Speaker 1: You obviously have filters that you apply on selecting people, as you do on stocks. Can you tell us a little bit about what those filters are? That is a key, key question, because when we buy businesses, we don't have managers to put in them. I mean, we're not buying them that way. We don't have a lot of MBAs around the office that we're doing. Thank God. Yeah. You know, I have not promised that they're going to have all kinds of opportunities. And so, as a practical matter, we need management with the businesses that we buy. And three times out of four, or thereabouts, the manager is the owner, and is receiving tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. So they're not, they don't have to work. And we have to decide, in that time when we meet them, whether they love the business or love money. And we're not making a moral judgment. Charlie may, but I'm not making a moral judgment about whether it's better to love the business or love money. But it's very important for me to know which of the two is the primary motivator with them. And we have had extremely good luck in identifying people who love their business. So all we have to do is avoid anything that, on our part, that diminishes that love of the business, or makes other conditions so intolerable that they overcome that love of the business. And we have a number of people working for us that have no financial need to work at all. And they probably outwork, you know, 95% or more of the people in the world. And they do it because they just love smacking the ball. And we almost, we virtually had no mistakes in that respect. And we have identified a number of people, Charlie and I have, in terms of proposals to us, where we felt that they did really, they liked the money better than the business. They were kind of tired of the business. You know, and they might promise us that they would continue on and they would do it in good faith. But something would happen six months later or a year later and they'd say to themselves, why am I doing this, you know, for Berkshire Hathaway when I could be doing whatever else they want to do? I can't tell you exactly how we, what filter it is that we put them through mentally. But I can tell you that if you've been around a while, you can, I think you can have a pretty high batting average in coming to those conclusions, as you can about other aspects of human behavior. I'm not saying you can take a hundred people and take a look at them and analyze their personalities or anything of the sort. But I think when you see the extreme cases, the ones that are going to cause you nothing but trouble or the ones that are going to bring you nothing but joy, I think you can identify those pretty well. Charlie?

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think it's pretty simple. You've got integrity, intelligence and experience and dedication. And that's what human enterprises need to run well. And we've been very lucky in getting this marvelous group of associates to work with all these years.

Speaker 1: But we filter out a lot of people and then they say, well, how do you filter them out? I would say, and I think Charlie will agree with this, people give themselves away fairly often. And maybe it does help to have been around as long as we have in seeing the various ways they give themselves away. They, when somebody comes to me with a business, and I probably shouldn't tell this publicly because they'll probably tailor their approach subsequently, but when they come, just the very things they talk about, what they regard as important and not important, there are a lot of clues that come as to subsequent behavior. And like I say, we've really had a batting average I wouldn't have thought we would have had in the people that we've joined with. But it hasn't been a hundred percent. It's been well above 90. And I get asked that, you know, I mean, how do you make those judgments? And I don't know, Charlie, can you articulate the way we do it?

Speaker 2: Well, partly we're deeply suspicious when the proposition is too good to be true.