We have to have a special insight, or we'll put it in the 'too tough' basket. All of you have to look for a special area of competency and focus on that.

The lawyers have escaped most criticism [and undeservedly so]. The tax shelters [were approved by lawyers, who got paid huge commissions to do so] and every miscreant had a high-falutin' lawyer at his side. Why don't more law firms vote with their feet and not take clients who have signs on them that say, "I'm a skunk and will be hard to handle?" I've noticed that firms that avoid trouble over long periods of time have an institutional process that tunes bad clients out. Boy, if I were running a law firm, I'd want a system like that because a lot of firms have a lot of bad clients.

Early Charlie Munger is a horrible career model for the young, because not enough was delivered to civilization in return for what was wrested from capitalism. And other similar career models are even worse.

The great lesson in microeconomics is to discriminate between when technology is going to help you and when it's going to kill you. And most people do not get this straight in their heads. But a fellow like Buffett does. For example, when we were in the textile business, which is a terrible commodity business, we were making low-end textiles-which are a real commodity product. And one day, the people came to Warren and said, "They've invented a new loom that we think will do twice as much work as our old ones."

Wrigley is a great business, but that doesn't solve the problem. Buying great businesses at advantageous prices is very tough.

It's simplicity itself that its future will be way worse than its past.

I'd rather throw a viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant.