Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett
Born	Warren Edward Buffett 30 8, 1930
Birthplace	Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Investor, businessman, philanthropist
Title	Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
Known for	Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, value investing, philanthropy
Education	Columbia Business School (M.S.)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom
Website	[[berkshirehathaway.com berkshirehathaway.com] Official site]

Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930) is an American investor, businessman, and philanthropist who serves as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Over a career spanning more than seven decades, Buffett transformed a struggling textile manufacturer into one of the world's largest and most diversified corporations, building an extraordinary track record of investment returns that has made him one of the most closely followed figures in global finance. Often referred to in the media as the "Oracle of Omaha" or the "Sage of Omaha," Buffett developed his approach to investing around the principles of value investing first articulated by his mentor, Benjamin Graham, at Columbia Business School. He served as Berkshire Hathaway's chief executive officer from 1970 until 2025, when he requested the board appoint Greg Abel as his successor in the CEO role while retaining the chairmanship. Beyond his business accomplishments, Buffett is known for his commitment to philanthropy, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune, and for co-founding The Giving Pledge in 2010 alongside Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates.

Early Life

Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska. He was the second of three children and the only son of Howard Buffett, a businessman and United States congressman, and Leila (née Stahl) Buffett. Growing up during the Great Depression, Buffett developed an early interest in business and finance. His father's career as a stockbroker and later as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives exposed the young Buffett to the worlds of both commerce and public affairs from an early age.

Buffett showed entrepreneurial inclinations from childhood. He reportedly bought his first stock at age 11 and filed his first tax return at age 13, claiming a deduction for his bicycle as a business expense used for his paper route. He engaged in various small business ventures throughout his youth, including selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola bottles, and weekly magazines door to door. As a teenager, he and a friend purchased a used pinball machine and placed it in a local barber shop, eventually expanding the venture to multiple machines in several shops before selling the business.

By the time he graduated from high school, Buffett had already accumulated savings of approximately $5,000—a significant sum in the late 1940s—from his various business endeavors. Despite his early aptitude for business, his father initially encouraged him to pursue higher education, which would set the stage for the formal intellectual foundation of Buffett's investment philosophy.

Education

Buffett entered the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947, where he studied business for two years. He found the academic environment insufficiently practical and transferred to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he completed his bachelor's degree in business administration at the age of 20.

After graduating from Nebraska, Buffett applied to Harvard Business School but was rejected. This proved to be a pivotal moment, as he subsequently discovered that Benjamin Graham, whose book The Intelligent Investor had made a deep impression on him, was teaching at Columbia Business School. Buffett enrolled at Columbia, where he studied under Graham and fellow professor David Dodd, both pioneers of value investing—the discipline of purchasing securities trading below their intrinsic value. Graham's teachings would form the intellectual bedrock of Buffett's career. Buffett earned his Master of Science in Economics from Columbia in 1951. He also attended the New York Institute of Finance to further develop his economics background.

Career

Early Partnerships and Graham-Newman

After completing his education at Columbia, Buffett returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker. He maintained close contact with Benjamin Graham and in 1954 accepted an offer to work at Graham's investment firm, Graham-Newman Corp., in New York City. During his time at Graham-Newman, Buffett refined the analytical methods and value-oriented discipline that would characterize his investing style for decades to come. When Graham retired and closed the firm in 1956, Buffett returned to Omaha.

In 1956, Buffett established Buffett Partnership Ltd., an investment partnership modeled in some respects on the partnership structure Graham had employed. Starting with $105,100 in capital—$100 of which was his own—Buffett attracted investments from family members and acquaintances in Omaha. Over the next several years, the partnership achieved returns that consistently exceeded market benchmarks. Buffett charged no management fee, instead taking 25 percent of profits above a 6 percent threshold, aligning his interests with those of his partners. By the early 1960s, the partnership had grown into a multimillion-dollar enterprise and Buffett had become a millionaire.

