My Trip to Omaha

Celebrating the Super Bowl with the Oracle of Omaha

I've said before that one of the best things about attending a top level business school is the exposure you have to top level business leaders.  Anderson brings in a lot of big name guest speakers and gives students the opportunity to interact with them in ways that wouldn't be possible outside of the program.  Through my involvement in the Student Investment Fund, I've attended a few dozen company offices and alumni presentations.  These were interesting to us since we're trying to get into the industry, but most of the people we met with aren't names that I'd go out and brag (blog) about.  Last weekend, however, I did finally meet one especially notable investment professional worth talking about.  In case the big picture at the top didn't give it away, his name is Warren Buffett.  (For those of you who read the news even less than I do and are not in the know, he's widely regarded as the most famous and successful investor of all time, with a net worth of around $40 billion, making him the 3rd richest person in the world).

The story begins back in the Spring of 2011 when we were warned that the previous class of SIF students waited too long to look into joining one of Warren Buffett's MBA student events and missed the opportunity altogether.  We didn't want to be equally lame, so we had one of our classmates (an Omaha native) be in charge of making sure it happened. The first curveball was that Buffet requires at least seven female students to be part of each school's 20 person group to attend his event.  Although Anderson always talks about diversity, there happens to be zero female members of the 11-dude Student Investment Fund.  It's not that last year's recruiting staff hates women, its just that not a single girl applied. Second problem was that if SIF went on the trip, ASAM (Anderson Student Asset Management - another student-run investment group, more quant based, and mostly part-time students) wanted in on the fun too. They have 16 members (2 females).  Arguments ensued over the next 6-9 months over how to split up the trip between the two funds, where the females should come from, and if the two ASAM girls should count as ASAM members or as females or both.  In the end, there were two lotteries run: 1) all male members of SIF and ASAM; and 2) all females at Anderson.  I actually didn't get picked to go on the trip in the first lottery, but someone who did couldn't make it, and I got their spot.  Luck must have been on my side.

Well, maybe not.

Last Thursday (February 16th) I packed my bags for Omaha, as excited as could be.  Friday's activities would involve a full day of Berkshire Hathaway fun: tours of two of their partner companies, a 2-hour Q&A with Buffett, and lunch and picture opportunities with the man himself.  Unfortunately, my plans almost got derailed from the start.  My flight out of LA was delayed about an hour, which caused me to miss my connecting flight.  The next flight to Omaha left the following morning and wouldn't land until a little before noon.  I briefly considered just booking a return flight to LA, but after re-checking the itinerary I decided to head to Nebraska anyway.  Although I'd miss one of the tours and the Q&A session, at least I would be able to make the lunch.  I only spent a few hours in the Salt Lake City hotel that Delta put me up in before my alarm went off at 4 am.  My 5:55 am flight to Minneapolis, my layover, and my flight to Omaha were all relatively uneventful.

Lunch at Piccolo Pete's

I was the first person to arrive at the restaurant, Piccolo Pete's, since the Q&A ran long.  My plan was to wait until my classmates arrived and then sit with them.  In a stroke of good luck, right after Warren walked through the door, my UCLA classmates were right behind him.  Since the restaurant was open seating, that meant we were able to sit down at the featured table.  (There were 8 schools of around 20 students each, so only around 20 students sat at Buffett's table).  Unfortunately because of the large number of people in the room, and my seat in the corner of the table, I couldn't really follow the conversations too much.  But I did hear enough to pick up on his charming and humble personality.  Without knowing who he was, there is no way anyone could think this was was one of the most successful and richest people on the planet sitting at my table.  He just seemed like a classic cheerful grandpa, telling stories about his youth, making cheesy jokes, and playfully chumming it up with the students.  Extremely down to earth and genuine guy.

