Securing funding from venture capitalists in Silicon Valley isn't easy.
Just ask the founder of Wattage, a hardware startup that recently had to shut its doors.
Wattage aimed to create highly customizable electronics, and the founder created a beautiful pitch deck to make the sell to investors.
However, despite the gorgeous design and countless iterations — it went through 60 revisions before finalization — investors didn't bite.
Travel is expensive. Between flights, hotels, meals, transportation, and the barrage of tourist traps, it is hard to keep to a strict budget when traveling in a different country.
However, it's even harder if you don't do your due diligence.
In the recently published 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness report, the World Economic Forum ranks 141 world economies based on the price competitiveness of each, or how cheap/expensive it is to travel in that country. This takes into account things like average cost of a flight to and from that area, average cost of hotel accommodations, cost of living, fuel prices, and purchasing power parity (PPP)*.
Knowing the costs of visiting an area can make all the difference between traveling sensibly and hitchhiking back to the airport.
Note: Hotel and gas conversions are based on the US dollar and information from the World Bank and are subject to change. PPP is relative to the country's home currency.
*An example of PPP: If the PPP in the United States is 1 and the PPP in Poland is .6, then a cup of coffee in Poland is 40% cheaper than it is in the US, relative to the Polish zloty. PPP is based on the GDP of each economy.
SEE ALSO: The 18 most hotly contested islands in the world
Flying to Finland won't break the bank because it ranks 30th of 141 economies based on cheapest airfare. To stay in a first-class hotel it will cost you an average of $123.40 per night, making it the 39th cheapest.
On the negative side, the PPP in Finland is 20% more expensive than the United States — ranking it at 134th. In addition, gas stands at a whopping $7.86 per gallon, ranking it 131st of 141.
Ireland ranks 79th of 141 economies in terms of plane ticket affordability, making it a middling destination for air travel. A first-class hotel costs about $126 per night, making it the 46th cheapest.
The PPP will hurt you, as goods and services cost 10% more in Ireland than they do in the US, which ranks 124th. Gas will run you $7.63 per gallon, ranking it 128th.
Seychelles is an island nation in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Madagascar. Airfare is not particularly cheap, as Seychelles ranks 89th of 141 in affordability of air travel. If you want to stay in a hotel in Seychelles, you can expect to pay an average of $374.70 per night, ranking it 101st of 102 economies for which data was available
The PPP in Seychelles is .6, which is 40% less than that of the United States, but still 84th on the overall rankings. Gas costs $5.62 per gallon (82nd).
Some of these athletes are right in their primes, some have a long track record of sustained success, and some are athletes just beginning their dominance.
We recently ranked the most dominant athletes in sports in general, but we also chose the most dominant in each sport individually.
From the NFL and NBA to soccer, tennis, golf, track and field, and more, we selected the 31 athletes who stake a claim as the best in the world at what they do.
Real Madrid forward
Age: 30
Ronaldo took home the Ballon D'or in 2014 and carried Portugal to the World Cup despite being knocked out in the first round. He has 18 goals in 2015 and 50 goals in 47 games for the 2014-15 season.
German national team midfielder
Age: 27
Kessler won 2014 FIFA's women's player of the year and was leading a German team that's one of the favorites going into the 2015 Women's World Cup. In October she hurt her knee and will now miss the World Cup.
Serbian tennis player
Age: 27
Djokovic is the No. 1-ranked tennis player in the world, and seems poised to dominate in the near future. He's the first player to win the year's first three Masters 1000 tournaments — the biggest outside the Grand Slams — and has a 5,000-point lead over Roger Federer for the No. 1 rank.
At 22, you were just graduating from college, entering the "real world," and embarking on your professional journey.
Looking back, maybe you'd rewrite your past — or, perhaps you're content with the decisions you made at that time in your life. Either way, there are probably a few things you wish you knew then that you know now.
That's exactly what LinkedIn asked its network of top minds across all fields to write about for its latest "If I Were 22" editorial package.
