurboTax full service experts. Managing your 401k is hard, Bloom isn't. See what you could be doing to make your 401k better by getting a free analysis at Bloom 401k.com slash fool. That's Bloom with 3-0s 401k.com slash fool. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's a Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Chris Hillen, joining me in studio this week.

Senior analyst, Jason Moser, Andy Cross, and Ron Gross. Good to see you, as always, gentlemen. How you used to? We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We've got CNBC host, Becky Quick, is our guest. And as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin with the biggest public company getting even bigger. Here's the only thing Apple did in its second quarter.

Double-digit growth in revenue, double-digit growth on the bottom line. And, oh, yeah, Andy, they announced an additional stock buyback plan. of $100 billion. Amazing. And this was just a monster quarter for Apple. And then Warren Buffett announced that he bought 70, through Berkshire Hathaway, bought 75 million more shares during the first quarter. That's almost $13 billion. So the real exciting part with Apple is they demonstrated that they are becoming truly more than just the iPhone. Why, iPhone still makes up 60% of their sales. Their services now are 15% of their sales at $9 billion last quarter, up 31%. And their wearables revenue, believe it, wearables were up 50%. So the services like Apple Music, Apple Pay,

ICloud, you know, the storage. So they really are becoming this different business than just a hardware company. Yeah, incredible quarter. And from the Buffett perspective, he didn't buy this for a trade, right? He sees long-term potential. He thinks of this as a consumer products company that is just getting it done and making products that people like and that they'll continue to do that for years and years, if not decades and decades. And if it's good enough for him, I think it's good enough for me to hang on as well. Yeah, I mean, he liquidated his entire IBM stake in the process, too, right? Which, I mean, the Big Blue, that's been a core buffet holding for many years. So to see this shift,

I think, tells you a lot. But I think he's right. I mean, no Apple is not necessarily the growth story that it once was, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, it's a very powerful brand. They make excellent consumer products. I mean, I think the one thing, the question mark I still have is just from the global perspective, given what we know. about Android's operating system, its domination of that global market share. You just kind of wonder about how far Apple can take this beyond the North American market and perhaps more established markets. But regardless, phenomenal company, tremendous resources. It's hard to imagine not owning shares of this business.

I mean, the China business was awesome, especially with the iPhone 10. So, I mean, they continue to see growth over there. But their subscription, their paid subscriptions are now 270 million. And that was up from 100 million last year, Chris. So they continue to see growth in this area. And that's really where the growth is going to be. Even Buffett mentioned that today in his interview with CNBC. Let me go back to Jason's point for a second, because for a number of years, there was a legitimate question being asked of Apple with regards to essentially going down market.

Should they be doing this? Should they be offering a much cheaper version of the iPhone to really get the kind of global penetration that you're talking about? I kind of feel like that's been put to rest now. But given all of their success, given that they're now a $925 billion company and probably going to be the first one to a trillion market cap, it seems like they almost don't need to. No, and I think it's just keeping everything in context, too, right? I mean, it's hard to sit there and criticize a company for selling 50 million iPhones per

quarter and bringing in these billions and millions of dollars in free cash flow year in and year out. And so, I mean, it makes sense for them to try to expand their consumer base and give something think for as many people out there that might want it. And we're seeing that play out. iPad strategy, for example. I don't know that it worked out necessarily as well on the phone side, but again, it doesn't really have to. I mean, they do something really well. It's not a win-or-take-all markets. I mean, as long as they continue to sort of pursue these other options beside the iPhone services and whatnot, I mean, I think the business

is going to do just fine. Shares of Tesla down a bit this week after losing a record amount of money in the first quarter, that was still better than Wall Street. expecting. The results of Tesla's quarter took a backseat to the conference call with analysts in which CEO Alon Musk said the questions were, and I'm quoting here, boring, not cool, and boneheaded the following day, Musk appeared to backtrack a little bit saying, quote, I should have answered their questions live. It was foolish of me to ignore them. What do you think, Jason? Maybe this is going to be somewhat of a polarizing subject here. Personally, I mean,

