Once or twice a year I come to read a biography of a great man and I just fall for them. This was definitely one of these occasions, I don't think it's possible to dislike this man. His thorough biography is full of things I like in one. Early attempts at what they eventually succeed in, business deals described in detail, character integrity, etc. I rarely go as far as naming someone my idol, but this past ten days Warren Buffet has become one.

The author did the best he could with the boring low-key life of Warren Buffett. I liked the insight in Buffett’s business philosophy though.

There are many reviews of this book so I won’t dive deep here - But I truly appreciated both its depth and breadth. I was particularly intrigued and fascinated to the attention to Buffetts character, as opposed to just his financial acumen and many business successes.

This is a fantastic book - it absolutely explained Buffett’s investment philosophy, but furthermore, it explained the background in which Buffett operated. (And I, too, think this book is better than The Snowball in terms of describing Buffett’s life).

My major takeaway is akin to my major takeaway from reading letters from Marathon Investments. In that, capital cycles are almost always similar. Bull time and bear time always come and go. People will always be irrational both when things go up and when things go down: price will always either be too high, but when it goes lower, it will always be too low. Market timing is obviously pointless (no one can get it right consistently), and there’s a reason why intrinsic investors are only the ones who live to old age and still around in the business.

Couple highlights I did on the book. On Omaha’s first experience of the Depression (which is akin to many other people’s experience in the country at first, initially, Such as what Benjamin Roth wrote in his book The Great Depression: A Diary):

Omaha, at first, had thought itself immune to the Depression, but by 1932, wheat prices had plunged and farmers were eating in soup kitchens. Staunchly Republican Omaha voted Roosevelt in a landslide; the next year, eleven thousand registered for relief.

- Buffett’s personal life was truly a sore point. He was single handily devoted in his work, that:

Warren’s sons felt emotionally neglected by him. Bowie, the second child, was a bit of a troublemaker, and was repeatedly frustrated by his dad’s lack of outward feeling.

- On the discussion of why Buffett’s long-term investing philosophy beats short-term, trend chasing money managers:

What these managers feared was the possibility not of being wrong, but of being out of step. They were worried about being second-guessed - not over the long term, but quarter by quarter.

(This reminds me a lot of my view of the fashion industry. The fashion designers are not paid to design the most beautiful outfits that display the maximum appeal - they’re getting paid to trend set and trend follow)

- In prediction of stock and future, the author wrote “his genius was in not trying”

- “… even in that troubled time, he could envision the strom’s passing.” A good chunk of Buffett’s investment did not yield significant returns initially - in fact, many of them were bought cheap, and got even cheaper, often to the verge of bankruptcy seemingly from the outside. However, when the fundamental of the business is sound and margin of safety is there, the business will survive and eventually take off (and make up all their loses right away)

- When buying a company, think if you’d like to compete against the company. If your answer is you don’t want to or it’s not worth the annoyance, then chances are the company is sound. To quote Peter Thiel, “competition is for losers”

- For most index business (such as newspaper, in Buffett's case), there's no point of buying (or even competing) with the #2 player. Even with a large cash backing, the #2 player will always not be able to dominate meaningful enough of the market to be reasonably profitable. Eventually the #2 will fold, paving way for monopoly (or, the #2 is so technicality advance, they’re in reality #1 of the category just catching up to their market share, such as MySpace vs Facebook)

- (Benjamin Graham sounds like an asshole in terms of his personal life)

- A company can lie to itself too - GEICO lied about its own finances to itself (even the board), which almost led to its collapse (After Enron sandal, many of the ex-employees of Enron were shocked that the sandal took place too. It’s hard to see the full view when you’re in the view)

- There’s very little incentive to get your feet wet and become visible - best when invest in the dark with position less than 5% reporting requirements

