1. Philip J. Kaplan, F’d Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
2. At the end of 2000, Berkshire had spent more than $8 billion buying companies and still had $5.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents, along with $33 billion in fixed maturity securities and $38 billion in stocks.
3. Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders, 2000.
4. Interview with Susie Buffett Jr.
5. Interviews with Barry Diller, Don Graham, Susie Buffett Jr.
6. Marcia Vickers, Geoffrey Smith, Peter Coy, Mara Der Hovanseian, “When Wealth Is Blown Away,” BusinessWeek, March 26, 2001; Allan Sloan, “The Downside of Momentum,” Newsweek, March 19, 2001.
7. Buffett was not the only one concerned about the implication of this relationship. John Bogle, retired chairman of Vanguard, wrote of it in April 2001. However, he concluded that “some version of reality” had returned to the stock market. What made Buffett’s speech noteworthy was not use of this particular metric but rather his pessimistic projection of what it meant.
8. One of Buffett’s main points was that companies—many of which had been taking gains from surpluses out of their pension plans—were irresponsibly using unrealistic rates of return assumptions and would have to adjust these to reality, which would show the plans to be less well funded or even underfunded.
9. Vicente Fox worked for Coca-Cola for fifteen years, starting as a route supervisor in 1964, then being promoted ten years later to president of its Mexican, and ultimately its Latin American, operations.
10. Interview with Midge Patzer.
11. Interview with Don Graham.
12. Dr. Griffith R. Harsh, IV, Director, Surgical Neuro-Oncology Program at Stanford University Medical School.
13. Interview with Kathleen Cole.
14. Interviews with Bill Gates, Peter Buffett, Howie Buffett.
15. Interviews with Susie Buffett Jr., Don Graham.
16. Karlyn Barker, “Capacity Crowd Expected at Funeral; Schlesinger, Bradlee, Kissinger, Relatives Among Eulogists,” Washington Post, July 22, 2001.
17. Paul Farhi, “Close Enough to See: TV Coverage Captures Small, Telling Moments,” Washington Post, July 24, 2001; Steve Twomey, “A Celebrated Life: Thousands Honor Katharine Graham at the Cathedral,” Washington Post, July 24, 2001; Mary Leonard, “Thousands Pay Tribute to Washington Post’s Katharine Graham,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2001.
18. Karlyn Barker, “Capacity Crowd Expected at Funeral; Schlesinger, Bradlee, Kissinger, Relatives Among Eulogists.”
19. Libby Copeland, “Kay Graham’s Last Party: At Her Georgetown Home, A Diverse Group Gathers,” Washington Post, July 24, 2001.
20. The family sold the house shortly after Graham’s death.