I actually kind of agree with the spirit of what Musk did here. I mean, I do like the fact that he's getting up there and saying, listen, I mean, a lot of these questions are kind of boneheaded and not really relevant to what I'm trying to do here and building a business for the long haul. But that goes back to the discussion we've always had about Tesla. Is it a car company? Is it a battery company? Is it an energy company? It seems like it's a little bit of all three. We talk a lot about the fact that maybe it would be better if Musk does not do these calls anymore. And probably, He would benefit from taking a page out of the book of Jeff Bezos and not doing them. The biggest problem there, though, and the reason why I think he can't afford to do that is because he is Tesla's biggest evangelist. He's the one that gets out there, whether it's on Twitter or the calls, and really puts investors in the public in a great positive frame of mind about this company. If he stops doing that, I think the market more quickly starts valuing this company as a car company, and that's a big problem for them because they are going to need to raise more

capital at some point or another. Well, to that point, too, Jason, so there were a lot of questions about the capital, and he brushed those off and did not really address them. What's interesting is if they do need to go to the markets to get capital, they have to go to those Wall Street banks or to investors to get that. And when you're so dismissive of them in such the way that he was, that just, it'll be very interesting to see. Either he's like, you know, they're going to come to me no matter what because of the growth company we are, or he just doesn't care. Yeah, and if you're going to use the media and the analytical community to make grandiose statements and sell yourself and your company, then you also have to have the other side of the coin where you have to answer their questions as well. You can't have it just your way.

Interesting week for Activision Blizzard. Shares of the video game maker were up on Friday after first quarter revenue came in at a record just shy of $2 billion. Kind of noteworthy, Ron, because Activision Blizzard didn't release. any new games this quarter? No new games. They did launch their Overwatch Video Game League, which actually has been pretty successful, but you're right. So really successful quarter, revenue of 14% on the backs of Call of Duty World War II, which is their latest Call a Duty game. Candy Crush, believe it or not, I can't believe that whole thing.

That's still happening? People still love the Candy Crush. Doing really well. They raised full-your guidance slightly. I think, interestingly, even though they raised guidance. I think it was a little shy of what analysts were hoping to see. So I think there was a little bit of disappointment there. But I think the bigger story here is kind of the evolution of video games and what we're seeing right now with these games that are called Battle Royale games, Fortnite being the one that people have mostly heard of, I think, that have taken the video game industry literally by storm. I've never seen anything like it in my house, for sure. I know that's an anecdotal evidence of one. But it's a big, big deal.

And Activision and companies like Activision need to kind of step up and figure out a strategy to battle that. And they're doing things like releasing updated versions of their games and new modes of play. But it is a serious competition that they need to be aware of. There was also a little bit of unexpected drama with Activision Blizzard because their earnings report somehow was released early by Dow Jones, and it was incorrect. The revenue was much lower. I feel like Dow Jones needs to send a fruit basket to headquarters.

Yes. As you say, two mistakes. Information released early. It's embargoed until a certain time is the fancy term for it. And they kind of forgot about the embargo. And then the revenue number was actually the 2017 revenue number, not the 2018. So somebody made a bit of a boo-boo there. They better make sure it doesn't happen again. Or some computer algorithm did. Yeah, something. Let's move on to e-commerce and specifically the battle for Flipkart, which is one of the leading e-commerce companies in India. As we came into the studio, there were more. multiple reports that Walmart is finalizing a deal to take majority ownership of FlipCart. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is also reportedly participating in this deal. Amazon was bidding as well, Andy. But at the moment, it looks like Walmart is about to gain a nice share of the e-commerce pie in one of the biggest markets in the world. Yeah, Chris, and the Alphabet connection may have put this over the edge for Walmart,

as of right now at least. I mean, they're buying 75%. It values Flipcard at about $20 billion. That's up from where it was valued apparently at $12 billion last year. India is a 1.3 billion people. Probably around 500 million of those are online. So the growth opportunity for this market is just huge. And as we know, Walmart needs to continue to build out their e-commerce solutions around the globe.