Berkshire Hathaway

In 1962, Buffett began purchasing shares of Berkshire Hathaway, then a struggling New England textile manufacturing company. He initially acquired the stock because it was trading below its intrinsic value—a classic value-investing proposition. By 1965, Buffett's partnership had accumulated enough shares to take control of the company. Buffett dissolved his investment partnerships in 1969 and distributed the assets to his partners, many of whom received shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett emerged as the company's chairman and majority shareholder in 1970, a position he would hold for more than five decades. Although the textile operations eventually proved unviable and were shut down in 1985, Buffett used Berkshire Hathaway as a vehicle for a vast array of investments and acquisitions. The company evolved into a diversified holding company with interests in insurance, energy, railroads, manufacturing, retail, and financial services.

The insurance business, beginning with the 1967 acquisition of National Indemnity Company, became central to Berkshire's strategy. Insurance operations generated "float"—premiums collected before claims are paid—which Buffett deployed as a low-cost source of investment capital. Over time, Berkshire's insurance subsidiaries grew to include GEICO and General Re, among others.

In 1978, Charlie Munger, a fellow investor and long-time business associate, joined Buffett as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Munger became Buffett's most trusted intellectual partner, and the two developed a collaborative approach to capital allocation that blended Graham's quantitative value-investing framework with a greater emphasis on the qualitative characteristics of businesses—what Buffett described as buying "wonderful companies at fair prices" rather than "fair companies at wonderful prices."

Major Investments and Transactions

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Buffett made a series of major investments that came to define Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio. His concentrated position in The Coca-Cola Company, first acquired in 1988, became one of the most celebrated investments in financial history. Berkshire's portfolio also included substantial stakes in American Express, Wells Fargo, and The Washington Post Company, among others.

Buffett was an outspoken critic of financial derivatives, which he described in Berkshire's 2002 annual report as "financial weapons of mass destruction." He warned that the proliferation of complex derivative instruments posed systemic risks to the financial system, a position that gained considerable attention in the wake of the 2007–2008 financial crisis.

During the financial crisis of 2008, Buffett made several high-profile investments that both provided capital to distressed firms and generated significant returns for Berkshire. In September 2008, Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs in the form of perpetual preferred stock carrying a 10 percent dividend yield, along with warrants to purchase common stock. Goldman Sachs subsequently redeemed Buffett's preferred stake in 2011, paying $5.65 billion—the original $5 billion investment plus a 10 percent premium.

Buffett also participated in the financing of Dow Chemical Company's $19 billion acquisition of Rohm and Haas in 2008. These crisis-era investments underscored Buffett's long-standing approach of deploying capital when others were fearful—a principle he has often summarized as being "greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy."

Berkshire's portfolio management has also included notable exits. The company sold positions in Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble at various points as Buffett rebalanced the portfolio.

Berkshire Hathaway's Growth

Under Buffett's leadership, Berkshire Hathaway grew from a failing textile company with a share price of approximately $19 in 1965 to one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. The company's Class A shares became the highest-priced shares on the New York Stock Exchange, a distinction Buffett maintained deliberately by refusing to split the stock, arguing that a high share price attracted long-term investors. (Class B shares were eventually introduced in 1996 at a fraction of the Class A price to provide more accessible entry for smaller investors.)

Berkshire recorded its most profitable single quarter in its history during one period, reflecting the cumulative strength of its diversified operations and investment portfolio.

Buffett's investment decisions continued to attract close attention from market participants. In the fourth quarter of 2025, during Buffett's final quarter as CEO, Berkshire Hathaway continued its pattern of selling more stocks than it bought, signaling a cautious posture amid elevated market valuations. Value-focused investors have long tracked Berkshire's quarterly portfolio disclosures for insight into Buffett's assessment of market conditions.

CEO Succession

At Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting on May 3, 2025, Buffett requested that the board of directors appoint Greg Abel, who had been serving as vice chairman of non-insurance operations, to succeed him as chief executive officer by the end of 2025. Buffett indicated he would remain as chairman of the board. The transition marked the end of Buffett's 55-year tenure as CEO, one of the longest such tenures in American corporate history. As of February 2026, Abel was preparing to deliver his first shareholder letter, an event closely watched by Wall Street analysts and Berkshire investors.

Investment Philosophy

Buffett's investment philosophy, rooted in the value-investing principles he learned from Benjamin Graham at Columbia, centers on several core tenets: purchasing securities at prices below their intrinsic value, focusing on businesses with durable competitive advantages (which Buffett has termed "economic moats"), maintaining a long-term holding period, and exercising discipline in capital allocation. In his letters to Berkshire shareholders—published annually and read by investors worldwide—Buffett has consistently emphasized the importance of compound interest and the virtue of patience in wealth building.

