I had just finished a Dale Cari course uh which was taught by Wally Keenan out at the old Rome hotel and prior to taking that course I been absolutely unable to speak in public and uh after taking the course I decided which had a big effect on my life I decided that I'd better uh get out in public and keep talking or I would lapse back into my previous stat so I went out to what was then the University of Omaha and volunteered my services and luckily for me they took me up on it that was the
only class that I I I believe that was the only class that I taught for uh uh uh where I had to grade the students and so on so I went into that class and they were all practically all of them about my age or or older in fact there were some bootstrappers as I remember from from Strategic Air Command and in any event I was the youngest working one in the group if I wasn't the youngest H but I uh you know I enjoyed it and I did not enjoy uh passing out grades to students so I after that first time or maybe two
times I always taught non-credit classes because it uh I didn't really like it wasn't that I didn't like grading the papers I just didn't like giving anybody C's or D's so I I and and really I was I wasn't there to be you know I was there to try and get uh to try and get a message across and information across and I wasn't primarily concerned with with grading students it would have been uh uh probably early in 1952 I I you'd have to look that up to be absolutely sure but I I took the Dale
Carnegie course in the fall of 1951 after coming back to Omaha and I I probably I may well have gone out to see Dean Lucas at that time John Lucas uh uh I don't re I don't remember the event itself but he uh I I knew him just a bit my family knew him pretty well quite well and and we're friends so he probably was the fellow I went out to talk to I can't remember specifically but uh my Aunt Alice for example took a very early class uh with me and there were a lot of there were friends of mine
that would uh that would come out uh uh uh uh and take those classes and I I me I I met a lot of nice people through uh through teaching there early on she liked it and I liked it and I've got pictures from that those days and uh and uh Gabe Parks came out and took the class from the World Herald and I think he even submitted a story and pictures to Life Magazine I think he was a Stringer for them but it it it never made it but I think they thought the idea of a 21 or 22 year old teacher class might might make an interesting
story but like I say we never we never cracked Life Magazine yeah I've well I I didn't really use notes very much uh I would uh I would I would just sort of wing it generally uh uh I I never I never did an elaborate PR present uh preparation but I I did do I used I tried to use real life examples in class because my my the professor that I learned the most from Ben Graham always used current examples and it made it just it just made the class very interesting so I in those early days I would uh I I would come out with a lot
of examples so I might have had pass outs that showed you know a bunch of figures or something like that so that we could talk about a given sort of case study uh but I but I found that if you if you livened it up with real real life examples that uh that people enjoyed it a lot more well the main thing was it just got me up doing it I mean uh before I took the Dale car class I I literally couldn't I I I I I would get physically ill before I wouldn't be be able to speak in public and it said so it was
important to me that I just get up in front of people and and you know I found out I could do it and I enjoyed it and uh uh you do learn something obviously when you either teach or right you know the person who does it learns more than the person on the other end usually it clarifies thought there's no question about that having and having to defend your ideas so that that uh you know as a teacher you you are the you're probably the number one student in the room well I I moved from Omaha in 1954 back to New
York and actually I taught a course at the Scarsdale Adult School uh while I was back in New York right before I then returned to Omaha in 1956 but when I came back I started doing it again and there came a time when you know I I maybe I I don't know whether I'd done it for 15 years or or what but uh uh I probably ran out of gas at some point and just in terms of time demands and a fairly young family and all of that but I but I've always enjoyed it and I still do it you know I had I had 162 students
here yesterday uh from six school so I I I continued to enjoy it doing it doing it on a weekly schedule uh grinds away a little bit more and and it was it it was always in the evening so it would it would it would take an evening out of every week and and uh uh So eventually I I tailed off on that one I I benefited enormously from a few teachers uh you know when I was at both in undergraduate school and graduate school and and uh uh so I I think that that you know part of part of life is passing along what you've learned to the
Next Generation Now the truth is I enjoy it I wouldn't if if if it was like having my a root canal which I had a few weeks ago I wouldn't be doing it so I I I enjoy the experience but I and I but I do think it's useful to talk to young people I don't I don't I don't talk to u i I literally get hundreds and hundreds of invitations to talk to you know trade associations or Chambers what whatever it may be and I virtually never do any speaking to to groups of older people because the truth is they they what they
