Seth Klarman on Charlie Rose

INSIDE EDITION Investigates Electronic Pickpocketing

Cheryl Murphy: Learning the Look of Love

According to Rubin, normally two people in conversation give each other eye contact anywhere from 30-60% of the time but couples who are in love look at each other 75% of the time during conversation and are slower to break their look away from each other when interrupted.

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Learning the Look of Love: That Sly “Come Hither” Stare

By Cheryl Murphy | October 17, 2011

While it might not be witchcraft, the formula for ‘love at first sight’ remains a mystery. However, if you pop the following ingredients into a kettle: large pupils, long glances, and a lovely, attentive smile, you may not have concocted a bona fide love potion but your witch’s brew could contain some insight into the laws of attraction.

Being an optometrist and all around eye aficionado, I have a deep interest in the connection between the eyes and love. After reviewing many decades of literature and research, I have picked out a few studies that I think help us to understand how love affects our eyes and how our eyes can affect the level of attraction and love we feel for someone else. Let’s start off this “Learning The Look of Love” series by first exploring love and eye contact.

Part One: That Sly ‘Come Hither’ Stare

Let’s pretend it’s Friday night, you’re in a bar and you are people watching. It’s dim in here but what do you see? You may see strangers exchanging glances with each other from across the crowded room. Once their eyes meet if eye contact is established and a look is held, the game of love has begun. A man peers around the room and becomes suddenly intrigued by a woman returning his glance. The glance turns into a gaze. He initially found her beautiful but now the magnetism of her prolonged eye contact has amplified her attractiveness.

Like the man in the bar, we do perceive people as more attractive when they are engaged in eye contact with us and when they shift their direction of gaze towards us as confirmed in experiments performed by Mason et al in 2005. This directed gaze apparently signals their interest and the fact that they find us interesting makes them even more appealing to us. In other words, if someone who you find attractive locks eyes with you, they automatically go up a notch on your love barometer.

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Ben Milne: This 28-Year-Old's Startup Is Moving $350 Million And Wants To Completely Kill Credit Cards

There's a tiny 12-person startup churning out of Des Moines, Iowa.

Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it's an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely.

Milne has no finance background yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it's on track to move more than $350 million in the next year.

Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn't take a percentage of the transaction. It only asks for $0.25  whether it's moving $1 or $1,000.

We interviewed Milne about how he is building a credit card killer and Square rival from the middle of the nation where VCs and press are scarce.

BI: We hear you're making credit card companies angry. How are you doing that?

Ben Milne: Ultimately we're trying to build the next Visa, not the next PayPal.  We're building a human network based on how we think the future of payments will work. The current model needs to be blown up. 

Dwolla started out of my old company.  I owned a speaker manufacturing company and we sold everything directly through a website.  I got really obsessed with interchange fees and how not to pay them.  Every time a merchant gets paid with a credit card they have to give up a percentage.  In my case, I was losing $55,000 a year to credit card companies.  I felt like they were stealing from me -- I was getting paid and somebody was taking money out of my pocket. 

So I thought, how do I get paid through a website without paying credit card fees?  We pitched a bank, and amazingly enough they said, "We'll give it a shot."

That was three years ago, so we've been working on the project for a really long time. In December of last year we figured out how to legally do what we do.

How many transactions are you doing? 

The average transaction volume for Dwolla is right around $500 dollars. We move between $30 and $50 million per month.

What's your story?

I'm 28.  I started my first company, Elemental Design, when I was 18.  I dropped out of University of Northern Iowa and built that. 

I started college because I thought that's where I was supposed to go.  I applied to one college, I got in, went, and realized it wasn't for me.  I had customers so I stopped going to class.

We grew that company from a $1,200 investment to over one million in revenue in four years with three or four people and without outside investment.  The company was running itself and I wanted to work on another project. 

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CNBC Transcript: Warren Buffett Explains Why He Bought $10.7B of IBM Stock

BECKY: Wait. Wait a second, IBM is a tech company, and you don't buy tech companies. Why have you been buying IBM?