After lunch we got a chance to take pictures with Buffett.  Since there were 160 students or so in attendance they wanted to keep the process moving quickly, but Buffett was open to posing for funny or alternative poses in addition to the standard serious pose, if requested.  I had my NY Giants winter hat in my jacket pocket, so I quickly pulled it out and asked him to hold it as part of my Super Bowl celebration.  Some other students flexed muscles with Buffet, had him put them in a headlock, or had him get down on one knee and propose (to a female student).  Pretty cool experience all around, so even with two more flights and another layover in Minneapolis that evening and despite all the other logistical shenanigans (5 total flights and a 4 am wake up in under 24 hours), it was still worth the trip.

Early Winter Quarter Updates (Part 2)

Hanging out near a hilariously round dealer at the craps table at the Anderson Casino Night.

A continuation of the last post, these were the fun activities from last Thursday and Friday.  I believe we are now at the exact midpoint of the Winter Quarter, which means we're at the unofficial halfway point of our 2nd Year, which means graduation is approaching a lot quicker than I'd like.  Scary.

Magic Castle - The venue for our Catalina Reunion Night

Magic Castle: The group of ten of us who went on the Pre-Orientation kayaking trip to Catalina Island back in August 2010 set up a reunion event last Thursday night.  This time with less insects and potential for sharks attacks.  The evening took us to the famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, which is a private venue created by the Academy of Magical Arts.  Ordinary citizens such as myself can only get invited to the club with a direct invitation from a registered magician.  Luckily one of our kayak companions knows a thing or two about pulling rabbits out of hats (shahmagic.com!) so he made reservations for us.  The first show we went to was in the Close-up Gallery, a small room of maybe 15-20 guests and featuring close-up magician specialist, Brian Gillis.  I think it was honestly the best magic show I've ever seen.  I couldn't even begin to guess how he pulled off most of these tricks.  We also went to two other shows, one was in a large room and featured a magician named Ice but a little bit too much dancing from his middle age assistant who didn't perform much magic and thought she was still in her 20s.  Finally we went to the late-night show which was funny and very entertaining with a bunch of really good tricks as well.  We finished up the evening by going back to the apartment where two of the guys from the trip lived and hung out and caught up some more.  Hadn't hung out with these guys as a group in a year and a half, and had never been to the Magic Castle before, so overall a very fun night.

AIA Investing Conference: I think I've mentioned in earlier posts how a group of us had formed the Anderson Investment Association (AIA), an investment management focused campus organization to help improve Anderson's reputation in this industry.  One of the methods to do this was to organize a series of prominent events, which we hoped would become annual and well known throughout the country.  The most ambitious of this was the UCLA Anderson Inaugural Investing Conference.  I wasn't too involved in the planning of this, but I know a lot of work went into it over the past six months or so, and I have to say I'm impressed with how it all came together when it was held this past Friday.  A number of prominent guest speakers were brought in, with Howard Marks, the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Oaktree Capital as the keynote speaker.  There was also a kickoff talk and two group panel discussions about trends and issues in the investing community, a networking breakfast and lunch, and opportunities for two book signings.  Nearly 400 guests (including students, alumni, and local industry professionals) signed up to attend the event.  Everything went smoothly, it was interesting and educational, and it was a good networking opportunity.  Definitely a success and a step in the right direction for the new AIA.

Sporting cocktail attire at Casino Night

Casino Night/Date Auction:  One of Anderson's biggest charity and social events was held this past Friday night.  It was held at El Rey Theater and featured several casino tables, a two-hour open bar, dance floor, date auction, and a large list of other prizes that could be auctioned off with proceeds going to charity.  I didn't go to last year's event but heard it was a really good time, so I decided to go this year.  It was a nice opportunity to class it up for an evening and I hadn't been to a large Anderson social event in awhile, and it was a really fun evening.  I wish these events weren't so expensive, but if me drinking vodka tonics from an open bar all night helps children with disabilities, I'm all for it.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework and preparing for next week's midterm.  Need to take care of a lot of work now, because I'm only four days away from my next trip... on Thursday I'll be heading to Omaha, Nebraska with the rest of the Student Investment Fund to meet Warren Buffett.

