A MORNING WITH GIANTS
By JOHN W. HUEY JR. MANAGING EDITOR

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Fortune makes no secret of its affinity for getting to the top of things when it comes to covering business. We like to nose around as much as anybody in the plumbing of a company or an industry, but we almost always include the view from the executive suite. Because of that, I guess you could say we aren't that easily impressed by things like wealth, title, and position. We see a lot of them in our line of work. Every rule has exceptions, though, and one occurred in Palm Springs a few Saturday mornings ago at our Corporate Communications Seminar, a conference we host every year for public relations and advertising executives.

At all our seminars we deliver a high-powered program. The recent Global Forum in Singapore, for example, featured the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto. So when Carol Loomis, the dean of our writers, promised the folks in Palm Springs a special treat if they showed up for Saturday breakfast, almost everyone came. The crowd had fun the night before trying to guess the impending speaker's identity: Bill Clinton? Newt Gingrich? Jack Nicklaus?

Even we were bowled over, though, when Carol sauntered in with her guests: Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, appearing together on-stage for the first time anywhere.

"One of these men is the richest man in America," Carol said by way of introduction, "and the other is second." The two are friends (Fortune, January 16), and they just looked at each other and smiled--knowingly, as they say.

The interchange that followed was off the record; suffice it to say, it was one of the most fascinating discussions of business strategy and philosophy that has ever occurred in front of onlookers. It made quite clear that neither of these multibillionaires achieved that status by accident.

Not everyone, of course, is so lucky. Many of us struggle for years to get ahead in our careers, only to find that we have failed--sometimes abjectly. If that has happened to you--or you fear it could--don't despair. Instead, read Pattie Sellers's inspiring cover story on how to bounce back from failure.

JOHN W. HUEY JR. MANAGING EDITOR