Successful thought leaders — also known as Influencers — shared original posts, along with pictures of their younger selves, filled with pearls of wisdom for new grads based on what they wish they had known at 22.
When the personal finance guru was 22, she and a few friends left Illinois and headed to Berkeley, California, where she spent her days helping clear away trees and brush.
"That was followed by a seven-year stretch of waitressing,"she writes."It wasn't until I was 30 that I landed a job — as a stock broker trainee — that put me on the path that leads directly to where I am today."
She says she wouldn't suggest that every 22-year-old take eight years to find the path they want to pursue — but she does hope that they give themselves the time and space to figure things out.
"That's not a license for laziness. I worked, and worked hard, in my 20s. And I wouldn't trade the experiences I had during that time. But if there is a 22-year-old out there reading this and feeling adrift, I have this to say to you: Been there, done that. And look at me — it all turned out better than fine, right?"
Read her full LinkedIn post here.
"If I could share any advice with my 22-year-old self, it would be very simple: Dream bigger," the "Shark Tank" investor writes.
Herjavec says at 22, he didn't dream big enough — and that's why he didn't quite understand how to channel creativity into something tangible. "I didn't know how to translate my people skills into a career I would be passionate about," he explains. "If I'd known I could do these things, I would have done them sooner."
He says he invests in young people who dream big. "Evan and Nick from Tipsy Elves left successful, high-paying careers to jump head first into the crazy world of Christmas sweaters," he says. "Ashley from Natural Grip pursued her vision wholeheartedly, making the first 150 pairs of grips from scraps in the trash at her husband's office. They all dreamt big and made it happen with whatever they had. They taught themselves along the way and made a ton of mistakes, but they never would have tried without those initial dreams."
Read his full LinkedIn post here.
"If I could go back in time, I'd introduce my 22-year-old self to a quotation by the writer Brian Andreas: 'Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life,'" Huffington writes.
The Huffington Post editor-in-chief notes that out culture is obsessed with time. "It is our personal deficit crisis," she says.
Had she heard that quote when she was 22, Huffington says it would have saved her from the "perpetually harried, stressed-out existence I experienced for so long."
Feeling rushed — or like we don't have enough time to accomplish what we want — which is also known as "time famine," has very real consequences, "from increased stress to diminished satisfaction with your life," she explains. "On the flip side, the feeling of having enough time, or even surplus time, is called 'time affluence.' And though it may be hard to believe, it's actually possible to achieve."
Huffington adds: "As long as success is defined by who works the longest hours, who goes the longest without a vacation, who sleeps the least, who responds to an email at midnight or five in the morning — in essence, who is suffering from the biggest time famine — we're never going to be able to enjoy the benefits of time affluence."
Read her full LinkedIn post here.
Music's hottest couple is putting down roots in NOLA.
According to Zillow, rumor has it Beyoncé and Jay Z have purchased a converted church in the Garden District of New Orleans for $2.6 million.
First built in 1925 as a Presbyterian church, the 13,292-square-foot space was then converted into a ballet school before being converted to a single-family home with three 1,000-square-foot apartments.
This purchase comes after the couple sold their Tribeca condo in New York City and made a very public move to Los Angeles.
On Monday David Einhorn kicked off the Sohn Investment Conferencewith his short thesis on the fracking industry.
"We object to oil fracking because the investment can contaminate returns," he said.
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: 'Game of Thrones': The Iron Throne is a terrible investment
In honor of Mother's Day, Working Mother magazine put together a list of 50 remarkable women"whose influence is felt on a daily basis via their singular talent, hard work, and intellectual capital."
"These are some of the most influential decision-makers," says Jennifer Owens, editorial director at Working Mother Media. "We chose them not only for their talent and success, but for their courage and vision. And of course, because even as they work to make the world a better place, they are raising their own families."
The list of powerful moms — who each have at least one child under age 18 — is not ranked. However, the editors at Working Mother selected their "top 10" for us to share.
EVP, Walmart International
Children: Two
Ruiz began her career at Walmart in 1992 as a store management trainee and worked her way up to the C-suite through hard work and determination.