BUFFETT: Well, I didn't buy railroad companies for a long time either. I—it's interesting. I have probably—I've had two interesting incidents in my life connected with IBM, but I've probably read the annual report of IBM every year for 50 years. And this year it came in on a Saturday, and I read it. And I got a different slant on it, which I then proceeded to do some checking out of. But I just—I read it through a different lens.

JOE: What's the different lens? What's the different slant?

BUFFETT: Well, just like—just like I did with—just like I did with the railroads. And incidentally, the company laid it out extremely well. I don't think there's any company that's—that I can think of, big company, that's done a better job of laying out where they're going to go and then having gone there. They have laid out a road map and I should have paid more attention to it five years ago where they were going to go in five years ending in 2010. Now they've laid out another road map for 2015. They've done an incredible job. First, Lou Gerstner, when he came in, he saved the company from bankruptcy. I read his book a second time, actually, after I read the annual report. You know, "Who Said Elephants Can't Dance?" I read it when it first came out and then I went back and reread it. And then we went around to all of our companies to see how their IT departments functioned and why they made the decisions they made. And I just came away with a different view of the position that IBM holds within IT departments and why they hold it and the stickiness and a whole bunch of things. And also, I read very carefully what Sam Palmisamo...

JOE: Palmisano.

BECKY: Palmisano.

BUFFETT: ...Palmisano, yes, has said about where they're going to be and he's delivered big time on his—on his—on his first venture along those lines.

BUFFETT: The other thing I would say about IBM, too, is that a few years back, they had 240 million options outstanding. Now they probably are down to about 30 million. They treat their stock with reverence which I find is unusual among big companies. Or they really—they are thinking about the shareholder.

JOE: But you're buying this after it's really broken out the new highs this year, new all-time highs.

BUFFETT: We bought—we bought railroads on highs, too.

JOE: Yeah? They sent it—you know, stocks at new lows that, you know, can hit new lows where they...

BUFFETT: Right. I bought—I bought control of—I bought control of GEICO at its all-time high.

BUFFETT: No, I never talked to Sam. I've never talked to Sam. I've got this—I competed with IBM 50 years ago, believe it or not. I was chairman of a company, had, and I testified for IBM in 1980 when the government was attacking about on the antitrust situation. But I've never—I have not talked to Sam or now Ginni.

BECKY: You—this is the second time in the last several months that you've told us about a purchase you've made of a company you've been the reading annual reports for years.

BUFFETT: Right.

BECKY: Bank of America was the first.

BUFFETT: Right. I read those for 50 years.

BECKY: Read those for 50 years and you're looking at companies a little differently. You never really bought tech stocks before. You had always said you don't understand technology stocks.

BUFFETT: Right.

BECKY: Does this mean that this is a new era and you're going to be looking at a lot of tech stocks and I guess chief among them, would you consider Microsoft?

BUFFETT: I—well, Microsoft is a special case because Microsoft is off bounds to us because of my friendship with Bill and if we spent seven months buying Microsoft stock and during that period they announced a repurchase or increase of the dividend or an acquisition, people would say you've been getting inside information from Bill. So I have told Todd and Ted and I apply it myself that we do not ever buy a share of Microsoft. I think Microsoft is attractive but that—but we will never buy Microsoft. It—people would just assume I knew something and I don't, but they would assume it and they would assume Bill talked to me and he wouldn't have. But there's no sense putting yourself in that position.

BECKY: But...

BUFFETT: I can say I've never met Sam but I can't say I've never met Bill.

BECKY: But does this change the rules of the game that you would actually look at technology stocks now?

BUFFETT: I look at everything but most things I decide I can't figure out their future.

BUFFETT: Yeah, it's a—it's a company that helps IT departments do their job better.

JOE: Yeah.

BUFFETT: And if you think about it, I don't want to push the analogy too far because it could be pushed too far. But, you know, we work with a given auditor, we work with a given law firm. That doesn't mean we're happy every minute of every day about everything they do but it is a big deal for a big company to change auditors, change law firms. The IT departments, I—you know, we've got dozens and dozens of IT departments at Berkshire. I don't know how they run. I mean, but we went around and asked them and you find out that there's—they very much get working hand in glove with suppliers. And that doesn't—that doesn't mean things won't change but it does mean that there's a lot of continuity to it. And then I think as you go around the world, IBM, in the most recent quarter, reported double-digit gains in 40 countries. Now, I would imagine if you're in some country around the world and you're developing your IT department, you're probably going to feel more comfortable with IBM than with many companies.