He has also articulated rules for managing risk, particularly for individuals approaching or in retirement, emphasizing the preservation of capital and the avoidance of speculation.

The "Buffett Indicator," a ratio comparing total U.S. stock market capitalization to gross domestic product, has become a tool used by analysts to gauge whether the market is overvalued or undervalued. As of early 2026, the indicator was at elevated levels, prompting discussion among market commentators about potential risks to equity markets.

Salomon Brothers

One notable chapter in Buffett's career involved his role at Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank. Berkshire Hathaway had been a major shareholder of Salomon, and when a Treasury bond bidding scandal erupted in 1991, Buffett stepped in as interim chairman to restore the firm's credibility with regulators and clients. John Gutfreund, Salomon's CEO, resigned amid the scandal. Buffett's willingness to intervene personally and his dealings with the U.S. Treasury Department were credited with preventing the firm's collapse and preserving confidence in the government bond market.

Personal Life

Buffett has been known for maintaining a lifestyle characterized by frugality relative to his wealth. He has lived in the same house in Omaha, Nebraska, that he purchased in 1958, and he is known for his preference for simple pleasures, including Cherry Coca-Cola and meals from local Omaha restaurants.

Buffett married Susan Thompson in 1952. The couple had three children. Susan Buffett moved to San Francisco in 1977 to pursue a career in music and public service, though the couple remained married. Before her departure, Susan introduced Buffett to Astrid Menks, who became his companion. Following Susan's death in 2004, Buffett married Astrid Menks in 2006.

On the topic of taxation, Buffett has publicly stated that Berkshire Hathaway is among the largest corporate taxpayers in the United States. In early 2026, Buffett noted that if approximately 800 companies paid the Internal Revenue Service at the same rate as Berkshire, no individual American would owe a "dime" in federal taxes, including Social Security taxes.

Recognition

Buffett has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career. In 2011, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Global media outlets have long referred to Buffett as the "Oracle of Omaha" and the "Sage of Omaha," reflecting his reputation for prescient investment decisions and his willingness to share his thinking publicly through annual shareholder letters, interviews, and the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha—an event that regularly attracts tens of thousands of attendees and has been described as the "Woodstock of Capitalism."

Forbes has consistently ranked Buffett among the wealthiest individuals in the world. He was ranked as the richest person in the world by Forbes in 2008. As of January 2026, Forbes estimated his net worth at approximately $148.9 billion, ranking him the ninth-richest individual globally.

Buffett's annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are considered essential reading in the investment community. The letters, which Buffett has written every year since taking control of the company, combine financial reporting with philosophical reflections on investing, business management, and economic conditions. They are archived and made freely available on the Berkshire Hathaway website.

Legacy

Buffett's influence on the field of investing extends well beyond his personal financial returns. His articulation and practice of value investing—buying undervalued securities in companies with strong fundamentals and holding them for the long term—helped popularize an approach that had been largely academic before Buffett demonstrated its practical power on a massive scale. His partnership with Charlie Munger broadened the value-investing framework to incorporate qualitative assessments of business quality, management integrity, and competitive positioning.

Through his annual shareholder letters and public appearances, Buffett has served as an educator to generations of investors. His emphasis on rational thinking, intellectual honesty about mistakes, and the discipline of operating within one's "circle of competence" has influenced investment professionals and individual investors alike.

Buffett's philanthropic commitments represent one of the largest charitable pledges in history. In 2006, he announced that he would gradually give away the bulk of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to philanthropic foundations, with the largest portion directed to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, Buffett co-founded The Giving Pledge with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, an initiative in which billionaires commit to donating the majority of their wealth to philanthropy during their lifetimes or in their wills. As of 2026, more than 200 individuals and couples from around the world had signed the pledge.

The succession to Greg Abel as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, announced in May 2025, marked the beginning of a new era for the company while Buffett retained the chairman's role. The transition was closely watched as a test of whether the corporate culture and investment discipline Buffett built over more than half a century could endure beyond his direct management.

Buffett's influence on corporate governance, capital allocation, and the role of long-term thinking in business has left a mark on American capitalism that extends far beyond the performance of any single investment portfolio.