Now, as EVP of Walmart International, she is "dedicated to giving back through various diversity and mentorship programs,"writes Working Mother.
Ruiz told the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility: "Looking back there were so many people in my career who chose to help me, who chose to support me, and took the time to do that because they had an interest in me. It's more of a personal responsibility than a professional one. It really is about giving back considering what you've received."
President, Intel
Children: Two
During her quarter-century tenure, she's worked her way up from a technical assistant to the company's president, says Working Mother.
James eventually led Intel's expansion into services for applications in security, cloud-based computing, and smartphones, and is now "co-leading the $52 billion dollar company through a change, receding from PCs and targeting growth segments like wearable technology, gaming, and mobile computing, according to Forbes."
Designer and Founder, Tory Burch; Activist
Children: Nick, 17, Henry, 17, Sawyer, 14
Burch's billion dollar brand is upheld by more than 120 freestanding boutiques and spaces in more than 3,000 department and specialty stores around the globe, Working Mother points out. "Her Tory Burch Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting women's economic empowerment, recently partnered with Bank of America to offer female entrepreneurs $10 million in loans."
In a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar, she said: "I think [success] comes down to having a great idea and an amazing team and being willing to work incredibly hard. There's no such thing as an overnight success."
It may be one of the oldest forms of advertising in the world, but marketers are becoming increasingly creative with their outdoor campaigns.
No longer just confined to static billboards, global brands this year have been conjuring up some truly creative interactive ads that are actually a joy to look at and play with.
We've picked out some of the best so far. Expect to see them pop up again as we head into award season.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have millions in funding to spend on startups and maybe tackle world problems. Based on what they're building though, it kinda looks like they just want their mom around.
As Aziz Shamim overheard and posted on Twitter, "SF tech culture is focused on solving one problem: what is my mother no longer doing for me?"
In honor of mother's day, we took a look at how some San Francisco-based startups are trying to fill the void of everything their moms used to do for them.
You don't have to do it yourself then. SF-startup Homejoy contracts out professional cleaners, if you're willing to pay its hourly rate, that is. Prices vary, but it can cost between $25-$35 hour depending on the person and what needs to be done.
That depends, honey, on who you want to order from. Local startups Sprig, SpoonRocket and Munchery will all deliver you meals on-demand for around $10. They're all made by chefs, so you can order things like mustard-glazed salmon, instead of just drinking Soylent.
Looks like you'll have to hire your own personal chef for the night from Kichit if you want someone to come cook the meals for you.
You may have heard of Yik Yak, the anonymous gossip app that lets you post anything you want without revealing who you are.
It's been around for about a year, and since then the Atlanta-based startup has raised $73.5 million in venture capital funding from investors including Kevin Colleran, Tim Draper, and Sequoia Capital.
We've put together a guide to show you how to use Yik Yak, which has already wreaked havoc on high schools and colleges. It was live my last spring at Syracuse when I was a senior there. Now it has spread to 1,600 colleges across the nation.
It's amazing that Warren Buffett is alive. Not because he's 84, or because he appears in poor health. In fact it's the opposite: Buffett is chipper and more alert and energized than I am over the course of Berkshire Hathaway's seven-hour annual meeting.
No, it's amazing that Buffett is alive because we are all here.
Forty-thousand shareholders,* journalists, students, world travelers, and disciples have traveled across the country and from around the world to be in Omaha, Nebraska, very nearly the geographical center of the US, to listen to Buffett speak, to see Buffett sit in a chair on a stage inside an 18,000-seat arena and answer questions about his company, his life, his failures, his successes, and more.
The event is a celebration and a coronation, something Buffett surely never imagined would exist when his Buffett Partners investment fund took control of Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile manufacturer in Massachusetts, 50 years ago. It's something that I'd wager Buffett himself finds strange.
You hear over and over through the weekend that this event isn't like other shareholder meetings, which is both an obvious and a profound point. Most shareholder meetings are sparsely attended, held in hotel ballrooms or even more modest spaces, and a few major shareholders and a few minor shareholders who air grievances with management are generally the only attendees.
