The subtitle is Warren Buffett and the Business of Life and the author is Alice Schroeder (2008).
I think that reading about successful people can be accretive to one’s own understanding of the world – even if that person has become something of a government mouthpiece over the past few years. But, whether propagandist or not, Buffett has been an investor without equal for many decades.
What’s clear is that Buffett had a singular focus from a young age to make a lot of money, and adopted the Benjamin Graham approach of finding a margin of safety to achieve that end. He appreciated the concept of compounding and enforced a frugality on his family, since any dollar saved stood to become multiples on itself if he could invest successfully. He understood the value of “float” and thus targeted companies where it existed. The other interesting fact was that Berkshire Hathaway was a floundering textile company in New Bedford, MA that he took a large position in way back when. Even though the underlying business was underwhelming, the company ended up becoming the entity that he used going forward.
The mystique of Warren Buffett has been somewhat undermined in the last few years. The book makes clear that he has always taken a very negative view of Wall Street firms, believing that the employees should not have outsized salaries if the shareholders are taking a bath. Yet, he continues to invest in these firms and was only too happy to lobby for bailout funds in 2008, which strikes me as a bit of hypocrisy – there is a risk to investing which he was not prepared to accept.
