For Buffett, Goldman Deal Was a Snap

Billionaire Warren Buffett has been getting a lot of calls lately from struggling Wall Street firms looking for a savior, from Bear Stearns to Lehman Brothers to AIG. He’s turned them all down, the Wall Street Journal reports, but when Goldman Sachs called Tuesday, the Oracle of Omaha ponied up $5 billion within hours, on a gut feeling that Goldman was a survivor. "I didn't see a book," he says, "I just made a judgment."

The terms took 15 minutes to hash out, Buffett says. He chatted with Lloyd Blankfein for 5 minutes and told him to go back to work briefing Congress on the need for the bailout.
He spent the evening reading the papers and "nibbling" on Cheetos and licorice, and was asleep by 10:30. But, Buffett says, if the government doesn’t complete its own buyout plan—and he thinks it will—his investment will "get killed, and so will all our other investments."
(More Goldman Sachs stories.)