And so not only is total attendance at Berkshire's meeting multiples of what you'd find at any other company's, but the tone is not one of aggression or displeasure but fawning and deference. And all of this is to say nothing about the shopping event that happens adjacent to the meeting itself. It is a celebration and a party and a spiritual event.
During the seven-hour meeting, not all questions fielded by Buffett and his vice chairman, Charlie Munger — or Warren and Charlie as so many shareholders take to calling them — are softballs. Buffett and Munger are asked about Berkshire's Clayton Homes unit, which was recently the subject of a detailed and unfavorable report from The Seattle Times.
Buffett more or less dismisses the article’s criticisms, citing what he called bad math by the reporter while touting the quality of a Clayton Homes unit and the relatively modest net profits seen by Clayton — and, by extension, Berkshire — after building and financing is complete.
This is the first question Buffett takes, and the subject isn't broached again.
Buffett is asked about 3G Capital, the private-equity firm Berkshire has worked with on deals including its recent takeovers of Heinz and Kraft Foods, and a firm that has been as aggressive as any in "right-sizing" (business jargon for firing a bunch of people) a business after taking it over.
"I'd never run a business employing more people than I had to," Buffett says, adding that he'd never expect one of his partners to do the same.
On my flight out of Omaha, a portfolio manager from London told me he was struck by how much of a shrewd capitalist there was under the disarming and grandfatherly nature of Buffett.
And this, perhaps, is what the weekend, the experience comes down to: It all seems like one thing, but it is in fact another.
Everyone here is a student. Or at least wants to be.
Warren and Charlie are asked for five pieces of advice on how they might identify a company that will have strong earnings power in 10 years. They are asked how to network with powerful business leaders if you don't have high-ranking business-school credentials. They are asked to identify and then answer a question they've never been asked before.
Shareholders ask of them the almost impossible, but if you've built a conglomerate that holds an annual meeting attended by 40,000 people, it almost seems fair to ask this much of them.
In three days I met or overheard people from all over the world: a banker from Dubai, an IT consultant from London, a seed-industry worker from Manning, Iowa, a retired Commerce Department employee from outside Pittsburgh, a football player at Notre Dame, a retired couple from North Carolina preparing to travel to Shanghai.
Some of these people are here to celebrate their wealth. Some are here to celebrate Warren and Charlie, to pay respects to people who have changed their lives in some way or another. But more than anything else it seems people are here to learn. They are here to learn explicitly from the words of Warren and Charlie but also from other shareholders, the other people you meet when you descend on Omaha during the first week of May.
Across the street from CenturyLink Center, where the whole meeting and shopping event takes place, is the Omaha Hilton. The lobby is teeming with Wall Street types wearing suits and no tie, a sort of portfolio manager's uniform to informally identify as a "value investor," not merely someone who has profited from buying Berkshire shares but who, in theory, makes money from employing these strategies as money managers.
Of course, whether the Buffett approach works, or will work, or could work, for anyone other than Buffett is unclear. There is, after all, only one.
In some sense, then, it seems odd on Thursday and Friday that Buffett will appear, like the Wizard of Oz, on Saturday morning. He’s called the Oracle of Omaha, a mythical name that would seem reserved for someone more secretive, less public, than Buffett really is.
It occurs to me at some point that we, the travelers who have come to Omaha, are in a major way here chasing a ghost. Except this ghost is alive.
I take pictures of the event as a spectacle, a carnival, an occasion for people watching that exists beyond the meeting's stated and official purposes.
I attempt to remain detached and aloof from the event, but I soon find myself buying Berkshire products to send back to my colleagues and family in New York with as much enthusiasm as shareholders from Macau, Germany, Brazil, and Oklahoma.
And yet by Saturday there's a sort of fatigue, a sadness that settles over the event and me, the entire project in a way. It is after the meeting's hour lunch break and I'm sitting in the last row of the arena's upper deck, looking down at Buffett and Munger, amazed that these men are still sitting there, dutifully answering questions and providing thoughtful responses. Allowing folks a chance at another question. When asked something Buffett or Munger just don't know anything about and as a result decline to answer.