want to be is entertained and they want predictions but they're not going to change their lives at all but when you talk to young people uh they're going you're going to have some effect on at least a few of in every audience who actually are going to modify their behavior or their or their thinking about the world in some way if if you if you uh if you talk to them when they're young so that's that's that's my audience as far as I'm concerned if I were teach arranging the curriculum for
an investment major in finance or Investments I I would just have two courses which would be how to value a business and and and how to think about uh about the market and uh I think if if if you got if you mastered those two subjects uh all the rest of them would would be unimportant I I love newspapers i' I've loved them since I was five or six years old and my dad would bring home the paper then it was always the afternoon paper uh he bring it home from work it was a late edition and and you
know I would probably start at the sports page and go on to the financial page and end up in the comics or something of the sort but but newspapers I still read five newspapers five newspapers daily and and uh uh so I've I've always enjoyed it and what I do in my job is a form of reporting I mean I I assign myself a story what is Coca-Cola Worth or you know what's the future of the Washington Post company I assigned myself a story just like an editor would assign a reporter story and then I go
out and try and and and try and write write that story you know a week later or a month later or two months later when I whenever I've gathered the necessary facts and processed them uh uh in a way to enable me to in effect WR a narrative in my mind about the business and the industry uh that's what I do so I it's what I do and what a what a reporter does is very similar and I enjoy that if I if I wasn't in the business I'm in you know I would enjoy being a reporter I like I'd like that
better than being an editor well with ABC you know that uh uh I got involved in that 1985 when cap cities bought it and and uh my friend Tom Murphy called me in Washington and and he said he opened the the conversation with you're not going to believe this pal but I think we're going to buy ABC now come up and tell me how to pay for it so uh I I found the whole experience with ABC terribly interesting but I but I've always found the media business uh you know interesting in various aspects uh
uh and uh you know I I did get a fair amount of experience with meeting with the talent of one sort the news people I I know I got the know Peter Jennings reasonably well or Barbara wallers or Diane Sawyer or Charlie Gibson or all of those uh uh but then in I guess it was 1995 we made the decision to merge with Disney and I did not become actively involved with Disney IID owned Disney stock 30 years earlier when I was running a partnership and I actually met Walt Disney uh when of was a 34 year old
he could have been nicer to me I he had he didn't know who I was or anything else if he took me to lunch in the commissary and laid out his plans for the future and everything so I I had a wonderful experience with him but I I never was really involed D in the Disney company uh Michael Eisner who ran it was a friend of mine and Bob Iger who runs it now is a friend of mine so we talked we've talked about it some but I've never been on the board but Charlie Rose is you know that's my favorite show I
it's my favorite to watch and it's my favorite to appear on uh you know it's an hour uninterrupted with a fellow that is extremely knowledgeable about whatever subject he's talking about ma amazing breadth of knowledge and and uh you know he has a memory as to what You' said before and he understands what other people are talking about on the subject and he he it's just a it's a it's a terrific conversation to have so I enjoy uh I watch I watch a lot of Charlie Rose's show I go to his internet
site uh to pick up on the ones uh uh I missed just last night or the night before he had on the fellow uh El barate who who uh who runs the uh iaea is just stepping down now uh Atomic uh International atomic energy uh uh oversight really for the world uh and I will go to that I will go to the Internet site here in the next day or two and click that on and and watch that whole program so uh but that it doesn't really enter into the B into my business it's just it's just a forum in which to
discuss you know whatever issues are seem important we we connected 50 years ago the first night we met we we it was clear that we we uh uh in a great many ways were intellectual in sync and we liked each other immediately and and 50 years later even though we're both strong-minded and disagree on things we've never had an argument in 50 years and never will and uh no he is just it's just fun interacting with Charlie he's as smart as anybody I've ever met in my life and uh and comes at every problem with a
rationality that that uh or every issue with with a rationality that uh is sort of unrivaled so uh you know there's nobody whose opinion I'd rather get on almost any subject than Charlie doesn't mean I'll follow it but uh when we disagree he always says well he says Warren you'll agree with me because you're smart and I'm right