Warren Buffett Bio, Wiki, Age, height, Education, Networth, Family and More

Career

Early business career

He worked from 1951 to 1954 at Buffett-Falk & Co. as an investment salesman; from 1954 to 1956 at Graham-Newman Corp. as a securities analyst; from 1956 to 1969 at Buffett Partnership, Ltd. as a general partner; and from 1970 as chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

In 1951, Buffett discovered that Graham was on the board of GEICO insurance. Taking a train to Washington, D.C., on a Saturday, he knocked on the door of GEICO's headquarters until a janitor admitted him. There he met Lorimer Davidson, GEICO's vice president, and the two discussed the insurance business for hours. Davidson would eventually become Buffett's lifelong friend and a lasting influence, and would later recall that he found Buffett to be an "extraordinary man" after only fifteen minutes. Buffett wanted to work on Wall Street but both his father and Ben Graham urged him not to. He offered to work for Graham for free, but Graham refused.

He returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker while taking a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learned, he felt confident enough to teach an "Investment Principles" night class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The average age of his students was more than twice his own. During this time he also purchased a Sinclair gas station as a side investment but it was unsuccessful.

In 1954, he accepted a job at Benjamin Graham's partnership. His starting salary was $12,000 a year (about $131,000 today). There he worked closely with Walter Schloss. Graham was a tough boss. He was adamant that stocks provide a wide margin of safety after weighing the trade-off between their price and their intrinsic value. That same year the Buffetts had their second child, Howard Graham. In 1956, Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership. At this time Buffett's personal savings were over $174,000 (about $1.87 million today) and concurrently founded Buffett Partnership Ltd.

In 1957, he operated three investment partnerships. He purchased a five-bedroom stucco house in Omaha, where he still lives, for $31,500. Buffett operated five partnerships that year. In 1959, the company grew to six partnerships and Buffett met future partner Charlie Munger. By 1960, Buffett operated seven investment partnerships. He asked one of his partners, a doctor, to find ten other doctors willing to invest $10,000 each in his partnership. Eventually, eleven agreed, and Buffett pooled their money with a mere $100 original investment of his own.

In 1961, he revealed that 35% of the partnership's assets were invested in the Sanborn Map Company. He explained that Sanborn stock sold for only $45 per share in 1958, but the company's investment portfolio was worth $65 per share. This meant that Sanborn's map business was being valued at "minus $20". Buffett eventually purchased 23% of the company's outstanding shares as an activist investor, obtaining a seat for himself on the board of directors, and allied with other dissatisfied shareholders to control 44% of the shares. To avoid a proxy fight, the board offered to repurchase shares at fair value, paying with a portion of its investment portfolio. 77% of the outstanding shares were turned in. He had reaped a 50 percent return on investment in just two years.

Assuming Berkshire

In 1962, he became a millionaire because of his partnerships, which in January 1962 had an excess of $7,178,500, of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. He merged these partnerships into one. Buffett invested in and eventually took control of a textile manufacturing company, Berkshire Hathaway. He began buying shares in Berkshire from Seabury Stanton, the owner, whom he later fired. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share. In 1965, when Buffett's partnerships began purchasing Berkshire aggressively, they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital of $19 per share. This did not include the value of fixed assets (factory and equipment). Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway at a board meeting and named a new president, Ken Chace, to run the company. In 1966, Buffett closed the partnership to new money. He later claimed that the textile business had been his worst trade. He then moved the business into the insurance sector, and, in 1985, the last of the mills that had been the core business of Berkshire Hathaway was sold.

As a billionaire

He became a billionaire when Berkshire Hathaway began selling class A shares on May 29, 1990, with the market closing at $7,175 a share. In 1998 he acquired General Re (Gen Re) as a subsidiary in a deal that presented difficulties—according to the Rational Walk investment website, "underwriting standards proved to be inadequate", while a "problematic derivatives book" was resolved after numerous years and a significant loss. Gen Re later provided reinsurance after Buffett became involved with Maurice R. Greenberg at AIG in 2002.

2007–08 financial crisis

He ran into criticism during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 and 2008, part of the Great Recession starting in 2007, that he had allocated capital too early resulting in suboptimal deals. "Buy American. I am." he wrote for an opinion piece published in the New York Times in 2008. Buffett called the downturn in the financial sector that started in 2007 "poetic justice". Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway suffered a 77% drop in earnings during Q3 2008 and several of his later deals suffered large mark-to-market losses.

A capitalized Berkshire

On August 14, 2014, the price of Berkshire Hathaway's shares hit $200,000 a share for the first time, capitalizing the company at $328 billion. While Buffett had given away much of his stock to charities by this time, he still held 321,000 shares worth $64.2 billion. On August 20, 2014, Berkshire Hathaway was fined $896,000 for failing to report December 9, 2013, purchase of shares in USG Corporation as required.

Health

On April 11, 2012, he was diagnosed with stage I prostate cancer during a routine test. He announced he would begin two months of daily radiation treatment from mid-July. In a letter to shareholders, Buffett said he felt "great – as if I were in my normal excellent health – and my energy level is 100 percent". On September 15, 2012, Buffett announced that he had completed the full 44-day radiation treatment cycle, saying "it's a great day for me" and "I am so glad to say that's over".

Film and television

Aside from countless television appearances on various news programs, He has appeared in numerous films and TV programs, both documentary, and fiction. Some film and television cameos he has made include Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), The Office (U.S.), All My Children, and Entourage (2015). He has been a guest 10 times on Charlie Rose, and was the subject of the HBO documentary feature Becoming Warren Buffett (2017) and the BBC production The World's Greatest Money Maker (2009).

Books about Buffett

In October 2008, USA Today reported at least 47 books were in print with Buffett's name in the title.

Books or publications by Buffett:

• The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America, Warren Buffett and Lawrence A. Cunningham, The Cunningham Group; revised edition (April 11, 2001). ISBN 978-0-9664461-1-1.
• The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition, Warren E. Buffett and Lawrence A. Cunningham, The Cunningham Group; 2nd edition (April 14, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9664461-2-8.

Some best-selling, or otherwise notable, books about Buffett:

• Carol J. Loomis, Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966–2012: A Fortune Magazine Book.
• Preston Pysh, Warren Buffett's Three Favorite Books (an interactive book that references Buffett's Books for online videos).
• Roger Lowenstein, Buffett, Making of an American Capitalist.
• Robert Hagstrom, The Warren Buffett Way.
• Alice Schroeder, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (written with Buffett's cooperation).
• Mary Buffett and David Clark, Buffettology and four subsequent books (combined sales of more than 1.5 million copies).
• Janet Lowe, Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Greatest Investor.
• John Train, The Midas Touch: The Strategies That Have Made Warren Buffett 'America's Preeminent Investor'.
• Andrew Kilpatrick, Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett (the longest of the books about Buffett, with 330 chapters, 1,874 pages and 1,400 photos, weighing 10.2 pounds).
• Robert P. Miles (2004). Warren Buffett Wealth: Principles and Practical Methods Used by the World's Greatest Investor. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-46511-9.
• John P. Reese, "The Guru Investor: How to Beat the Market Using History's Best Investment Strategies" (includes step-by-step stock-picking method based on Buffett's approach).
• Tavakoli, Janet M. (January 6, 2009). Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-44273-9.
• Janjigian, Vahan (May 1, 2008). Even Buffett Isn't Perfect: What You Can--and Can't--Learn from the World's Greatest Investor. Penguin. ISBN 9781440631474.