Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

CNBC and Columbia University recently held a townhall meeting with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. I saw both of these men at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. I remember Buffett lighting up a room with his energy, while Gates seemed nondescript. Here is the transcript from the meeting. Below is a portion from the transcript where the men describe what they admire about each other:

BUFFETT: Well, I would say what I really most admire about Bill is the view he has about what he should do with the wealth he's accumulated. I mean, as he said, he was very lucky. He was born in the right country, at the right time, with the right wiring and all of that sort of thing. In the end, he knows he's a beneficiary of a terrific society, and not everybody gets the long straws like he and I did. So he is -- and he has this view that every human life worldwide is the equivalent of every other human life, and he's backing it up not only with money, but backing it up with his time. And his wife, Melinda, is backing it up with her time. And they are really going to spend, you know, the last half of their lives or so using both money, talent, energy, imagination, all improving the lives of 6.5 billion people around the world. That's what I admire the most.

GATES: With Warren, there are a lot of things you could pick, you know, his integrity as an example for the world. His sense of humor. But I think I'd pick his desire to teach, his desire to teach things that are complex and put them in a simple form so that people can understand and get the benefit of all his experience, all his models of how the world works. He loves to teach. And he does it meeting with students. He does it in his annual newsletter. He does it when he's talking to me on the phone. It's a real gift that I admire incredibly.