I look across the bowl to the seat I initially scored at 7:15 in the morning, sandwiched between a couple from Omaha and a couple from Charlotte, the soon-to-be world travelers. They haven't moved. Or least they have not left their seats for anything other than a bathroom break or lunch. They are committed to the meeting.
And so am I of course, at least officially. I've been sent here to report on what it's like, how it feels, what happens. And with a little under 24 hours remaining in Omaha, it dawns on me that I'm not sure I know, or can know, or want to know.
How I get from my goal of chronicling the event to enjoying the event as an excited first-timer to seeing only the meeting’s cynical undertones is the question that eventually appears most pressing to answer. If this event is so happy, why is it making me so sad?
The arena is dark during the annual meeting. You can't record the event, or at least you're not supposed to, and before the Berkshire movie that starts the meeting begins, Buffett makes a PSA asking shareholders to police other shareholders: See something? Say something.Someone is recording a video? Ask them to stop. If they don't, get security.
"We've never had a problem with this," Buffett says in a prerecorded video, and it doesn't seem as if anyone expects there to be one now. It's as if the priest has come to the altar and said, "Please be seated."
It's an amazing thing this cooperation. Shareholders and media come from around the world, paying thousands of dollars for flights and hotels, waiting in line from predawn hours, standing, no bathrooms in sight, just to get a seat that is a few hundred feet from a stage Warren and Charlie sit on without moving.
It's a room full of reverence and respect and something earnest I can't seem to fully identify with. I worry that this is because I'm just a young kid, or because I've come to foolishly believe that the best way to navigate our "now" is to be coolly detached and hiply aware of what you are and you aren't, what is and what isn't, what can and what can't. And what I know is that inside this framework, this worldview, this surely wrongheaded approach there exists a complete lack of the word that captures the zeitgeist of the Berkshire meeting better than any other: sincerity.
The meeting might seem to be about fun and games, about celebration, but it is also extremely serious. Buffett and Munger are old; they will not be around forever. And the prospect of Berkshire Hathaway remaining the company it is today without these shepherds around is a scary one.
The topic of succession comes up at the meeting, but it is sort of brushed aside. Buffett is confident the company's culture will endure long after he and Munger have passed. Whether one chooses to believe that or not, the abyss is a scary place to look into, and with each passing year the company moves closer to that edge.
At one point Buffett says he has pledged to give away 99% of his wealth because there is no Fortune 400 in heaven. But there is one on earth, which is where Berkshire will remain after he passes.
What then? In Warren the shareholders trust.
On Saturday morning I get in line to enter the meeting at 5:05. It is not predawn but simply night. I'm standing in front of a couple from Minnesota, a law professor from LSU by way of California who has traveled here alone, and a man from Omaha by way of California who has attended on and off for the past decade.
"Charlie's the Ed McMahon," the woman from Minnesota says before the doors open. I am warned that there is something of a comedy routine on stage.
This does not disappoint.
"It's hard for me to think of many [activist investors] I'd want to marry into the family," Munger quips at one point. To which Buffett replies: "I'd better stop before you name names."
Munger goes on and on about what he thinks are the critical flaws of the eurozone, criticizing the governments of France and Germany, as well as the euro's problem-child, Greece, during his tirade. He eventually cuts himself off: "I've probably offended enough people."
"I think there's a few more in the balcony," Buffett says. The whole place breaks up.
But behind these quips there is real depth, a lesson that can be taken away, and like most all of what happens at the meeting, you only begin to make sense of it when it's over, when you yourself are moving on.
On marriage, Munger tells the crowd to "look for someone with low expectations." Everyone laughs, but everyone also maybe knows it's true. Successful investing, like successful relationships, is about being able to stomach the bad times in exchange for good times in the future. All of a business's flaws, like all of a person's flaws, are on full and vivid display when you're committed to them.
Buffett and Munger preach buying good businesses and good prices, not a really cheap but terrible company, and not an amazing company you have to pay a premium for: good business, good price.
