“I regard Alibaba as one of the worst mistakes I ever made. I got charmed with the idea of their position in the Chinese internet, and I didn't stop to realize that it's still a goddamn retailer.”

“Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.”

Captures his oft-repeated stance on the limits of competence; widely cited, exact occasion not pinned to one recording.

“We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand.”

Frequently quoted from the Berkshire and Wesco meetings; wording varies.

“If something is too hard, we move on to something else. What could be simpler than that?”

“One skill is knowing the edge of your own competency. It's not a competency if you don't know the edge of it. And Warren and I are better at tuning out the standard stupidities. We've left a lot of more talented and diligent people in the dust, just by working hard at eliminating standard error.”