Warren Buffett
60 seconds to pitch Warren Buffett your business plan
April 13, 2012: 5:08 PM ETFinalists at Rice University's Business Plan Competition were given 60 seconds to pitch their business to an imaginary Buffett on Thursday. Out of the 43 pitches we heard, here are Fortune's favorites.
By Anne VanderMey, reporter
FORTUNE -- Hundreds of students, business leaders, and investors crammed into the Shell Auditorium at Rice University on Thursday evening to watch the Rice Business Plan Competition elevator pitch contest, arguably the most dramatic event at the university's three-day business plan extravaganza. For competing teams, the stakes are high. Each competitor gets 60 seconds to talk up their venture. If it goes well, they can win more than $1,000 for the elevator pitch alone. If it goes poorly, they face public humiliation in front of a standing-room-only crowd in a 460-seat auditorium.
The premise: Each contestant just walked into an elevator with Warren Buffett and has one minute to convince him to schedule a second meeting -- and possibly invest in their business. Here's what a few of the competitors had to say to the Oracle of Omaha. The judges will dole out the prize money, but Fortune has picked a few of its own winners this year.
Most clever invocation of Warren Buffett
Stanford Nitrogen
The plan: The team has a new wastewater treatment process that it says will significantly lower the cost of eliminating nitrogen from water.
The pitch: "We take that nitrogen pollution and we convert it into nitrous oxide … So, we're turbo-charging sewage treatment. … Whether or not you give us the money Mr. Buffett, you know what, by the end of the night I guarantee you're going to be making a contribution to our industry regardless."
Best adaptation of Occupy Wall Street lingo for an audience of Texas business types
IOMI Technologies
The plan: The team has plans to develop a process to separate and recover heavy metals from water.
The pitch: "Are you a one percenter? The fact is, we're all one percenters. We all share 1% of the world's fresh water supply. Heavy metals are a major contaminant to our water supply and the remediation market is growing exponentially." More
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Warren Buffett: The people's Businessperson of the Year
Bezos may be on fire, but the Oracle wins in the end. By Shelley DuBois
Nov 17, 2011 12:22 PM ET -
How to rebuild our nation's roads and rails
America's infrastructure is sorely lacking. Matt Rose, CEO of Burlington Northern Railroad, offers solutions.
By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- Amid all the bitter wrangling between big business and the White House, there is one point of agreement: the need to rebuild the nation's roads, bridges, and rails. The U.S. has fallen from eight to 16 on the World Economic Forum's infrastructure rating; one bipartisan report cites a $200 billion annual shortfall just MORE
Nov 11, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
Peter Buffett rocks Beijing
In China, his famous father is worshipped as the "god of stocks." Now Peter Buffett has himself become a star in the wealth-focused nation by writing a book with a radical message: Money isn't everything.
By Bill Powell, editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- It is -- and this is putting it mildly -- sometimes difficult to generalize about a nation of 1.3 billion people. But let's go out on a limb and say there aren't MORE
Oct 10, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
China grapples with charity
For the Chinese, giving wealth away is a hot-button issue
By Bill Powell, editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- Last year Warren Buffett and Bill Gates visited Beijing for what they thought would be the least controversial of reasons. They had arranged to have a private dinner with a group of rich, successful Chinese businessmen, and to talk with them about a subject that seems innocuous: philanthropy. The Chinese blogosphere caught wind of the dinner and MORE
Oct 10, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
Needed: More of Steve Jobs' courage
Today's economic chaos is paralyzing many managers with fear. But as Jobs, Buffett, and other business champions keep showing us, risking failure is your only hope. Here's what business courage means now. By Geoff Colvin
Aug 30, 2011 5:00 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Bank of America, Courage, Geoff Colvin, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett -
Mellody Hobson's corporate "Dream Team"
Fortune selected an executive dream team consisting of the world's best business leaders. Mellody Hobson, the president of Ariel Investments, gives us her selections and why.
FORTUNE -- In the Sept. 5 issue of Fortune, we imagined a new kind of fantasy league: one focused on business leaders, where the stats are ruled more by market cap and earnings per share than on-base percentage and earned run averages. (See Fortune's fantasy MORE
Aug 23, 2011 9:52 AM ET -
Beyond Buffett's successor: What's Berkshire's way forward?
It is not just Warren Buffett's successor who will need to navigate the company forward capably. Berkshire Hathaway needs the right kind of board of directors.
By Eleanor Bloxham, contributor
FORTUNE -- In the wake of David Sokol's resignation from Berkshire Hathaway and the revelation of his stock purchases ahead of Berkshire's planned acquisition of Lubrizol (LZ), it has become clear that investors need to consider more than just who will succeed
Warren MORE
Apr 6, 2011 9:48 AM ET -
Value: Reality or Perception?
I can do no better this morning than to link to my revered Captain's Blog, FORTUNE Managing Editor Andy Serwer's discussion of the most valued companies in the current marketplace.
The list is topped by Exxon (XOM), which is followed closely by Microsoft (MSFT) and Wal-Mart (WMT). Close on the heels of the big three are Apple (AAPL), whose market cap towers majestically over its actual revenue, and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), MORE
Bing - Mar 30, 2010 11:55 AM ET -
Too much Buffett?
I'm sure I don't need to remind the greatest investor in the world about the law of supply and demand. So I'll remind you instead. In this law of economics, a discipline that has no verifiable laws, this one holds up better than others over time. Here it is: If you limit supply, demand will grow. If you increase supply, demand will fall.
This is equally true for all products, from MORE
Bing - Mar 1, 2010 12:46 PM ETPosted in: Warren Buffett
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