Everyone is interested in a billionaire! How he did it? Where did his ideas come from? Was he worthy of it? One ends up forming an opinion on such people very easily. Warren Buffet, unlike the Gates and the Jobs of the world, is however not that public a figure. His intelligence does not necessarily impact the common man's life so openly, and so frequently as it does for a few others. But having said that, reading about him has made me realise that not knowing about Buffet's ideologies, his eccentricities and his idiosyncracies, apart from his genius in doing what he does with such clarity of mind, is like knowing everything about Da Vinci but for his Mona Lisa masterpiece. Roger Lowenstein, in a brilliant manner, brings out the smartness that lay behind this young Omaha kid called Warren Buffet that eventually made him the second richest man in the world. Lowenstein, make note, has written this brilliant book without any interaction with Buffet himself who "would not collaborate in any way, nether attempt to interfere with the project". But maybe this handicap is what allows Lowenstein to dig deeper behind the rationales of Buffet's stock purchases, to understand his thought process and to portray to the reader the rise of the 'oracle of Omaha' across the decades in a backdrop of a volatile stock market wherein new theories came and went in a flash, that sticking to your beliefs required courage and determination. Buffet has that in aplomb! A must read book (you will enjoy it more if you have ever traded in stocks yourselves) about a genius who comes probably just once a century...

I chose to read this book after reading The Education of a Value Investor Guy Spier. Spier found inspiration in Warren Buffett's life and investment style after reading Roger Lowenstein's biography of Buttett. In addition, I grew up in Omaha, so I wanted to learn more about the Oracle of Omaha. I was impressed with Buffett's intellect, and his ability to tune out the noise and focus on the investing principles that he had discovered to be true. I also appreciated Buffett's empowering leadership style. Buffett trusted the leaders of the companies that he purchased, and he didn't get in their way as he let them lead their companies to the best of their knowledge. I'm glad to see that Buffett ended up donating his wealth later in life, but I was saddened that he wasn't more generous along the way. I believe that life is more rewarding if lived with a spirit of generosity throughout as opposed to giving away wealth once full financial security has been achieved.

My dad bought me this book and I finally read it.

In some ways this guy is the ultimate Mr Burns-like single-minded capitalist. But to be fair to him: he's consistently fought for his income bracket to have to pay much higher taxes, repeatedly attacked Bush's tax cuts for the rich, and finally commited to giving away almost all of his money to the Gates foundation. In some ways I think he is quintessentially American, in the same sense that Citizen Kane is the quintessential American movie.

Excelente biografia contando detalles y puntadas de la vida de este alabado señor.

Todo lo cuenta de un modo entretenido y fluido que, casi deja a uno con suspenso al final de cada capitulo tratando de averiguar que pasara después. En especial siendo consciente de que todo esta basado en hechos reales.

Además describe los inicios de su sociedad, inversiones y tips para cualquier wannabe que quiera intentarlo.

Requisito para inversionistas por completo!!!!

The common thing between Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and Warren Buffett is their entrepreneurial mindset since their childhood. But Buffett is the only one, to my knowledge, who flourished at school and business and graduated from college with straight A's, unlike the others mentioned above. The childhood of Buffett was tough and permeated many difficulties as he was born in the era that was hit by the great depression. However, this was the reason that made money always in the mind of Buffett. This propelled him to work hard at early age. His entrepreneurial genius showed when he started gaining profits by buying and selling stocks at the age of 11, a year later after his father took him to visit New York stock exchange. He also worked for several newspaper companies delivering and collecting subscrption fees, and by the age of 14, he bought 40 acres of land for $1,200.

At Columbia Business school, Buffett learnt a lot from his economist professor and later his mentor Benjamin Graham. The most valuable lesson Buffett learnt from Graham was how to successfully make investment with companies that are less likely to fail him. This was done by following Graham's investment philosophy which is investment must be made after analyzing the intrinsic value of a company and comparing it with the market value. This approach of analyzing stocks has helped Buffett to often have successful investment as such analysis requires diligent research that involves adding up all of a company's assets, including its revenue streams and future prospects. So, how is it to know whether to buy stock by this analysis; if the analysis shows that the intrinsic value of a company is greater than the market value, then it is a safe bet to buy.

Buffett, as he is having an entrepreneurial mindset since a young age, started his own business at the age of 26. Withinone year he managed to raise $500,000 and formed Buffett Associates, Ltd. The raised money was invested in buying stocks of undervalued companies' stocks. The theories of Buffett's professor, Graham, helped him to successfully invest the raised money and gain him profits. Within three years, Buffett doubled the money he raised for his company. Then Buffett took a brave step by buying a full control shares in Dempster Mill Manufacturing which was suffering at the time Buffett purchased the shares. The reason why Buffett did buy the shares is because I found by applying the intrinsic value analysis that the company had a solid intrinsic value; three years later, Buffett sold the company with $2.5 million in profit.

