Mañana

Sometimes procrastination is a good thing, take it from Mr. Murphy.

Here’s some good advice from Thomas Murphy, who passed away in 2022 at age 96.

Honestly, I feel like his is a name I should have known earlier in life—first because it’s so close to my own, but also because of his career: Murphy started as a television executive in the 1950s — first employee at Capital Cities, in fact — and ultimately built an enormous media juggernaut that acquired ABC.

He served as chairman and CEO of the combined company until 1994, so I guess he was a bit before my time—but he also sat on the board of directors at Berkshire Hathaway.

Photo by Donovan Reeves on Unsplash

“I watched him inspire very imperfect humans—myself certainly included,” Buffett said upon Murphy’s death. “Motivated by Tom, some became better parents, others more generous, and some were encouraged to lead in a kinder way.”

Buffett, the so-called Oracle of Omaha, often credited Murphy with giving him some of the best advice he ever got.

That advice is, basically: “Mañana. No rush. Do it tomorrow.”

Not everything, mind you—but if you’re angry, or annoyed, and about to react to something with emotion, wait a day or so.

As Buffett put it in the 2015 book, Getting There, by Gillian Zoe Segal:

“He said, 'Warren, you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow.'

It was such an easy way of putting it. You haven't missed the opportunity. Just forget about it for a day. If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them—but don't spout off in a moment of anger.”

I must admit, there have been a few times in my life when I probably would have been better off following Mr. Murphy’s advice.

Working backward on Buffett’s praise, we can figure that Murphy probably first gave him this advice roughly 50 years ago, when Buffett would have been in his mid-40s, and Murphy might have been around 50.

That means it was maybe 10 or 15 years too late for what Buffett describes as the dumbest mistake he ever made. In fact, I laughed out loud when I read Buffett's words here, because it flies in the face of a famous time that he was unable to “forget about it for a day.”

Back in the early 1960s, you see, Buffett was in a dispute with the chairman of a very old textile company that he’d invested in.

It was not a great business; in fact Buffett had bought a stake in it specifically because it was falling apart. He hoped to wring a bit of value out of it under what he called his “cigar butt” theory of investing.

Basically, he’d find old companies, undervalued and trending downward, and try to wring as much value out of them as he could before they completely died off.

In this case, however, Buffett grew angry with the chairman when he tried to nickel-and-dime him and renege on the terms of a deal. So, Buffett acted angrily and rashly, and started buying more and more stock just so that he could fire the chairman.

Net result, as Buffett wrote in one of his shareholder letters, he suddenly had a huge part of his investment capital tied up in “a terrible business about which I knew very little. ... I became the dog who caught the car.”

That company, drumroll please, was Berkshire Hathaway, and now Buffett owned it.

He wound up using it as a holding company acquiring other businesses, of course, but he didn't give up on the textile industry part of it for decades afterward.

He later claimed that chasing after this dying, unprofitable business, instead of investing in more promising industries, cost his ventures hundreds of millions of dollars.

So, bottom line advice: Stay in control of your emotions. Don't make moves out of anger. Take a deep breath before reacting. Wait until tomorrow.

Mañana!

But if you do insist on acting rashly, at least do it in a way that gives you a good story many years later.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• The Trump administration reportedly sent an email to roughly 2 million federal workers Tuesday night offering the chance to take a "deferred resignation," which would mean they agree now to resign but get paid through September. NBC News says the White House expects 5%-10% of the federal workforce to quit, which, they estimate, could lead to $100 billion in savings. (NBC News)

• A federal judge temporarily blocked a White House push to pause almost all federal funding, possibly trillions of dollars, while Trump’s administration conducts an across-the-board ideological review to uproot progressive initiatives. If ultimately upheld, this executive order would completely change the relationship between Congress and the White House, with the president claiming the power simply to ignore laws and legislative funding decisions he doesn't agree with. (AP)

• Egg prices and shortages are big news in the U.S. So how has Canada, which is literally right next door, avoided any problems.? Two words: Supply management. Canada's individual farms are much smaller (think 25,000 chickens on a farm, compared to 1 million in the U.S.), and more spread out so that it's harder for diseases like bird flu to spread from one to the next. (Global News)

• Denmark says it will spend about $2 billion to bolster security in the strategic Arctic region near the United States and Russia, while France says it has discussed the possibility of sending troops to Greenland in response to Trump's repeated threats to annex the Danish territory. No plans are in place, said French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who added: "If Denmark calls for help, France will be there. ... Nobody can allow themselves to mess around with our borders." (Lemonde; Politico EU)

• Who is Liang Wenfeng, the 39-year-old DeepSeek CEO whose artificial intelligence models took the world by surprise this week, racing to the global top 10 in both performance and popularity with less-advanced chips than those available in the U.S.? Now would be a good time to learn. (WSJ)

• If you were wondering whether “Gulf of America” will stick, Google says it will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico on its maps and other products, and also revert the name of Denali in Alaska to Mount McKinley, in line with executive orders President Trump made that require the federal government to use those names. (USA Today)

• The mysterious drones that caused alarm among many New Jersey residents last year were in large part authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary said that the issue grew worse "due to curiosity," as some of the drones also belonged to hobbyists and private citizens. "This was not the enemy," she told reporters. (NBC News)