Warren Buffett

Warren Edward Buffett ( BUFF-it; born August 30, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist who is the chairman emeritus and former CEO of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his success, Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. According to Forbes, as of January 2026, Buffett's estimated net worth stood at US$148.9 billion, making him the ninth-richest person in the world.

Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. The son of U.S. congressman and businessman Howard Buffett, he developed an interest in business and investing during his youth. He entered the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 before graduating from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln at 20. He went on to graduate from Columbia Business School, where he molded his investment approach around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham. He attended New York Institute of Finance to focus on his economics background and soon pursued a business career.

He then began several business ventures and investment partnerships, including one with Graham. He created Buffett Partnership Ltd. in 1956 and his investment firm eventually acquired textile manufacturer Berkshire Hathaway, applying its name to a diversified holding company. Buffett emerged as the company's chairman and majority shareholder in 1970. In 1978, fellow investor and long-time business associate Charlie Munger joined Buffett as vice-chairman.

From 1970 to 2026, Buffett presided as the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, one of America's foremost holding companies and world's leading corporate conglomerates. He has been referred to as the "Oracle" or "Sage" of Omaha by global media as a result of having accumulated a massive fortune derived from his business and investment success. Buffett adheres to the principles of value investing and frugality despite his wealth. Buffett met Chuck Feeney and has pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes; until 2026 his giving was primarily to the Gates Foundation. He founded The Giving Pledge in 2010, with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, whereby billionaires pledge to give away at least half of their fortunes.

Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska, as the second of three children and the only son of Congressman Howard Buffett and his wife, Leila (née Stahl) Buffett. He began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School. In 1942, his father was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Congress, and after moving with his family to Washington, D.C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School and graduated from what was then Woodrow Wilson High School in 1947, where his senior yearbook picture reads: "likes math; a future stockbroker". After finishing high school and finding success with his side entrepreneurial and investment ventures, Buffett wanted to skip college to go directly into business but was overruled by his father.

Buffett showcased an interest in business and investing at a young age. He was inspired by a book he borrowed from the Omaha public library at age seven, One Thousand Ways to Make $1000. Much of Buffett's early childhood years were enlivened with entrepreneurial ventures. In one of his first business ventures, Buffett sold chewing gum, Coca-Cola, and weekly magazines door to door. He worked in his grandfather's grocery store. During his high school years, he also made money delivering newspapers, selling golf balls and stamps, and detailing cars, among other means.

On his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction (equivalent to $640 in 2025) for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route. In 1945, as a high school sophomore, Buffett and a friend spent $25 (equivalent to $447 in 2025) to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in three different barber shops across Omaha. In 1947 they sold the business to a war veteran for $1,200 (equivalent to $17,303 in 2025).

Buffett's interest in the stock market and investing dates back to his schoolboy days spent in the customers' lounge of a regional stock brokerage near his father's own brokerage office. His father took interest in cultivating and educating the young Warren's curiosity surrounding the subject of business and investing, even at one point taking him to visit the New York Stock Exchange when he was 10. At 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister Doris Buffett (who also became a philanthropist).

At 15, Warren made more than $175 monthly (equivalent to $3,130 in 2025) delivering Washington Post newspapers. In high school, he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a 40-acre farm worked by a tenant farmer. He bought the land when he was 14 years old with $1,200 (equivalent to $21,947 in 2025) of his savings. By the time he graduated from college, Buffett had amassed $9,800 in savings (equivalent to $132,608 in 2025).

Buffett worked from 1951 to 1954 at his father's firm, Buffett-Falk & Co., as an investment salesman; from 1954 to 1956 at Graham-Newman Corp. as a securities analyst; from 1956 to 1969 at several investment partnerships as the 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, and Buffett made his first purchase of GEICO stock. 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.

Buffett 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, Buffett accepted a job at Benjamin Graham's partnership. His starting salary was $12,000 a year (equivalent to $143,866 in 2025). There he worked closely with Walter Schloss. Graham was adamant that stock picks should provide a wide margin of safety after weighing the trade-off between their price and their intrinsic value. In 1956, Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership. At this time Buffett, who had amassed personal savings over $174,000 (equivalent to $2,060,526 in 2025), decided to return to Omaha, where he would quickly start a series of investment partnerships.

In 1957, Buffett operated three investment partnerships. By 1959, the total had grown to six partnerships. That summer, Buffett was introduced to his future partner Charlie Munger during a business luncheon at The Omaha Club. In 1961, Buffett 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 (equivalent to $502 in 2025), but the company's investment portfolio was worth $65 per share (equivalent to $725 in 2025). 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. Buffett reaped a 50 percent return on investment in just two years.

Buffett's writings include his annual reports and various articles. Buffett is recognized by communicators as a great story-teller, as evidenced by his annual letters to shareholders. He has warned about the pernicious effects of inflation:

The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation.

In his article, "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville", Buffett rebutted the academic efficient-market hypothesis, that beating the S&P 500 was "pure chance", by highlighting the results achieved by a number of students of the Graham and Dodd value investing school of thought. In addition to himself, Buffett named Walter J. Schloss, Tom Knapp, Ed Anderson (Tweedy, Browne LLC), William J. Ruane (Sequoia Fund), Charlie Munger (Buffett's partner at Berkshire), Rick Guerin (Pacific Partners Ltd.), and Stan Perlmeter (Perlmeter Investments). In his November 1999 Fortune article, he warned of investors' unrealistic expectations:

Let me summarize what I've been saying about the stock market: I think it's very hard to come up with a persuasive case that equities will over the next 17 years perform anything like—anything like—they've performed in the past 17. If I had to pick the most probable return, from appreciation and dividends combined, that investors in aggregate—repeat, aggregate—would earn in a world of constant interest rates, 2% inflation, and those ever hurtful frictional costs, it would be 6%!

