Snowball Thoughts

I posted yesterday that I'm reading The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, a biography of Warren Buffett. I thought I'd post some of the points I found interesting in the book as I go along (I'm 1/4 of the way done so far.) Here's what I'd like to share so far:

• Buffett had a bad childhood. His mother was very critical (abusive) of him and his siblings. For Buffett, this led him to be very insecure.

• Buffett was always a "geek." He had very poor people skills. To combat this, he forced himself to go to a Dale Carnegie seminar.

• He had a basically photographic memory -- he would memorize his college textbooks BEFORE the first day of classes. He was also great with numbers (no shock there), a real genius.

• He often dressed poorly -- not really caring what he looked like (kind of a rumpled look.) Reminded me of what I've heard about Sam Walton. I'm not saying these guys were slobs, but they didn't really care about impressing others with fine clothes or spending money on fine clothes for that matter.

• Buffett worked hard at spending less than he earned and did this in two ways: 1. he worked to make as much money as possible (he was obsessed with making money) and 2. he spent as little as possible (most people would probably call him "cheap".) Again, a lot like Sam Walton.

• He rented a house initially because he wanted as much capital as possible available to invest. When he did finally buy a home, he named it "Buffett's Folly" because he saw the $31k purchase price as "$1 million compounded over a dozen or so years." ;-)

• Like many successful men, he didn't start at the top. His initial business (after working for Ben Graham) was all him -- the investing, the office work, the accounting, etc. He did it all.

I'm really enjoying the book and will post other thoughts as they come up.

Comments

[jay]

Warren Buffet has an op-ed in the NYT today on why he's currently buying American stocks: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

[Kevin M]

I can't wait to read this book after I'm done with a couple others I have lined up. Thanks for the quotes though.

[Rob]

Glad to hear you like it FMF. I just picked it up at the library but haven't started reading it yet.

[Victor]

When he did finally buy a home, he named it "Buffett's Folly" because he saw the $31k purchase price as "$1 million compounded over a dozen or so years.

For this to be true, he would have had to increase his $31000 investment at an average of 17% a year with compounding to reach a million dollars in 12 years.

No easy feat that.

[Victor]

When he did finally buy a home, he named it "Buffett's Folly" because he saw the $31k purchase price as "$1 million compounded over a dozen or so years.

For this to be true, he would have had to increase his $31000 investment at an average of 17% a year with compounding to reach a million dollars in 12 years.

No easy feat that.

[Victor]

Sorry about the double post.

[ekrabs]

Great highlights! Thanks for sharing.