And they see this as a key component to that philosophy. Yeah, I think that Andy's point there, India is obviously, huge. I think quartering and quarter out so many questions of China and capitalizing on the opportunity there, and it seems like India is one that was overlooked for so long. We saw in Amazon's shareholder letter this year from Jeff Bezos, India got its own bullet point, right? I mean, obviously a very big point of focus for the company, and that is because the size of the population. You're also looking at a country right now where GDP per capita is around $1,800 or so. No, that's not high at all, Chris, but that's the point, right?

is the opportunity for growth. There is nowhere to go but up for that. You know, it was founded by two gentlemen named Bonsol, who are not related, Sachin and Binnie. They're not related. They met in college, and they're young. They're like in their mid-30s. So apparently they will continue to be able to be tied to Flipkart, where that might not have happened with Amazon. And also, Amazon's such a big player in India, as Jason mentioned, that there might be regulatory concerns if Amazon was to be the winner for the flip card bidding war. Coming up, more earnings and a few stocks you can add to your watch list. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money.

Quick thanks to Bloom for supporting this week's Motley Full Money. Do you have a 401K? Do you remember how frustrating it was, deciding what to invest in without professional help? Well, now there's a better way to grow your 401K. Bloom. Bloom with three O's. It is a simple, smart, and affordable way. to grow your 401k. You can go online to bloom401.com slash fool and then simply connect your existing 401k in a few easy steps, and sit back and relax while Bloom performs an unbiased analysis of the

funds in your account and chooses the best mix to meet your goals while minimizing hidden investment fees. Getting your investments right does not have to be hard or painful or time consuming. Bloom only takes five minutes, and then your retirement is set until you cancel, and they link to your existing 401k so you don't have to move your money. Bloom is so simple that the hardest thing about Bloom is remembering that there are three O's in the name Bloom. Go to Bloom 401k.com slash fool. Enter the promo code Fool for your first month free and see the difference that Bloom could make in your retirement. As always, people on the program may have interest in the

stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So, don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, Chris Hill, here in studio with Andy Cross, Jason Moser, and Ron Gross. Bad week for Snap, the social media company's first quarter report featured a slew of misses on revenue and on daily active users and shares of Snapdown 25% this week. You tell me, Jason, is this the time to buy, or do you see more pay? No, it's definitely not the time. I'm going to interrupt it right there. Let's not entertain this discussion.

More pain to come? Listen, I think the amazing thing about this company is after laying that egg that they laid this quarter, that it's still around a $13 billion company. Mac asked in the production meeting, you know, is it cheap now? And I think, to your point, to Max's question, no, it's not. I mean, when you, unprofitable businesses look expensive all the time, right? And that's because we need to try to get an idea of how profitable they can be and when they're going to get there.

And I think that what we got from this quarter with Snap is that it's not going to be anytime soon, and even if it does happen, it's questionable as to whether it will be really meaningful at all. I've heard you talk before about your appreciation of listening to conference calls because you get the tone of management from them. I think that I get the same thing. In listening to this call, you get the tone of a management team that is clearly in over their heads. I just don't see the path for this company, at least in the near term. They have an app that they do well with Snapchat, but it is a limited. audience there, and it doesn't have the same network effects that something like a Facebook

or even a Twitter has. Spectacles will fail spectacularly, okay? I can't believe they double down on it, but that's going to be another write-off. And so I think that this thing has further to go on. Yeah, the daily active users were about 15% year-over-year, only 2% sequentially. And here's the kicker for me is when they said in the call, we are planning for our Q2 growth rate to decelerate substantially from Q1 levels. Is that a problem? That doesn't sound real good. to me, Chris? The thing that had me shaking my head was I saw different reports of SNAP's app update and different media outlets referring to them as saying, well, there were mixed reviews.

Well, mixed reviews suggest that there were reviews saying, this is amazing. And pretty much every review and the celebrities that we talked about said, this thing is terrible and I'm getting rid of it right now. Let's move on to Shake Shack. First quarter profits came in higher than expected. The Burger Chain also raised guidance for the full fiscal year. The stock was up 23% on Friday, Ron. Oof, man, I don't know.