And when you start to run this through how we arrive at the human relationships we foster and value, Munger's lesson on marriage starts to make more sense. Aim in the middle, succeed high. Or something like that.
Outside of comments that have any real analogical depth, Buffett and Munger's commentary is in itself hilarious.
"If people weren't so stupid, we wouldn't be so rich," Munger says at one point.
"It's crazy to sweat at night," Buffett says at another point.
"Over financial things," Munger interjects.
Buffett pauses while the crowd chuckles, waiting for the silence to be broken. "Over financial things."
At one point, a young shareholder asks Buffett and Munger what sorts of "mental models" they might employ if they were trying to build Berkshire again. How did they think about building Berkshire before they built it, in short. Once again, we're all mostly here to learn.
Of course, the answer is that you don't set out to build a Berkshire Hathaway; it just happens. Through hard work and incredible luck you end up at Berkshire Hathaway: Attempting to build this from the start would lead to certain failure.
This question, and this language ("mental models"), is exactly the sort of anti-Buffett, anti-Munger thinking that you'd half-expect to earn this young man admonishment from the stage. Instead Buffett, who answers all the questions first, waits a beat longer than he has before answering any other question.
And so we wait.
And wait.
"Charlie?"
The crowd goes wild.
There is something about Omaha that reminds me of downtown Washington, D.C. The streets and sidewalks are wide. They are clean. Retail stores and places to eat are tucked inside office buildings. You can actually drive.
On Friday I walked around downtown Omaha before the Berkshire shopping day opened. I wasn't wearing any meeting credentials or anything that obviously identified me as a shareholder. Or so I thought.
I'm standing at the corner of 10th and Dodge in downtown Omaha, and a man driving a pickup truck with a trailer full of lawnmowers pulls up next to me.
"Insurance is a Ponzi scheme," he yells.
I look at him and sort of shake my head, put my hands up, like, I don't know what to say.
"Warren Buffett is running a Ponzi scheme, that motherf-----." The light turns and he drives off. He knew what I was here for. Maybe because no one really walks in this part of town, or maybe I give away more than I'll ever know. Either way, I am an outsider.
I have to return my rental car two hours before my flight, and I sit at a bar to kill time. I tell the bartender, Omaha born and bred, this story, and she says he just knew. Most people in Omaha know.
She tells me the obnoxious out-of-towners who enter Omaha and expect it to be something grand because — well, if it's good enough for Warren Buffett it must be fabulous — just don't get it.
At a coffee shop I strike up a conversation with a rickshaw driver from Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River from Omaha. He tells me he doesn't work this weekend because in his seven years doing it, the two times he rode during the meeting were the worst-tipped weekends he's ever had.
When the world descends on Washington or New York or London or Shanghai for an event, it's not at all obvious that something else is going on. But when 40,000 people — which, all things considered, isn't that many — come to Omaha for three days to hear and see Warren Buffett and celebrate Berkshire Hathaway, the city's energy is sort of off-kilter.
I get talking to the rickshaw driver from Council Bluffs because he sees me wearing my "Invest in Yourself" 5K T-shirt. He chortles at me, at the event, at the shareholders, at the company, which leads us to chat for 45 minutes. Of course it could've gone another way. He would not have cared.
Back at the airport, my bartender, Sue (not her real name), tells me about the Sunday night she decided not to take her dogs on their normal walk because it was too hot. They're Chihuahuas — going out in the yard to take care of their business on a hot July night is enough.
On her normal loop in the Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, there's an ice-cream shop, eCreamery, she passes on her usual dog-walking loop. When she decided not to go out, the famous selfie with Warren Buffett and Paul McCartney sitting on a bench was taken.
So it goes.
The next night, the line was out the door. "Everyone had to go eat the ice cream that Warren was eating," Sue said. As if he would come back a second night in a row.
Buffett likes Omaha, Sue tells me, because he can go about his business and not really be bothered. He can sit on a park bench a few blocks from his house and have ice cream with Paul McCartney. Moreover, there is an ice-cream shop a few block from his house. He's not secluded in the woods but on a street corner, his front door less than 60 feet from the sidewalk.
