Mohnish Pabrai’s lunch with Warren Buffett

As told to Aditi Saxena

The California-based businessman and founder of Pabrai Funds on his brush with the legendary American investing guru and philanthropist...

Ever since I decided to start my own investment firm in California in 1999, Warren Buffett has been an inspiration for me. I have realised that his observations about markets then still hold true and will do so 20 years later.

In 2007, a friend of mine and I bid $650,000 for a lunch date with Buffett in New York. I took my wife and two daughters along. When we asked him who would his ‘idol’ lunch date be, he said instantly, “Isaac Newton”. Seconds later, he smiled and said, Sophia Loren.

Buffett lives like an ordinary person and has the zeal of a five-year-old. He inspired both me and my wife to recycle our assets and set up the Dakshana Foundation in 2005 to provide IIT-JEE coaching to gifted but underprivileged students in rural India.

He taught us that simply doing charity is not enough. How you do it is as important. Now I give away 2 per cent of my net worth every year. Living in the same era as him is like living with Gandhiji or Nehru.