I still don't get the valuation here. But you can't argue with solid results. Revenue up 29% beating estimates. Get this same shack sales, not same store sales, same shack sales. We're up 1.7%. And you got to adjust it performing net income after you adjust for some wonky things, up 54%. So, you know, amazing.

Guidance was good. They're building towards 200 domestic company operated checks by the end of 2020. Their long-term target is 450. They're at about 100 now. So theoretically, the growth rate is there to support this valuation, which is in excess of 25 times EBITDA. It's not an investment for me. I've actually never been in one, but they're building one around the corner from my house.

So stay tuned. So great results. Stock's not for me. You know what? If Zillow can have the Zestimate, they can have same shack. sales. This past week kicked off with Merger Monday, living up to its name. T-Mobile announced it is buying Sprint for $26 billion in stock. This is the third time the two companies have attempted to get together. Jason, both stocks down this week. Wall Street does not think this

deal is going through. Well, Chris, I'm going to bet against Wall Street. I think the third time's a charm here. I think this deal absolutely gets approved. To me, to say that competition would actually be harmed, because technically you're going from four. big providers, to three. I think that misses the point entirely because we're essentially operating in what is a duopoly at this point with AT&T and Verizon. And honestly, I mean, just going around the table here, real quick, name the AT&T CEO or name Verizon CEO. I don't think even, I know I can't do it. John Ledger, to me, is a big part of this deal. And I think if you have a combined entity with him at the helm, he's extremely customer-centric,

somewhat eccentric, love slow cooker Sundays. But I do think this deal happens. And I think that ultimately customers, consumers will benefit from it. Just from an entertainment standpoint, I would love for him to continue being CEO of this company. Let's get to the stocks on our radar this week. Our man behind the glass, Steve Brodow, is going to hit you with a question. Ron Gross, what are you looking at? Steve, do you like wheels? Yes, yes, I do.

I've got a tight international for you. T-WI, small cat manufacturer of large industrial wheels. I have talked about it quite a bit, as Steve will attest to. They have finally turned the technical quarter. Sales are up 19%. This quarter, fifth consecutive quarterly increase, $14 million profit versus a $10 million loss. Love to see that. Ebit Dao was up 144%. I mentioned that because 144 is another word for gross, and it just makes me happy. Shares up 13% this week on the news. Still plenty of room to run. It was even higher earlier in the year until we started throwing out around words like tariffs and trade wars. So something to keep an

eye on there, but I think the stock's got some room. Steve, question about Titan International? I understand they're doing some interesting thing with shapes of wheels, some being oblong, some being more circular. Did you see on Shark Tank? Shark Tank had a square wheel that they were trying to hawk on that thing. Can you confirm

or deny that they are singing to the circuit? I deny wholly and completely. Andy Cross, what are you looking at? Steve, do you like food? Because Middleby is what I'm looking at, symbol M-I-D, maker of food service equipment for commercial and home kitchens, Turbo Chef, and Viking on two of their big brands. They just announced an acquisition of Joe Tap, the maker of nitro brew dispensers,

for those of us who like cold coffee. So that's the really fast-growing area. Questions I'm looking for is the top-line growth has really slowed. So asking Celine Basu, who's a very well-respected CEO that we've been invested behind for many, many years, questions about their growth opportunities. Steve, question about Middleby? For Middleby to grow, do they need to continue to acquire? I know they acquired Viking at some point along five years ago or so. Is that how this company grows? They do, Steve, yeah. So they have to continue to make those acquisitions. The Viking one's been a struggle for them. So there's lots of questions about how they're going to continue to grow, especially in a market that, you know, restaurants aren't, people aren't going out to restaurants like

they used to. So how does Middleby continue to get that growth back? Jason? Well, Chris, I was thinking yesterday as our new puppy took another dump on our floor. That air is just not a whole heck of a lot that he can do to keep me angry with him very long. It's like for five seconds, then I'm like, I can't be angry with him, no matter what he does. Idex Laboratories reported earnings. This week, another great quarter, ticker is IDXX. This is part of my health care and wealth care basket for some of you out there who may know. Top line up, 16 percent, almost all organic growth, and 17 percent growth in recurring revenue with its pet diagnostics business. And that's the really nice part about

