IIT-Kharagpur students pose with Warren Buffet at Omaha
He is the second richest man in the world. One share of his company, Berkshire Hathway, is worth close to $90,000. Yet, he drives his own car. Warren Buffet is an epitome of simplicity. Fifty students of IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM) visited Omaha, Nebraska, recently to meet the legend himself. Buffet spent half-a-day interacting with the business students from IIT, during which he talked about his life, his learning and how he likes to keep it “simple.” Whether it’s deciding on which business to put his money in or which stock to pick, Buffet takes a fancy only to things that are understandable to him (and in his own words understandable to most). A compliment There was a loud roar in the hall, which housed the IITians along with students from Chicago Business School, when Buffet said, “I asked my friend Bill Gates that if there was one school he wanted to recruit from, which one would it be. And the answer was IIT.” The IIT is not unfamiliar to Buffet. Ajit Jain, one of his most trusted managers, is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur. Vinod Gupta, one of the most distinguished alumni from IIT and because of whom this trip was made possible, is an old acquaintance of Buffet. Buffet said, “I would love to have more like Ajits from IIT.” It was about a year ago that Vinod Gupta floated this idea of bringing a good bunch of students from the IIT-B School to Omaha, Nebraska. Apart from meeting Buffet, the idea was not only to expose them to faculty from global schools like University of Omaha (UNO) but also to top honchos from Fortune 100 corporations. VIN, as he is called in the U.S., says “I wanted to change the lives of a whole bunch of people from the IIT business school.” It was an opportunity that many students did not want to miss. During the eight-day long stay at the campus, the students and faculty from VGSOM attended workshops on international finance, competitive intelligence, strategy, marketing of high tech products, etc. Evenings were fun that included a visit to the baseball stadium, apart from parties and interaction with UNO students from all over the world. “This was an opportunity for VGSOM to fuel its growth and I am happy that we have come out much stronger,” said Probir Gupta, Dean of VGSOM.
Source: The Hindu