1/18/05: Warren Buffett (1999)

There is money to be made in cooking, and it doesn't always have to be the fancy kind, as we discovered when I flew to Omaha, Neb., to sit down and talk to Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, who knows a little bit about earning money. And he earns it on your appetites.

From Nightline, Mar. 2, 1999:

TED KOPPEL: For example, we're sitting here in a Dairy Queen.

WARREN BUFFETT: Right.

KOPPEL: For a reason.

BUFFETT: Yeah.

KOPPEL: A, you claim to like Dairy Queen lunches.

BUFFETT: Yeah, I do. I have for a long time.

KOPPEL: And B, you own this place.

BUFFETT: We own the company that franchises this place, right.

KOPPEL: Exactly. Right. Why'd you buy it?

BUFFETT: Well, we bought it ...

KOPPEL: I mean, what was it that went through your head?

BUFFETT: Well, A, it was a business that I could understand. Now, there's all kinds of businesses I can't understand and I try not to buy into those because if I, why should I expect to make money on something I can't understand? So I'm not in any high-tech businesses, for example. But I understand, you know, an ultimate hamburger or, you know, a peanut buster or a deli bar and I can handle that. And I like the people that run it. I like the economics of the business. It's a good business. You've got thousands of people that are paying you a royalty for your name of Dairy Queen and the business grows a little every year. It generates cash. The cash gets sent to Omaha and then we go out and buy other businesses with that.

Incidentally, billionaire Buffet's favorite dish? A burger and a cherry coke.