this business. This is razor and blade model. And I'll tell you, the market is paying up for it paying around 50 times full year estimates now. So this is not a cheap stock. It's not one that I would probably go out and buy right now. But I think it's performing well for a reason. Steve? Are you walking this dog? I'm walking the dog all the time. I tell you, you know what? We've got the invisible fence guy coming by next week. We're going to put one of those little invisible fences on the inside stairs so we can't get upstairs. At least we'll minimize the damage. You got a stock you want to add to your watch list, Steve? I think I may go Middleby. All right.

All right, Rod Gross. Andy Cross. Jason Moser. Thanks for being here, guys. That's Chris. Coming up, a conversation with CNBC host, Becky Quick. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. This weekend, the investing world turns its eyes to Omaha, Nebraska for Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting.

The highlight of which is the marathon Q&A session with Warren Buffett and his right-hand man, Charlie Munger. One of the moderators for that session is Becky Quick, co-host of CNBC's Squawk Box. She joins me now from New York. Becky, good to talk to you. Chris, it's great to talk to you. You also have a new documentary about Buffett, and I want to get to that in a minute, but let's start with the annual meeting. And we've talked before about the questions that Buffett has gotten over the years

about the biggest holdings in Berkshire Hathaway, and a couple of years ago it was IBM, and it really seems like this year it almost has to be Wells Fargo with everything that has been going on. Isn't that really the first question out of the gate? Probably. I mean, the first question will be asked by Carol Loomis. So she's the one who gets to determine of all the things that are coming in. You know, the Wells Fargo issue has been an ongoing one. He was asked about it last year. He's questioned, he's been questioned a bunch of the interviews that we've done since then. And his point has always been that they're a hands-off owner, that particularly with the bank, you have to be a passive investor when you own that much of it and 10% of it. So he has stayed hands off for most of this, but that's not going to mean that he's not going to get questioned pretty extensively on it. Yeah, I mean, I think that the fact that this has continued, you know, it started with the fake accounts and, you know, the latest thing is this billion dollar fine.

And, of course, Wells Fargo will have no trouble paying that fine. But I'm wondering if since Tim Sloan, the CEO, was in the executive ranks when all of this was going on, I'm not saying he should be shown the door. But I'm wondering if maybe he would benefit from bringing someone in from the outside to be maybe a right-hand man or a right-hand woman just to deal with some of the compliance stuff. Yeah, well, you may not be saying he should be shown the door, but there are some who have said that, including some in Congress, the king of Elizabeth Warren, and how harshly she's come down on it. Look, he's been working his way through this morass. But you're right. He was in the leadership team ahead of time. and the troubles haven't stopped now that he's in the CEO suite.

These are some longstanding deep problems at Wells Fargo. It goes well beyond what we initially thought was going to be the situation. It seems to be popping up everywhere, and obviously there are more eyes that are paying attention. So they've got to make sure they cross every T and dot every eye. And, you know, I don't know. My guess is Buffett would not go along with an idea of bringing in someone else, or at least wouldn't be somebody who was pushing for that, obviously, since they're going to stay out of this. But yeah, this has been the never-ending water torture of, you know, drip, drip,

drip, drip, drip, drip, and in some cases, floods of bad information that's come out of this and bad practices across the board for a bank that for so long had been the gold standard, we thought, in terms of compliance and customer relations and, wow, how quickly things can change. So other than Wells Fargo, when you look at the business of Berkshire Hathaway, all of their holdings, what else are you curious about? You know what I'm really curious about today is Apple, a huge position that Buffett had built that was such a surprise to all of us because it goes against what he had always talked about about not getting involved in technology companies. First he did it with IBM, but then with Apple, and it's crazy. This is a guy who still has a flip phone. but this is a decision that he made on his own,

not with his lieutenants or anybody else advising him on this, he decided to push into Apple because from his own research, his grandkids, everybody else he talks to, how sticky the iPhone ecosphere is. So after Apple has just come out with its earnings this week and really surprised all the naysayers, everybody who thought that this was going to be a week or quarter based on what we've been hearing from the suppliers for the iPhone X, It kind of blew everybody's expectations out of the water.