Early Winter Quarter Updates (Part 1)

Joshua Tree National Park

The last 13 blog posts have been about my various travel plans starting with winter break, so it might be easy to forget that I'm a student and have other responsibilities too.  So it's time for a quick recap on student life of the first 4+ weeks of Winter Quarter 2012 (although most of this entry will be about more trips and other fun stuff).

Class Schedule: Although I'm only taking three traditional classes, my schoolwork is once again pretty intense.  Venture Capital and Private Equity is one of the highest rated classes at Anderson, so I really wanted to take it even though it features A LOT of cold calling and an intense workload (two assigned cases, each with a required write-up due each week).  Investment Management and Security Analysis, sounds like something that should be right up my alley, but it's one of my least favorite classes I've taken so far because it's taught like a PhD class, with too much long winded formula derivations, and the professor is really confusing.  It probably doesn't help that I take the class from 7-10 pm each week.  Managerial Computing is an Excel class that focuses on programming with VBA.  I like it a lot and think it could be pretty useful, no matter what my next job is.  I'm also taking Business Chinese, which is a 2 credit language class that seems to require as much time as a regular 4 credit class would.  Student Investment Fund still has weekly meetings and other time requirements for meetings and guest speakers.  And last, but certainly not least, we're in the final quarter of our Applied Management Research (AMR) consulting project which takes more time than any of the classes mentioned above.

My classmate and I ready for some serious meetings in DC

AMR Project / DC Trip:  The most interesting part of this project so far this quarter is the trip that two of my teammates and I made to Washington DC in January to conduct interviews and research.  We had to take the red-eye flight out the night after I got back from my Sundance trip, and then we spent a day and a half in the DC area, with all expenses generously funded by one of the organization's donors.  During that time we had seven meetings with seven different people including the client, board members, a couple of CEOs, a corporate lawyer, and a member of USDA.  It was a really productive trip as we met some important people and gathered a lot of data.  With everyone so passionate about helping out GCNF and the entire mission of fighting hunger, the meetings were enjoyable too.  It was also an interesting experience for me as I led every meeting.  And despite the tough travel and the really packed meeting schedule, I couldn't leave DC without catching up with some of old crew, so I was happy I was able to meet up with Evan and Dan for dinner and drinks close to our hotel on Tuesday night.

Recruiting:  I've had a series of interviews with one company since winter break.  I guess it's been going well since they keep telling me to interview with more people, but it's been a pretty long, drawn out process.  I've applied for a few other jobs in the past few months but either got rejected without an interview or didn't get any response from all the others.  

The Anderson crew after some rock climbing at Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree:  I promised myself after the DC Trip that I'd calm down my schedule and catch up on schoolwork and recruiting.  However, when I saw that the Outdoors Adventures Business Association (Anderson's Outdoors Club) was planning a hiking/camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park, I got motivated to hit the road again.  I hadn't been camping since my cross-country road trip, and it'd been awhile since I'd been on a good hike too, so this seemed like a fun opportunity.  We left early in the morning on Saturday, February 4th and arrived at the campsite where several students had already spent the previous night.  After setting things up we went on a 6.5 mile hike of the Lost Horse Mine Trail.  The weather was great and there were some pretty cool views on parts of the mountain.  After that we did some rock scrambling, which is what the park is best known for, and was a lot of fun.  After a draining day we headed back to the campsite and hung out around the campfire for the next several hours.

Celebrating the Giants Super Bowl victory!

Super Bowl Party: The Giants won the Super Bowl.  This is pretty unbelievable and pretty awesome, and no one could have seen this coming back in December.  I remember over winter break watching the Giants lose to the Redskins (in 3D!) and everyone assumed that the season was over.  But after six straight, improbable wins later, they're champs!  My personal ride during that win streak was pretty interesting too, as I watched those six games in six different cities: Stuart (FL), Taipei, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Phoenix airport, and Marina del Rey (CA).  For the Super Bowl, I went to a party of 20 people or so hosted by a classmate (also a Giants fan).  Good times.

I have more to add, but they'll wait until my next post, coming up soon.