If Only Warren Buffett Knew How to Work His Cellphone…

By Karen Tumulty | September 15, 2009 | +

Lehman Brothers might not have gone under. Seriously.

One of the upsides of slaving for my corporate overlords is the fact that I get to go every year to the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, an incredible event that is put on by our sister publication. This year, the Oracle of Omaha made a return appearance onstage with the always-awesome Carol Loomis and revealed the behind-the-scenes story of a deal that didn’t get done:

As you can imagine, Buffett was hearing from a lot of people on that crazy weekend exactly a year ago, when the financial world was falling apart. AIG, desperate to come up with $18 billion, begged him for help. “Don’t waste your time on me,” he told them. “I’m not going to be able to do anything for you.” And around 6 p.m. on that Saturday night, as Buffett was rushing out to a social engagement in Edmonton, Alberta, he got a call from Bob Diamond, the head of Barclays Capital. Diamond was trying to buy Lehman Brothers and rescue it from oblivion, but he was having trouble with British authorities. So he had come up with another plan, one in which Buffett would provide insurance that might make it all work. It was all too complicated for Buffett to take in in a quick phone call, so he asked Diamond to fax him the details. Buffett got back to his hotel room around midnight and was surprised to find … nothing. Lehman went under, and within days, the world was in a full-blown financial crisis.

Fast forward 10 months. Buffett, who admits he never has really learned the basics of his cell phone, asked his daughter Susan about a little indicator he had noticed on the screen: “Can you figure out what’s on there?” It turned out to be the message from Diamond that he had been waiting for that night. (NOTE: Which raises another question: Why didn’t Diamond use the fax, like Buffett asked him to?)

I caught up with Buffett afterward, and asked him whether, in retrospect, he might have gone for the deal. He pulled the simple little Samsung phone out of his pocket and pondered it for a moment. It’s entirely possible, he suggested. “I don’t know.”

And we never will.

UPDATE: This from Swampland commenter deconstructiva:

Warren is famous for not being comfy with tech – doesn’t invest in tech cos., cell phone problems as mentioned, etc. (fax? what’s that?)

UPDATE2: Buffett and Loomis:

@TIMEPolitics

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deconstructiva

KT, I hope you’re having fun and signing / collecting lots of autographs. Will you post pics when you get back? Warren is famous for not being comfy with tech – doesn’t invest in tech cos., cell phone problems as mentioned, etc. (fax? what’s that?) While he keeps long-term holds like Coca-Cola and Dairy Queen, most of his $ now comes from insurance. He once called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” …and he was right… even though he uses them a lot in his insurance biz. But what is his favorite DQ sundae? Please ask him (seriously).
.
…oh, btw, I asked Amy in her post to put something together for “1000 words” since it didn’t happen friday / over the weekend; I didn’t think you’d post while at the conference, my bad.
fourlegsgood

oh dear. Why didn’t Diamond follow up and find out why Buffett didn’t respond?
http://www.simonvinkenoog.nl/beeld/Yogi%20-%20Annelies%20Rigter.jpg yogi

Ah KT, you got to plug this event before its taking place. I have family in Carlsbad that would have loved to attend something like this had they known.
lupercal5

murphy’s law. im starting to believe that this could have been a reasonable alternative if we don’t get regulatory reform. because then the only people who’ll be screwed up are the ones who lost a home, their savings and their jobs.
.
there’s a real chance the moment may have come and gone and the lessons still haven’t been learned.
gysgt213

I always found it best to call Warren months before one of my companies go belly up. That way you avoid issues like these.
nflfoghorn

Maybe he thought the gecko would’ve taken the message.
deconstructiva

Long Term Cap. Mgmt. contacted Buffett (1998) to invest / buy out the fund to save it. He refused; they imploded. Buffett knew LTCM leaders for years thanks to his stake in Salomon Bros.
shepherdwong

I’ll always have soft spot for the CEO of a very large organization sending out an edict that all email attachments had to be approved at the top levels of management before they could be sent (and, yes, it was in this century). Why? because he couldn’t figure out how to delete a large email/attachment from his inbox one evening and was unable to send/receive for the rest of the night having exceeded his account capacity.
.
I remember thinking at the time: 1) that should help our efficiency, 2) maybe it will keep senior management busy (that really should help our efficiency) and 3) what other prices are we paying for the technical cluelessness of the fossils running corporate America.
billiecat

Good story. You shoulda saved it for that book.
nflfoghorn

Didn’t Lehman get bought for pennies on the dollar after it went bankrupt?
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square1

Financial Systemic Risk (fi·nan·cial sys·tem·ic risk) — n. :

The degree or extent of financial loss that will occur if a tired, 78-year-old man is unable to identify the significance of a blinking icon on his cell phone between midnight and the time he goes to sleep.

Bad Ass (bad⋅ass) — n. :

The state of being worth in excess of $50B and only receiving one voice mail in 10 months.
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