So we're going to be very curious as to whether he's been continuing to add to that stake or whether he's cooled on the stock. Just get his thoughts on that. That's front and center right now just because we've just gotten the earnings, really, is from Apple. You were interviewing him earlier this year, and one of the topics that came up was Buffett's so-called elephant gun, his desire to buy something out there. But, of course, he's a value guy. he's looking for a great business at a good price.

Historically, does he ever drop any sort of hints at the annual meeting about at least where he's looking when he's thinking about acquisitions for Berkshire Hathaway? No. He is pretty careful. I'm just trying to think back over the years. If there's ever been a point where he slipped, I don't think so. I think he holds that stuff pretty close to the vest because he's looking for value. and the second it gets out that Warren Buffett might be considering looking into an arena, the stocks tend to take off. People want to get there first.

I think back to when he started investing in airlines recently, that was a huge shock to people because this was another industry where he had sworn it off. You look through the annual reports over the years, and there have been so many occasions or at the annual meeting where he had just said, you should only get into this business if you're an idiot, basically, that you will only lose money. He had a horrible experience with it. said he'd never go back into airlines, but then changed his mind. And he changed his mind,

not because he was being fickle, but because he thought the situation in the industry had changed, that suddenly it looked like a much better place to be that the, we've heard for years, Gordon, but then always says, you know, in the airlines, you're only as smart as you're stupid, it's a competitor. His opinion was that there were fewer stupid or competitors around, that it was a business where the airlines had gotten much more disciplined, and where they weren't just offering fire cells to get anybody in to buy the seats on things, that they had gotten so much more disciplined in it. So that was a Keynesian sort of situation where he looked around and said,

I changed my opinion because the facts have changed. So that's going to be something. But again, he didn't tell us until after they'd already bought those stakes. So when you get hints from him, it's because he's about to have to file something with the SEC anyway or because there are things that are coming out. he would never give away something if he thought he was going to lose his competitive advantage or drive up prices in an industry or in a stock where he was really interested. Now, that doesn't mean we don't occasionally get a little hint, but it's usually because

the SEC filing isn't far behind. All right. Let's talk about the new documentary that you worked on. Warren Buffett, Investor, Teacher, icon. It premieres on CNBC on Friday, May 4th at 10 p.m. Eastern. and I got a chance to watch this earlier this week. Congratulations. It's fantastic.

And what surprised me about the documentary was essentially it's told through the eyes of people that Buffett has influenced. And it's not really a checklist of investors. It's people from everyday walks of life. I guess my first question is, where did you find these people? You know, it's funny you should say that because we found. like we had done the story time and time again from from high-level investors or CEOs who have been influenced. We want to tell the story more of kind of the type of people that you run into at the Berkshire Annual Meeting because there's 40,000 Berkshire faithful who show up for this thing

every year. And a lot of them are just average investors, people who feel like he is teaching them. And Buffett has said to me several times over the years that if he wants to be remembered for anything, it's to be remembered as a teacher. And he takes that to heart. very seriously, not just in teaching investors about things, but he spends time every year meeting with lots of college students. I think there's something like 18 or 20 schools on a rotation that come through and will travel in groups to Omaha, and he'll sit down and spend a day with them, take them to lunch, answer their questions, take pictures with them, and answer questions not only in investing, but what he thinks about life and love or any question that these

students will throw at him. We wanted to get a little bit at that. So partly what we did was just show up at the annual meeting last year and stand in line or stand outside and talk to the people who were waiting online to get in. We met a lot of people, literally standing on line waiting to get in, just walking down the lines, talking to people, getting their stories. In fact, the best stories that we got were the people, we just didn't anticipate, you know, we just start talking to people and they will all have an incredible story to tell you. So that's kind of how we came at this, just the types of people who don't always have the spotlight on them, how this has changed or affected their lives. And it literally just came from standing in line talking to people

last year at the annual meeting. You know Warren Buffett. When you talked with these people, did you learn anything that surprised you? Yeah. I learned a lot of things. I think the common theme that went through most of these individuals is that they were looking for something that a lot of them were at times in their life where they were struggling or where they were looking for the next step or where they were kind of trying to figure out their own lives. And they heard something from Buffett that resonated with them. And plenty of them took it to heart in a big way. So you meet people who you think are Buffettologists, people who have studied him, people have paid attention to his moves, particularly people in the investing world who think, okay, I'm going to do

