My son and I joined 31,000 fans of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on Saturday. They are marvels of plain-speaking genius.

People make the pilgrimage to Omaha every year in early May to hear these masters make sense of the investment and finance world. My pleasure is rather on a smaller scale—listening to public figures talk candidly with natural humor, unmatched depth of knowledge about their field and a generosity to their audience that gives you shivers. Basically you have two billionaires (Buffet being the world’s richest man) who take questions from 9 am till noon and then from 1 till 3 pm from their shareholders. That’s any question—from a boy’s plea to Buffet to buy the Cubs from Sam Zell (no) to one about his interest in family-owned companies in Germany (he wants BHH to own great companies the world over) to whether investment banks are just too big to manage themselves anymore (yes).

Activists and zealots of all kinds try to play “gotcha” with Buffet, who disarms them by simply telling the truth. When asked by one young man (after the young man had praised his work) if he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior, Buffet said, “No, I’m agnostic,” and went on to make a magnanimous statement about how that made him accepting of all religions. Munger, who wields the pause and the period with great power, simply said, “I don’t talk about my religion.” Next question.

Protesters are treated with civility. At this meeting as well as last year’s, one protest centered on the environmental effects of four Klamath River (Oregon) hydroelectric dams, the first having been built in 1907 and all now being up for re-licensing. These are ancient grievances related to salmon, jobs, Native American rights, blue-green algae and power generation. Buffet (and the head of the power company too) acknowledged that the issues are so complex that they must be answered by society in the form of 28 different entities; he is prevented from taking a personal role in the issue by regulators. After the third question related to the issue, Buffet finally, reasonably, said that that was enough for the day. Respect for the audience, respect for the protesters!

Buffet’s generosity abounds. A community college professor went into great detail about what she teaches her students about investing—cataloging books and assignments so specifically that the crowd at the Qwest Center started clapping to get her to stop and actually pose her question. Flustered, she interpreted the applause as praise and thanked the crowd before continuing. The crowd clapped again: hurry up! Buffet then removed the sting of impatience from the moment by affirming her statement about the importance of investing in oneself through education and reading.

Last year, when I went to this meeting for the first time, I thought that Buffet must be the best media-trained speaker I had ever seen (and as a former reporter covering the Senate and House, cabinet officials and other CEOs, I’ve seen many skilled speakers). He told a story about being an introvert for the first part of his life and getting help from a Dale Carnegie course so he could speak in public without feeling deathly awful. To see him interact with a stadium full of people now is to see how clarity of thought and integrity naturally have a confident voice.

He’s someone who is grateful for his good fortune and the fact he can get up every day and do what he wants (with the exception of working out with his trainer). The effect on the crowd is revitalization—this from a 76-year-old man and his 84-year-old colleague! You emerge from the Qwest Center into the windy sunshine absolutely smitten and caught by the unexpected joy in this place. Gotta love this return on your investment.