Warren Buffett Biography Quotes 52 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Howard Homan Buffett, a stockbroker who later served in the U.S. Congress, and Leila Stahl Buffett. Growing up during the Great Depression, he developed a fascination with numbers, markets, and enterprise at an early age. When his father moved the family to Washington, D.C., during his time in Congress, Buffett worked various small ventures and followed stock quotations with unusual intensity for a teenager. After initial studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Buffett completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska and then earned a graduate degree in economics at Columbia Business School. At Columbia he studied under Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, whose value-investing framework and emphasis on margin of safety profoundly shaped Buffett's lifelong approach.

Formative Ventures and Investment Philosophy
Even as a boy, Buffett experimented with business pursuits and learned from them: buying and selling small items at a profit, operating paper routes, and tabulating costs and earnings with meticulous care. These activities built an instinct for assessing return on capital. At Columbia he absorbed Graham's discipline of purchasing securities below a conservatively estimated intrinsic value. Over time, especially after meeting Charlie Munger in 1959, he evolved that doctrine: rather than buying statistically cheap companies alone, he sought wonderful businesses at fair prices, especially those with durable competitive advantages, or economic moats, guided by patient, concentrated ownership and a preference for strong managers who could allocate capital effectively.

Partnership Years
After working at Graham-Newman Corporation under Benjamin Graham, Buffett returned to Omaha and, in 1956, formed Buffett Associates, the first of several investment partnerships. He ran these partnerships with a fee structure aligned to performance and grew capital by methodically purchasing undervalued securities and special situations. During this period he cultivated relationships with business leaders and investors who would recur in his career, including media executive Tom Murphy, later a Berkshire director whom Buffett praised as a model manager. By 1969, as markets rallied and bargains diminished, Buffett concluded that attractive opportunities were scarce, and he wound down the partnerships, distributing holdings to partners.

Acquiring Berkshire Hathaway and Shifting to Insurance
Among the partnership holdings was Berkshire Hathaway, then a struggling New England textile mill. Buffett gained control in 1965. He soon recognized that textiles offered poor economics, so he gradually redirected Berkshire's cash flows into more promising lines, most notably insurance. The 1967 purchase of National Indemnity provided insurance float - policyholder funds held for future claims - that could be prudently invested. This insurance engine became the heart of Berkshire's capital-compounding model. Over time, Ajit Jain built a significant reinsurance operation within Berkshire, known for disciplined underwriting on large, complex risks.

Building a Collection of Durable Businesses
Berkshire Hathaway evolved into a holding company owning a broad set of subsidiaries and equity stakes. Buffett's investments reflected a willingness to act decisively when prices diverged materially from long-term value. He made a pivotal investment in American Express in the mid-1960s after a crisis depressed its shares, and he acquired See's Candies in 1972, which taught him the power of brand and pricing power. In 1973 he bought a significant stake in the Washington Post Company and built a lasting friendship with its publisher, Katharine Graham. Later, he purchased a large stake in Coca-Cola in 1988-1989, a holding that became emblematic of his focus on consumer franchises. The 1990s saw Berkshire take major positions in media and financial services; during the Salomon Brothers crisis in 1991, Buffett stepped in as interim chairman to stabilize the firm and safeguard the broader financial system.

Management Style and Shareholder Communications
Buffett's management style emphasizes autonomy for subsidiary leaders, rational capital allocation, and transparency with shareholders. Berkshire's annual letters, written in a plain, analytical tone, have become essential reading for investors, students, and executives. At the company's annual meeting in Omaha, often called the Woodstock for Capitalists, he and Charlie Munger fielded hours of unscripted questions, honing principles on topics such as intrinsic value, opportunity cost, circle of competence, leverage aversion, and the central importance of trust. He long admired and collaborated with managers like Tom Murphy at Capital Cities/ABC, whose operating excellence he cited in letters and at meetings.

Major Transactions and Crisis-Era Deals
Berkshire's wholly owned subsidiaries span insurance, utilities, railroads, manufacturing, and retailing. A landmark deal was the purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, announced in 2009 and completed in 2010, reflecting confidence in America's long-term economic engine. In 1996 Berkshire acquired the remainder of GEICO, an insurer Buffett had studied since the 1950s. During the 2008 financial crisis, he provided capital to companies such as Goldman Sachs and General Electric on terms that balanced downside protection with upside participation. In partnership with 3G Capital, led by Jorge Paulo Lemann and his colleagues, Berkshire helped finance the combination of H.J. Heinz and later the Kraft Heinz Company. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Berkshire's largest equity holding became Apple, a significant bet on a dominant consumer technology ecosystem. The company also made sizable energy and infrastructure commitments, and invested in traditional energy producers, including Occidental Petroleum, while maintaining a conservative balance sheet.

Team, Succession, and Governance
As Berkshire grew, Buffett cultivated a deep bench of leaders. Charlie Munger served for decades as vice chairman and intellectual foil; his death in 2023 marked the end of one of business's most productive partnerships. Greg Abel, who oversees Berkshire's non-insurance operations, and Ajit Jain, who leads insurance, were named vice chairs in 2018. Berkshire later identified Greg Abel as Buffett's designated CEO successor. On the investment side, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler joined as portfolio managers, gradually taking responsibility for portions of Berkshire's equity portfolio. The board, which at various times included friends such as Bill Gates, supported a culture of long-term alignment, minimal bureaucracy, and frank risk assessment.

Philanthropy and Public Influence
Buffett has committed the vast majority of his wealth to philanthropy. In 2006 he announced recurring gifts, primarily to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and to foundations run by his children, Susan, Howard, and Peter. In 2010 he co-founded the Giving Pledge with Bill and Melinda French Gates, inviting billionaires to commit to giving most of their wealth to charitable causes. His public writings and interviews advocated rational tax policy, corporate responsibility, and investor education, while maintaining that markets reward patience and discipline over speculation.

Personal Life and Character
Buffett married Susan Thompson in 1952; they had three children and shared a partnership that combined family life, music, and community engagement. After Susan's death in 2004, he married Astrid Menks in 2006. Despite global prominence, he kept routines anchored in Omaha, working from a modest office and championing the virtues of simplicity, trust, and a long time horizon. Friends and colleagues frequently note his loyalty and humor, balanced by rigor in analyzing businesses and an insistence on ethical conduct. He credits mentors such as Benjamin Graham and associates like Charlie Munger for refining his thinking, while acknowledging the contributions of operators across Berkshire, from insurance leaders like Ajit Jain to hands-on executives across subsidiaries.

Enduring Legacy
Warren Buffett's career demonstrates how clear principles, compounded patiently, can produce extraordinary results. He fused Graham's analytical discipline with a deep appreciation for quality and management, shaped by interactions with figures like Katharine Graham and Tom Murphy. Through Berkshire Hathaway he built an institution designed to outlast any single leader, with decentralized decision-making, a fortress balance sheet, and incentives aligned to owners. His influence extends beyond investing into education, philanthropy, and corporate governance. Even as markets change, the core ideas he championed - rationality, integrity, and the power of compounding - remain central to how countless investors and executives approach decisions.

Our collection contains 52 quotes who is written by Warren, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Motivational - Wisdom - Free Will & Fate - Equality.

Other people realated to Warren: Maria Bartiromo (Journalist), Chris Chocola (Politician)

• 1997 The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America (Book)
• 1965 Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders (Book)

• Wikipedia