X, Y, and Z because this is the way it's laid out. He always makes it sound so easy every year when he gets on stage and says, here's how you should look at investing, here's how you should value a company. And it always sounds easy, but then you walk out of there, and you're like, wait a second, what, it's not nearly as easy as he made me think it was a few minutes ago. What I learned is just how these people have taken it to heart and how it has impacted their lives in such drastic manners. And you have to watch some of these stories to see it. But, you know, I think a president of fish who was a soldier serving in Afghanistan and

was kind of paying attention in the time that he wasn't out in the field while he was there, back in the barracks, would look at what was happening back home in the financial crisis. So he was kind of using the financial crisis and learning about investing as something to sidetrack him from an actual war that he was taking place in. And when he was going through that, he kept looking for ways to kind of get a better handle on his portfolio that was disintegrating because of the financial crisis, came across from Warren Buffett and started teaching himself. through that, but then also started talking to some of his colleagues in uniform and teaching

and training them, the guys in the barracks, teaching them about what he was learning. Turn that into a podcast, and you have to hear him tell the story, but that's just one of many people that we ran into. He's now someone who shows, he's got his own podcast. He's a Buffett expert himself, and he shows up every year at the annual meeting with a whole group of acolytes who follow him and follow Buffett and Munger. And, you know, it's just amazing how you just kind of see these bands and brothers that are built around some of these things and how these folks stick together. Coming up more with Becky Quick. This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Full Money, Chris Hill talking with CNBC host Becky Quick. A lot of the people in the documentary are complete unknowns to anyone who watches it. One person who is known, certainly to sports fans, is in Domestic. And Somer, who's a professional football player, played at the University of Nebraska. I thought it was very charitable of you in the documentary when you referred to Endomic and Sue being known for, quote, a very aggressive play on the field. Yeah. Becky, he's been... He's way nicer in person when you meet him in the street than maybe when you meet him on the gridiron. That's one of the most surprising things in the documentary for me is how he's a completely...

Yeah, very soft-spoken, very thoughtful. On the field, he's been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for just flat-out dirty play. I would not want to come up against him in the huddle. Or on the field. I would not want to come up against him. Well, and, again, very thoughtful off the field and really seems focused on helping his fellow athletes get smarter about money, as so many professional athletes struggle with money. Right.

And it's a terrible story. You hear about these guys who get called up in the draft. They're suddenly rich. They don't know what to do with their money. They have people who are praying on them from all directions, giving them all kinds of bad business advice and offering bad business deals. And Domican, I believe his dad is an engineer and his mom was a teacher. And they kind of hammered into him very early on.

You have got to make sure you have a second game plan. You've got to be treating this the right way. So he's always had a really good head on his shoulders about trying to analyze the businesses. He's been looking, since before he got into it, he was looking for his second action. And he was at the University of Nebraska. Buffett, obviously a huge fan. He reached out. A friend told him he should reach out to him.

He called Buffett and was shocked when he got the call back. And you have to hear his take on some of the business deals, things that he learned from Warren Buffett and how he's applied that, and you're right. He's eager in trying to make sure his fellow athletes, don't fall into some of these traps that so many young athletes who are so focused on their sport and kind of get taken advantage of. He wants to prevent that from happening.

So, yeah, not exactly what she would expect, given his performance on the field. One of the other takeaways from me watching this documentary is just going back to the annual meeting is the questions that Buffett and Munger get. A lot of them have absolutely nothing to do with investing. They're more sort of life advice. And I was thinking, as you and I have talked before, not only do I not think this type of thing continues after Buffett and Munger are gone, I can't imagine any other company pulling off this type of meeting. I mean, as respected as Jeff Bezos is, and as much as people may love the business of Amazon, I don't see that same appetite for a five-hour Q&A session and asking Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Bob Eiger for life. life advice. Well, see, that's where I disagree with you a little.