Buffett's net worth increased dramatically during the 1980s as a result of the cut in interest which made stocks so attractive. By 1979, the Berkshire, Buffett's company, was selling a share for $270. However, when interest rate was reduced, the price jumped to $1310 per share making Buffett hit the Forbes magazine of being one of the richest businessmen with net worth of $620 million.

Despite Buffett considered one of the wealthiest people on the earth, he is humble and one of the greatest philanthropist.  After his wife death, he made decision of donate most of it to charity. So far, one sixth of his fortune has been divided among different Buffett family foundations, and the rest will be allocated over time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

All in all, Buffett had a very humble and tough childhood, and his hard work has led him to be successful, along with his professor and mentor Graham who tuaght Buffett valuable lessons on how to be smart when investing.

Buffet's is the story of benevolent capitalism. His passion for the money game is not greedy, rather childish. He didn't collect money for the money itself nor for the life pleasures it could bring. He did it for fun!! It's like playing a real life board game. He championed value investing and created his own investment school.
Quotes that stuck with me are:
1- it's not worth doing well what's not worth doing altogether.
2- Rule 1: dont lose money, Rule 2: don't forget rule #1
3- you don't create value by cutting the pie into more slices
4- stocks are not gambling chips, they are a piece of a company's intrinsic value

This is a must read!!!

This magnificent biography not only gives a thorough overview of Buffett’s fascinating life and rather quirky personality, but also shows in considerable detail how he conducted some of his storied deals with companies such as GEICO, American Express and Salomon Brothers. There’s more to it than meets most eyes.

Each of these deals involved not mere stock picking, but skillful management of complicated business scenarios, sometimes involving surprising stakeholders. The sheer complexity behind each of these investments was a surprise for me.

Although the anecdotes about memorized balance sheets, a refused $11 bet and a $1.50 malt are cute, the big picture is breathtaking. I started the book wishing to gain insight into Buffett’s skills and finished it with healthy respect for the man.

I recently re-read this Buffett biography (first published in 1995 and now re-issued with a new Afterword, dated January 2008) and then read Alice Schroeder's The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. Both are first-rate. Which to select if reading only one? That depends on how much you wish to know about Buffett's personal life, including his relations with various family members, and how curious you are about his personal hang-ups, peculiarities, eccentricities, fetishes, etc. If you can do without any of that, Roger Lowenstein's biography is the one to read. I also highly recommend the recently published Second Edition of The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America, with content selected, arranged, and introduced by Lawrence Cunningham.

As does Schroeder but in somewhat greater detail, Lowenstein rigorously examines subjects that include:

1. The development of Buffett's business philosophy
2. His most important business relationships over the years
3. His most important personal relationships over the years
4. His non-negotiable values
5. What Berkshire Hathaway accomplished under his leadership as CEO
6. Buffett's insecurities
7. His views on philanthropy
8. His social awareness
9. His relationship with Melinda and Bill Gates
10. Why no one else has achieved comparable results by following Buffett's advice

Warren Buffett is among the most effective CEOs in recent business history (at least since the conclusion of World War II) and there is certainly a great deal of value to be learned from his performance as both a leader and a manager. Although a business icon, he is also an exceptionally human being because of a unique combination of insecurities, hang-ups, fetishes, neuroses, etc. that various loved ones (notably wife Susie, daughter Susie, and companion Astrid) were able to manage with exquisite sensitivity. Like so many others, he cares more and more deeply than he is (generally) able to express. That said, one close associate and dear friend, Bill Ruane, suggested to Lowenstein after his book was published, "I'm not sure if you captured how [begin italics] tough [end italics] Warren is." Perhaps no one can but credit Roger Lowenstein with providing in this volume a thorough, balanced, multi-dimensional , and insightful explanation of how an ordinary man in almost every other respect accomplished greater success in business than almost anyone else ever has...or ever will.