All the folks who went back the second night, either to eat the same ice cream as Buffett or to hope to find him there again are missing the point, Sue says. He lives in Omaha because it has what he likes and people let him be, she tells me. He could live anywhere, but he chooses to live here. "He's the real deal," she says.
When Sue's children were young, she brought them to a corner store down the street where apparently Buffett likes to have lunch. This was almost 20 years ago, and things have changed, but Buffett was still a giant in Omaha by then. Her daughter, who was 5 or 6 at the time, wanted to sit on a spinning stool at the counter, but with Mom trying to corral her younger brother into a booth, that just wasn't going to happen. An old man seated at the counter turned around and said he would love to have lunch with the little girl.
That man of course was Warren Buffett.
So they sat and ate, as Sue tells it, with her daughter talking Buffett's ear off for a half hour. On his way out he brought her daughter back to the table and said it was a pleasure, adding that he was there every Wednesday: He'd love to have company.
They never went back, or at least never ran into Buffett at that corner store again, which is the moral of the story. Like any pleasant stranger, he's in and out, here and there, another old man in a quiet Midwestern city. This is the last conversation I have in Omaha.
Buffett lives in Omaha, seemingly hiding from the outside world precisely because he doesn't have to hide. Shareholders descend on the city once a year to get a glimpse of Buffett. They pack the convention center and Borsheim's, the Omaha jewelry store that Berkshire Hathaway owns, and Gorat's, Buffett's favorite steakhouse in Omaha. He makes himself seen, makes himself heard, and then the weekend is over.
Everyone files out. Omaha returns to focusing on this weekend's big Garth Brooks concert.
Buffett goes back to his house a few miles from the arena.
The same as it ever was of course: like nothing else on earth.
*Disclosure: I own a small number of Berkshire Hathaway B shares so that I can attend this meeting. I have no plans to buy more or sell any.
SEE ALSO: This is what it's like as a shareholder inside Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: How to invest like Warren Buffett
We've come a long way since the stealth bomber.
Just as smart gadgets have invaded our homes and revolutionized our lives over the last 15 years, next-level weaponry has transformed the military.
The imperatives of the military have always been one of the main drivers of technological development.
ARPANET, one of the internet's most important precursors was a Pentagon project, while most of the technology in an iPhone originated with the US Department of Defense.
Today, militaries all over the world are still pushing technological boundaries. Since the turn of the millennium, weapons featuring a vast range of technical sophistication have proven to be game changers.
Everything from concealed roadside bombs — cheap, primitive, and deadly — to multibillion-dollar aerial lasers have transformed conventional methods of combat and altered the world's technological and political landscape.
Here are 19 of the most important weapons of the last 15 years.
America's largest conventional bomb is precision-guided, 20 feet long, weighs 30,000 pounds, and can blast through underground bunkers.
Boeing's Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb is designed to pierce 60 feet of reinforced concrete and then detonate 200 feet underground — making no bunker safe.
After the MOP's first successful test in 2007, the US Air Force ordered an arsenal of these mega-bombs.
In January of 2007, China initiated a new and terrifying era in warfare. Using a C-19 ballistic missile, the People's Liberation Army destroyed an out-of-commission weather satellite flying over 500 miles above the surface of Earth.
In a single widely condemned move, China had militarized outer space. It was a move that might have been inevitable, but whose long-term consequences are startling. If satellites were considered legitimate military targets, attacks could create debris fields that would knock out entire orbits or create chain reactions that might destroy vital communications and global-positioning satellites. Similarly, countries could deploy weapons to outer space capable of destroying terrestrial targets once the global taboo against space warfare is obliterated.
If that alarming worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, future generations could identify the successful 2007 test as the moment that space became a military frontier. The test also displayed China's eagerness to develop weapons that its rivals would never use — showing how a state can use asymmetrical means to close the gap with it more powerful rivals.
The Navy's X-47B is a strike-fighter-sized unmanned aircraft with the potential to completely change aerial warfare.
