Berkshire trails red-hot S&P 500 by biggest margin so far this year

AUDIENCE MEMBER : I know you like to buy into success stories, but you don't like to buy high tech. And it seems to me, say, in the case of Microsoft, that 10 years from now they'll be doing software development, just like 10 years from now Coke will be selling sugared water. And what I'm wondering is, why you feel that way when it seems certain companies, high-tech companies, are predictable... WARREN BUFFETT : I think it's much easier to predict the relative strength that Coke will enjoy in the soft drink world than the strength — the amount of strength — that Microsoft will possess in the software world. That's not to knock Microsoft at all. If I had to bet on anybody, I'd certainly bet on Microsoft, bet heavily if I had to bet. But I don't have to bet. And I don't see that world as clearly as I see the soft drink world. Now somebody that has a lot of familiarity with software may very well see it that way and they're entitled to — if it's true they have superior knowledge and they act on it, they're entitled to make money from that superior knowledge. There's nothing wrong with that. I know I don't have that kind of knowledge, and I simply — and I do think that it's — that if you have a general knowledge of business over decades, that you would regard the industry they're in as less predictable than the soft drink industry. …