Warren Buffett warned on AI scams, a fiscal disaster, and losing friends. Here are 15 top quotes from Berkshire's bash.

Warren Buffett. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

• Warren Buffett discussed AI fraud, fiscal woes, and bad bets at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting.
• The 93-year-old investor said he fully expects his successor, Greg Abel, to work long past 65.
• Buffett hailed his late business partner, Charlie Munger, and offered a raft of life advice.

Warren Buffett rang the alarm on the federal deficit, warned about AI-powered fraud, and owned up to a losing bet on Paramount during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday.

The 93-year-old CEO ruled out retirement at 65 for his successor, paid tribute to his late business partner, Charlie Munger, and offered advice about role models, quality relationships, and giving back.

Here are Buffett’s 15 best quotes, lightly edited for length and clarity:

1. “Insurance always looks easier than it is, and it’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, and then you find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on.”
2. “I have no idea how the iPhone works, there may be some little guy inside or something. But I know what it means to people, and I know how they use it. And I know enough about consumer behavior to know that it’s one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time. The value it offers is incredible.”
3. “I was 100% responsible for the Paramount decision. We sold it all, and we lost quite a bit of money. I’m smarter now than I was a couple years ago. But I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did.”
4. “There have been times in my life that I’ve been awash in so many opportunities that I could have invested everything by nightfall. But this is not a time when the phone is going to be ringing often. We haven’t seen anything that makes sense that moves the needle.”
5. “I can’t help thinking about the fiscal deficit. It’s what we should be focused on. Jay Powell is not only a great human being, he’s a very, very wise man, but he doesn’t control fiscal policy. And every now and then, he sends out a kind of disguised plea of, ‘please pay attention to this because that’s where the trouble will be if we have it’.”
6. “We let a genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons. The power of that genie is what scares the hell out of me. I don’t know any way to get the genie back in the bottle. And AI is somewhat similar.”
7. “Scamming is going to be the growth industry of all time. Based on the one I saw recently, I practically would send money to myself over some crazy country.”

   

   Shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Josh Funk/AP

8. “If you copy the right people, you’re off to a great start. And I don’t mean a great start about making money. I mean a great start about living your life.”
9. “If you’re lucky in life, make sure a bunch of other people are lucky, too.”
10. “There’s more fun having somebody that’s your partner in digging your way out of a foxhole, than there is just sitting there and watching an idea that you got 10 years ago just continually produce more and more profits.”

11. “Charlie [Munger] always said that, ‘Just tell me where I going to die, so I’ll never go there.’ Well, the truth is he went everywhere with his mind, and therefore he was not only interested in the world at 99, but the world was interested in him.”

    

    Warren Buffett and the late Charlie Munger. Getty Images

12. “Ask yourself, ‘Who would you want to spend the last day of your life with?’ Then figure out a way to start meeting them today, or tomorrow, and meet them as often as you can — because why wait until the last day and not bother with the others?”
13. “This place, if anything happened to me, it would be working extremely well the next day. I don’t get any phone calls. We can rig something up so we got some answering machine that people think I’m still around or something.”
14. “Anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire. They might get retired the next day if they were the wrong person.”
15. “Thank you very, very much for coming, and I not only hope that you come next year, but I hope I come next year. “

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Microsoft Start.