Northrop Grumman's drone is capable of aerial refueling, 360-degree rolls, and offensive weapon deployment. It's carried out the first autonomous aerial refueling in aviation history, and has taken off and landed from an aircraft carrier.
It cruises at half the speed of sound, and has a wingspan of 62 feet — as well as a range of at least 2,400 miles, which is more than twice that of the Reaper drone.
Research finds that 85% of rich people read two or more education, career-related, or self-improvement books per month.
If it works for them, why couldn't it work for you?
Here, we've highlighted some of the best books about managing your money and achieving wealth out there, from expert-recommended classics to some of our favorite new editions.
No guarantees, of course — but if you want to get rich, it can't hurt to get reading.
Steve Siebold spent 30 years interviewing over 1,000 millionaires and billionaires to figure out what it is exactly that they're doing right. "Everyone has the same opportunity to acquire wealth," he wrote on Business Insider.
"How Rich People Think" provides insights into becoming wealthy, broken down into bite-sized chapters perfect for reading on the subway or over lunch. In it, Siebold recommends further reading and concrete action steps to help ambitious young people build their own wealth.
"Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary keeps it simple in "Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women, and Money." His advice boils down to three key points: Don't spend too much. Mostly Save. Always Invest.
He gears each chapter towards a specific stage in life, and gives straightforward tips to implement and changes to make to avoid debt, save money, and effectively invest.
The self-made millionaire followed up on this financial guide with a second book, "Cold Hard Truth on Family, Kids, and Money."
Author Thomas Corley spent five years studying the lives of both rich people and poor people, and managed to segment out what he calls "rich habits" and "poverty habits," meaning the tendencies of those who fit in each group. In "Rich Habits," he outlines his findings.
Habits take a while to develop, and the earlier you start, the better. If something as simple as regular exercise or calling friends on their birthdays can increase your chances of attaining wealth, what have you got to lose?
Novak Djokovic is currently the No. 1 tennis player in the world, and the highest-ranked men's player on our list of the most dominant athletes alive.
And he might also be the quirkiest.
From eating the grass at Wimbledon to handing out chocolates to the media, Djokovic's definitely a colorful person — who happens to be the best in the world at his sport.
Source: WSJ
Source: The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated
Source: Telegraph
With graduation season rolling around, chances are high that someone you know is about to enter the real world.
Sure, you can send a check, but why not pick out a gift that will be both practical and meaningful?
Here are 21 options that will honor this major milestone and help them get started in their new adult lives, without breaking your budget.
SEE ALSO: 5 Of The Most Lucrative College Majors For Any Undergrad
Today's graduates prefer to get their news online, so a digital subscription to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal is the perfect way to help them stay current with world events. They'll have full access to everything online, and easy access to the day's headlines through apps on their smartphones.
Price: New York Times, 99¢ for the first four weeks, and $3.75 a week after that; Wall Street Journal. $12 for the first 12 weeks, $28.99 a month ($7.20 a week) after.
After relying on dining halls and pizza delivery for four years, it's understandable that most recent graduates don't know how to prepare meals from scratch. A subscription meal service that delivers perfectly proportioned ingredients along with easy-to-follow instructions is a great way to ease them into cooking at home.
Business Insider's Megan Willett tested out several of the most popular services and found that Blue Apron was not only the most affordable, but also helped her to improve her culinary skills.
Price:$9.99 per person per meal.
Between finding a job and an apartment, new college grads are in for some long days. This tiny portable charger works as an external battery for iPhones, iPads, and Samsung Galaxy phones, so that they can keep on hunting.
Price:$12.99
College is a unique period in life that many people cherish well into their golden years.
The first taste of independent living, the new friends and the late nights all combine for an unforgettable, if hazy, experience.
But college was very different just a few years ago, back when the Internet was not yet a standard fixture on campuses. For students at the time, the daily routine —from the classroom to the dorm room — required mastering a variety of practices and customs that might seem bizarre to modern eyes.
Travel back with us to the early 1990s....
