Web Designers, West Malling, Kent

Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, revealed at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit that he could have averted the financial crisis if only he would have known how to access his voicemail. Karen Tumulty from Time magazine's Swampland blog explains that Barclays Capital wanted to use Buffet's money to bail out Lehman Brothers. But Buffet didn't know the details because they had been left in a message on his voicemail:

"It was all too complicated for Buffett to take in, in a quick phone call, so he asked Diamond [Bob Diamond, the head of Barclays Capital] to fax him the details. Buffett got back to his hotel room around midnight and was surprised to find... nothing. Lehman went under, and within days, the world was in a full-blown financial crisis.

Fast forward 10 months. Buffett, who admits he never has really learned the basics of his cell phone, asked his daughter Susan about a little indicator he had noticed on the screen: 'Can you figure out what's on there?' It turned out to be the message from Diamond that he had been waiting for that night... I caught up with Buffett afterward, and asked him whether, in retrospect, he might have gone for the deal. He pulled the simple little Samsung phone out of his pocket and pondered it for a moment. It's entirely possible, he suggested. 'I don't know.'"