You're right that it's phenomenal in that these people will line up and wait for hours to be able to ask these things. But that's also because Buffett and Munger have been taking any question, hours and hours of questions, for years. I think that if Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos were to do something like that, they would have people who would throng to them, too, because when someone has said, so successful in business, you can't help, but have questions about how they got there, what they did in their life and what they've learned along the way.

It's just how many business leaders would actually do that. Bill Gates will take these questions occasionally online. He'll take questions from people, and he gets all kinds of crazy questions from it. The amazing thing from Warren and Charlie is that they will commit to sit up on stage and not have any idea what question is coming. And that's not to say that they answer every single question, occasionally the laugh at it, or they'll say that's too hard to answer, or I can't give you an answer because so many of the questions are, what stocks should I buy, right?

So they've tried to weed that out a little bit over the year. They're not going to tell people what stock you should buy. If I'm just starting out, what's the one stock you put all your money in? I can't tell you, we ask for these questions ahead of time. And by we, I mean, the journalists who are there, we don't share any of those questions with Warren and Charlie, but part of what we're there to do is kind of weed out some of those questions saying, what stocks should I put all my money in? You know, let's get to a little beyond that net.

that's not to say that we cut out all the life questions, and then there are the shareholders on the floor who are asking questions and can ask whatever they want, just based on where they are in line. But I think that you'd have interest. I think what makes them unique is they will answer any of those questions, and the depth and breadth of their knowledge base is such that they can answer just about any question.

I have a hard time imagining other CEOs agreeing to sit down and put themselves through that sort of scrutiny. But I think if somebody like Jeff Bezos did that, they would get clamoring like that. The unique thing about Warren and Charlie is, A, they've been doing it for years, and B, they both have such an incredible depth and breadth of knowledge that they actually can't answer intelligently about just about anything that's thrown their way. All right. Last thing, and then I'll let you go. You've interviewed Warren Buffett. You've interviewed presidents.

Earlier this spring, you sat down with someone whose influence is going to continue for decades to come, and that's Frank Oz. the legendary puppeteer, and the voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy and Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster. How was that? And did you get some props from your children on that interview? First, yes. I actually brought in, like, Cookie Monster match game cards that my daughter plays with every day for Frank Oz to sign. She didn't give me props because she's only 18 months old. But yeah, my son thought that was really cool. And by the way, my daughter would think it was cool because Cookie Monster is.

her favorite. Cookie Monster and Elmo both, but Cookie Monster has been in the lead for the last couple of months. That's her big fascination. So yeah, it was huge, but it was huge for me because I grew up watching Cookie Monster and Sesame Street. And we just went to Sesame Street live right before all of these things. Yeah, he was definitely on my bucket list of people that I wanted to talk to. My only regret was that we didn't have more time with him. We were badgering him a little bit about doing voices. He doesn't do voices. Just because it's kind of like monkey dance, right? But he is amazing. Hearing what he thinks about Jim Hinson, hearing about his career, how he got into it, which he said it was all kind of an accidental thing. But he still, even though he can do just about anything he wants, he is still doing what interests him and what makes him fun and he's still experimenting, which is what he's doing with this new release of his movie on a website, instead of giving it to another distributor, which obviously there'd be tons of distributors. clamoring to get to be the one to put it out.

He wanted to do it himself. And he said that kind of takes them back to their hippie rebel roots and that, you know, he's never strayed too far from that. He's an amazing guy. The CNBC documentary, Warren Buffett, Investor, Teacher icon, premieres Friday, May 4th at 10 p.m. Eastern. Becky Quick, always great to talk to you. Have a great time in Omaha. Chris, thank you. I look forward to talking to you every year. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Remember, you can subscribe to Motley Fool Money wherever you get your podcast. Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play. And if you like the show, please consider leaving a review.

It helps other investors find the show. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Full Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.