JOE: Well...

BUFFETT: I said I competed with IBM 50 years ago.

BECKY: Yeah.

BUFFETT: We actually started—I was chairman of the board, believe it or not, of a tech company one time, and computers used to use zillions of tab cards and IBM in 1956 or '7 signed a consent decree and they had to get rid of half the capacity. So two friends of mine, one was a lawyer and one was an insurance agent, read the newspaper and they went into the tab card business and I went in with them. And we did a terrific job and built a nice little company. But every time we went into a place to sell them our tab cards at a lower price and with better delivery than IBM, the purchasing agent would say, nobody's ever gotten fired from buying—by buying from IBM. I mean, we probably heard that about a thousand times. That's not as strong now, but I imagine as you go around the world that there are—there's a fair amount of presumption in many places that if you're with IBM, that you stick with them, and that if you haven't been with anybody, you're developing things, that you certainly give them a fair shot at the business. And I think they've done a terrific job of developing that. And if you read their reports—if you read what they wrote five years ago they were going to do and the next five years, they've done it, you know, and now they tell you what they're going to do in the next five years, and as I say, they have this terrific reverence for the shareholder, which I think is very, very important.

And I want to give full credit, incidentally, to Lou Gerstner because when he came in, I was a friend of Tom Murphy's and Jim Burke's, and they were on the search committee to find a solution when IBM was almost broke in 1992, and everybody thought they were going pretty far afield when they went to Lou Gerstner. And look what...

BUFFETT: Well, you don't have to think of—you don't have to think of another one, Joe. And if you read his book, you know, "Who Said Elephants Can't Dance?" it's a great management book. Like I said, I read it twice.

ANDREW: What was it when you're reading the report? I mean, most investors who are trying to invest like you, they're reading annual—what is it in the report that you said, ah, I missed it?

BUFFETT: Well, it was—it was a lot of interesting facts and you know, I recommend you read the report, you know. And I didn't look at the pictures and I'm not sure there were any pictures. I kind of like that, too. But there were—there were lots of things in that report but the truth is, there were probably lots of things in the report a year earlier or two years earlier that you say, why didn't I spot it then? And I think it was Keynes or somebody that said that the problem is not the new ideas, it's escaping from old ones. And, you know, I've had that many times in my life and I plead guilty to it.

BUFFETT: I will tell you one very smart thing that Thomas Watson Sr. said. I knew Thomas Watson Jr. just a little bit. Tom Watson Sr., this applies to stocks. He said, "I'm no genius but I'm smart in spots and I stay around those spots." And that's terrific advice.

·         Transcript Part 1: Buffett on Europe & U.S. Housing 'Depression'

·         Transcript Part 2: Buffett Calls Romney the Strongest GOP Candidate

·         Transcript Part 3: Buffett on MF Global and Excessive Risk

·         Transcript Part 4: Buffett on Occupy Wall Street and the 'Harold' Hint

·         Transcript Part 5: Buffett on Why He Bought $10.7B of IBM Stock

·         Transcript Part 6: Buffett on Infrastructure Investments and Bank of America

·         Transcript Part 7: Buffett on China, the Economy, and Corporate Jet Tax Breaks

What Has Warren Buffett Been Buying? 'Harold'

Posted By: Alex Crippen | Executive Producer

cnbc.com

| 14 Nov 2011 | 07:27 AM ET

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway releases its end-of-Q3 stock portfolio snapshot later today, but during his live appearance on Squawk Box this morning Buffett revealed its big secret: Berkshire has bought $10.7 billion worth of common stock in IBM  , or 64 million shares at an average price of $170. 

Buffett's company now owns 5.5 percent of the company but doesn't intend to buy any more. "I wouldn't be talking about it if I did."  He started in March with the goal to buy $10 billion worth of stock.

