Latest News
- Warren Buffett Helps Launch the First Nonprofit IPO 1 August 2007
- $68B Slim is 'world's richest man' 1 August 2007
- Buffett cuts back PetroChina stake 1 August 2007
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. 
About
Warren Edward Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska on August 30, 1930, to Howard and Lily Stahl Buffett. As a boy, Buffett was always fascinated with numbers and could do complex mathematical computations in his head. At the age of eight, he began reading his father’s books on the stock market. At age 13, Buffett started a paper route and filed an income tax return, deducting his bicycle as a business expense. He attended the prestigious Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania for three years, and then transferred to the University of Nebraska. There he read the “Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham, who later became his mentor and life-long friend. Buffett earned a bachelors degree in economics from the University of Nebraska in 1950 and a masters degree in finance from Columbia University in 1951.
Buffett worked for Graham at Graham-Newman, a mutual fund company from 1952-1956 until it was liquidated. Buffett established Buffett Associates, Ltd., his first investment partnership in 1956. It was financed by $100 from Buffett, the general partner, and $105,000 from seven limited partners consisting of Buffett’s family and friends. His investment partnership earned 29.5% compounded annually between 1956-1969 in a market that generated only 7-11%.
In 1962, the Buffett partnership began purchasing shares of Berkshire Hathaway, a large and ailing textile manufacturing company that was selling for less than its working capital.
In 1969, Buffett liquidated his investment partnership to focus on running Berkshire Hathaway. Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s vice chairman at the time, regarded Buffett’s purchase of Berkshire a mistake. However, to Munger’s surprise, Berkshire Hathaway became one of the largest holding companies in the world. Buffett redirected the company’s cash surplus generated by its profitable insurance subsidiaries to acquire private businesses such as Dairy Queen and See’s Candies, and stocks of pubic companies such as Coca Cola and American Express.
Buffett served as the company’s executive committee chairman from 1965 to 1970, and has since served as the company’s Chairman and CEO since 1975. As of March 8, 2007, Buffett’s net worth is estimated at $52 billion. This fortune places him in the number two spot of Forbes’ 2007 list of the World’s Richest People, behind William Gates III of Microsoft.
