20+% annualised return on investment over the past 50 years! Warrant Buffett and Charlie Munger are God-like investors in our universe, and those essays from annual reports to all shareholders are the valuable insights, summaries and pure knowledge.

I’ve got to admit I can’t comprehend quite a lot of the contend as an absolute outsider and newbie in investing, nevertheless still learned quite a lot from this book.

Will definitely revisit in the future.

Было очень интересно прочесть книгу одного из самых богатых людей мира и признанного как самого успешного мирового инвестора Уоррена Баффета. Точнее это не совсем книга в привычном смысле этого значения. Она состоит из писем-посланий к акционерам компании Баффета Berkshire Hathaway в последние несколько десятилетий. И тем самым это делает книгу ещё более интересней и ценной для читателей, так как каждое письмо носит личностный характер в обращении к акционерам его компании.

Уорен Баффет в письмах делится с акционерами своими мыслями о руководстве активами принадлежащими Berkshire Hathaway, принципам и методами увеличения капитала, предупреждения и минимизации потерь, и немало пишет о подходах к управлению, корпоративных ценностях, репутации, о высоких стандартах финансового и бухгалтерского менеджмента, о взглядах на налогообложения и современных стандартах аудиторских компаний и о других не менее важных темах и вопросах.

Не смотря на то, что большинство того, о чем говорится в книге, давно известно и те нормы, способы, методы и стандарты в управлении своей компании и её инвестиционного портфеля далеко не новые. Я сказал бы, что они даже избитые и постоянно и везде звучат из уст практически каждого топ менеджера, предпринимателей и владельцев компаний развитых стран мира. Это своего рода корпоративный популизм.

Но фактом того какое место и какую роль занимает в жизни "оракул из Омахи" становится понятно, что в отличии от последних, он не только заявляет о подобных высоких стандартах работы, Баффет и его компания ревностно придерживается их и как никто другой работают на высокие результаты и безупречную репутации не только на словах, но и на деле.

Ведь капитализация свыше $350 млрд и личное состояние свыше 72 млрд доказывают, что так умело "работать со страхом и жадностью" умеет только Баффет, в отличии от остальных популистов тех же постулатов. Он знает, когда не стоит боятся, в отличии от остальных, и действовать и когда наоборот, стоит умерить свой аппетит, когда риски слишком высокие.

Замечу, что книга немного сложная для восприятия людям без достаточного финансового и бухгалтерского образования. Она будет легкая скорее для инвесторов, финансовых экспертов, студентов экономических факультетов и другим специалистам финансового менеджмента.

I can see how great this book can be, so I wanted to give it 5 stars. However, the verbiage and many concepts are currently beyond me so I can’t give it the review it truly deserves. It was very dry but a great resource for someone with a little more knowledge in the finance areas. I will eventually updated this with a more accurate review when I learn more and can fully comprehend the book.

This book is a composition of Warren Buffets own views, and crystallized his investment and management philosophy for me in a way that I hadn't fully understood before. Other than a few quotes, everything I knew about Warren Buffet was learned second hand from other authors, but this book was a relatively undoctored account of the workings of Berkshire Hathaway and value investing philosophy. Berkshire Hathaway's structure and philosophy is quite unique, and made me think about corporate governance and personal finance from a different perspective. 4.5 stars for narrative and content, 3.5 stars for writing because it is bit of a slog.

Very interesting. This is like the Poor Richard's Almanac of investing: lots of common sense ideas, if no particularly brilliant insights. A lot of things went over my head--hey, I was an English major--but one of the best Buffett ideas is this: you don't have to know everything to be good at something. I'll keep this in mind moving forward.

As a child Buffet was obsessed with entrepreneurship. Only by desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession will bring riches. Obsession makes it more likely for you to stick to your plans with persistence but probably only few investors will devote their lives to their investment like Buffet did. From this book you will take away many lessons on investment from Warren Buffet which guided him in becoming the most glorified and respected investor of all times. This book also describes how Buffet took control of Berkshire Hathaway. Reading these essays will not make you rich but it will give you some insight into the management and investing world. You may also find interesting the annual letters to shareholders which are published on Berkshire Hathaway site starting from 1965.

Full of insights about investing. loved it.

The book is an encyclopedia to investors, analysts and entrepreneurs and throws light on various aspects of investing in a business with the means to generate “Growth” and not just “Value” in the investments that you are making. The author shares his experiences of years that consists of his strategies of investing into business be it a new venture, subsidiaries or acquiring the shares of a well established firm. Warren Buffet emphasizes on investing in business at a sensible prize rather than buying the business at a bargain able price whose outcomes may or may not be favorable in the long run. Businesses can be misread as quoted by Buffet and choosing a controlled company is favorable as the capital allocation in such company’s is done by the investors. Investing in a business depends on investor’s understanding of business and favorable long term prospects with competent & honest people and the one that is being offered at an attractive price. Growth in investing can be a positive or a negative component, growth is beneficial only when the business in point can give incremental returns.
Investing in subsidiaries or common stocks in businesses or industries that won’t undergo major changes will always prove to be competitive in a long run, since rapidly changing environments may offer a chance for huge wins as well as uncertainties. While investing in a business of an outstanding company the investor needs to understand the fact that the returns of such an investment might take excess amount of time to give the expected returns. Investing in a successful business is not rocket science as quoted by Buffet, the goal of an investor should be to purchase at a rational price, a part interest in an easily understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher 5 to 20 years from now. Common investor should put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years and so will the profit market. Allocation of capital is also crucial to business and investment management, restricted earnings are seldom valueless to owners, but they often must be discounted heavily. These earnings may be retained with equal feasibility or distributed. Many corporations have consistently shown good returns on equity and overall incremental capital, when a large portion of these retained earnings are employed on economically unattractive basis.
Shareholders are better off if earnings are retained only to expand the high return business, with balanced dividends payouts or repurchase of stocks. Shareholders of a public corporation prefer consistent and predictable dividend payouts. These payments should reflect the long-term expectations on earnings and return on incremental capital.
The main discussion of this book is that the best business to own is the one which gives high return rate for extended period of time. The Author gives insight on American economy and culture over the years and how it has changed in the last 25-30 years.

The Oracle at his brilliant best. A must for anyone interested in investing

Interesting book with many good insights on managing large corporations, investing, and corporate accounting. The only downside is that it's extremely repetitive. All major ideas could have been summarized in 5-10 pages. So, save your time and find and read a good summary online.

Best investments book I’ve ever read

I thought this "book" was more direct advice on investing and personal finance. Through reading this book, I found out that it's about:

- High volume investing
- Operating a (public) business

But what I loved about the book is that it's not direct. Warren won't tell you how to be rich. He just lays out his philosophy and thinking about money, businesses and people.

I think it's not a very useful information for people looking to make small trades in the market, but a gold mine for those going in the finance world (think hedge fund managers).