We've noted that Berkshire's 13-F filings for the first and second quarters said that some holdings were being kept confidential, and it appears this is the buying spree Buffett was keeping under wraps.  (He doesn't want copycat buyers to drive up the price of a stock he's actively acquiring.)

Buffett says he has not talked to the company or current CEO Sam Palmisano about his purchases, but he thinks IBM has done an "incredible job" executing its long-term strategy, has an excellent "road map" for the future, and "respects" its shareholders by being honest with them and doing big stock buybacks.  "They've done all kinds of things right." 

He gives a lot of credit to former CEO Lou Gerstner, and wishes he'd bought the stock back when Gerstner was running the company.  "It was something I should have spotted years earlier."  He decided to start buying this year after reading the company's 2010 annual report.

Buffett typically shies away from technology stocks because he often doesn't "understand" what they do, but told us he'd been "hit between the eyes" by how the company finds and keeps clients.  "It's a company that helps IT departments do their job better. It is a big deal for a big company to change auditors, change law firms," or change IT support. "There is a lot of continuity to it."

At first he gave the Squawkers a one-word puzzle: the name "Harold."  After several minutes of incorrect guesses, Buffett revealed that "Harold" refers to IBM.  The connection: a common nickname for Harold is Hal, HAL 9000 was the name of the computer in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it's often been associated in people's minds with IBM.

Buffett says he would never buy Microsoft , another computer-related stock, due to his close friendship with Chairman Bill Gates.

Buffett says Berkshire did add to its Wells Fargo position and he thinks Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is following a "very logical path" to fix the bank.

Asked if he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, Buffett said because its goals and leadership are unclear it probably won't change things.  He does, however, continue to believe the "super-rich" need to share in the national sacrifice that will be needed to get the federal government's budget deficits under control.

Link

The fight of Richard Rainwater's life

Legacy of a dealmaker

Of all life's cruelties, it seems especially tragic that Richard Rainwater would suffer from this affliction. Rainwater is a self-made billionaire, a Texas incarnation of the Horatio Alger story. But he hasn't built a chain of discount stores or a computer company or even a private equity firm to leave behind. No, Rainwater's business genius has always been his energy and imagination -- his uncanny ability to see where the world is going and find a way to exploit that turn. It was his personal magic that made big deals happen: his ability to pick the right opportunity, the right partners, the right CEO, and then to provide inspiration. The billion-dollar edifice he built was all in his head.

And now it's crumbling away.

Today Rainwater requires 24-hour care. He is unable to walk unassisted. He has trouble swallowing. His speech is almost impossible to understand. "Of anybody I ever met, Richard was the most charismatic, the most outgoing, most hands-on, huggy, high-fiving, jumping-up-and-down, vivacious executive," says Michael Eisner, whom Rainwater helped install as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) "And then to have him relegated to this condition that incapacitates him? It's the irony of human existence."

Though Rainwater has usually operated behind the scenes, his impact on the world of business has been immense. He helped create or fix a string of companies, ranging from entertainment (Disney) and health care (Columbia/HCA) to energy (Mesa, Ensco) and real estate (Crescent). Many regard Rainwater as the father of the modern private equity business. "He may be the best deal guy ever," says David Bonderman, co-founder of TPG Capital, the private equity giant. "Richard figured out there was a place for private capital to do aggressive deals, and he did it better than anybody else." Rainwater has been something of a pied piper, too, launching and salvaging careers and helping others build personal fortunes. The list ranges from George W. Bush and Sears Holdings chairman Eddie Lampert to former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and Florida governor Rick Scott.

The latest chapter of Rainwater's story, told here for the first time, makes painfully clear the democracy of disease. Battling for his life, Rainwater has bankrolled an extraordinary, and characteristically creative, campaign to seek a cure for his rare affliction. But the odds are long. In all probability, there isn't enough time or enough money, even for a one-of-a-kind billionaire.

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Bill Gates Talks About the Future

With the convergence of major advances in computing hardware and software, technology is playing an increasingly important role in many aspects of society. In his speech at the University of Washington, Bill discussed important breakthroughs in computer science and engineering that have implications in education, health, and improving the lives of the world’s poorest 2 billion people.