Buffett has been a supporter of index funds for people who are either not interested in managing their own money or do not have the time. Buffett is skeptical that active management can outperform the market in the long run, and has advised both individual and institutional investors to move their money to low-cost index funds that track broad, diversified stock market indices. Buffett said in one of his letters to shareholders that "when trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients". In 2007, Buffett made a bet with numerous managers that a simple S&P 500 index fund will outperform hedge funds that charge exorbitant fees. By 2017, the index fund was outperforming every hedge fund that made the bet against Buffett.

In 1949, Buffett developed a crush on a young woman whose boyfriend had a ukulele. In an attempt to compete, he bought one of the instruments and has been playing it ever since. Though the attempt to capture her attention was unsuccessful, his music interest became a key part of his becoming a part of Susan Thompson's life, and led to their marriage. Buffett often plays the instrument at stockholder meetings and other opportunities. His love of the instrument led to the commissioning of two custom Dairy Queen ukuleles by Dave Talsma, one of which was auctioned for charity.

In 1952, Buffett married Susan at Dundee Presbyterian Church. The following year, they had their first child, Susan Alice. She was followed by Howard (b. 1954) and Peter (b. 1958). The couple began living separately in 1977, although they remained married until Susan's death in July 2004. Their daughter Susan lives in Omaha, is a national board member of Girls, Inc., and performs charitable work through the Susan A. Buffett Foundation.

In 2008, Buffett was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of approximately $62 billion (equivalent to $93 billion in 2025). In 2009, after donating billions of dollars to charity, he was ranked as the second richest man in the United States with a net worth of $37 billion (equivalent to $56 billion in 2025) with only Bill Gates ranked higher than Buffett. His net worth had risen to $58.5 billion as of September 2013 (equivalent to $81 billion in 2025).

In 1999, Buffett was named the Top Money Manager of the Twentieth Century in a survey by the Carson Group, ahead of Peter Lynch and John Templeton. In 2007, he was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in the world. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Buffett, along with Bill Gates, was named the most influential global thinker in Foreign Policy's 2010 report.

Buffett has written several times of his belief that, in a market economy, the rich earn outsized rewards for their talents. His children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. He once commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".

Buffett had long stated his intention to give away his fortune to charity, and in June 2006, he announced a new plan to give 83% of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). He pledged about the equivalent of 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (equivalent to $49,029,795,312 in 2025), making it the largest charitable donation in history, and Buffett one of the leaders of philanthrocapitalism. The foundation will receive 5% of the total each July, beginning in 2006. The pledge is conditional upon three requirements:

Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in BMGF

BMGF must continue to qualify as a charity

Each year BMGF must give away an amount equal to the prior year's Berkshire gift plus the additional 5% of net assets as required of all US foundations

Buffett joined the Gates Foundation's board as a founding trustee, but did not initially plan to be actively involved in the foundation's investments. Buffett announced his resignation as a trustee of the Gates Foundation on June 23, 2021. This represented a significant shift from Buffett's previous statements, to the effect that most of his fortune would pass to his Buffett Foundation. The bulk of the estate of his wife, valued at $2.6 billion (equivalent to $4,431,818,182 in 2025), went there when she died in 2004. He also pledged $50 million (equivalent to $89,500,463 in 2025) to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in Washington, where he began serving as an adviser in 2002.

Buffett generally does not make public statements about his political views. In 2023, journalist Roger Lowenstein described Buffett's politics as having remained internally consistent over the decades, adhering to a classical liberal viewpoint, in favor of civil rights and regulated capitalism. He left his father's Republican Party for the Democratic Party in the 1960s over civil rights, but has expressed a willingness to support candidates from either party.

In the 1990s, after passage of the 1993 Deficit Reduction Package, Buffett fundraised for and endorsed Nebraska Democrats Bob Kerrey and Peter Hoagland in their re-election efforts. He was a financial advisor to Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger during the 2003 California gubernatorial election. Buffett endorsed and donated to Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, and endorsed Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign.

Buffett described the health care reform under President Barack Obama as insufficient to deal with the costs of health care in the U.S., though he supports its aim of expanding health insurance coverage. Buffett compared health care costs to a tapeworm, saying that they compromise US economic competitiveness by increasing manufacturing costs. Buffett said in 2010 that it was not sustainable for the U.S. to devote 17% of its GDP to healthcare expenditure, noting that many other nations spent a much smaller proportion of their GDP on health expenditures, with better healthcare outcomes.

Buffett faults the incentives in the United States medical industry, that payers reimburse doctors for procedures (fee-for-service) leading to unnecessary care (overuse), instead of paying for results. Buffett raised the problem of lobbying by the medical industry, saying that they are very focused on maintaining their income.

Buffett has expressed concerns about unchecked population growth. In 2009, he met with several other billionaires to discuss healthcare, education and slowing population growth. Called "The Good Club" by an insider, the billionaires had given away $45 billion (equivalent to $55,982,383,953 in 2025 to philanthropic causes and included Oprah Winfrey, Michael Bloomberg and David Rockefeller, Jr. The meeting has drawn criticism from some right-wing blogs, with some believing the group to be a part of a secret sterilization society. Buffett is a long-time supporter of family planning. The Buffett Foundation has given over $1.5 billion (equivalent to $2,012,271,215 in 2025) to abortion research to include $427 million (equivalent to $572,826,539 in 2025) to Planned Parenthood.