Warren Buffett

Eric Wolff went to work for the consulting firm McKinsey & Company after graduating from college in the spring of 2005. As he described it at the time on his Facebook page, he spent the following summer reading books that “warn of the inadequacy of the American Dream, and how it tempts generally good, intelligent people to sell the better parts of themselves for lives they later wish they could relive.” By reading these books, Mr. Wolff hoped he would be able to escape such a grim fate.

Two years later, he left McKinsey and enrolled instead in the Columbia Publishing Course, the immensely popular, six-week book-biz training seminar that has been taught since 1988 by former publishing executive Lindy Hess.  read more »

With the announcement last week that its top seven executives would forgo annual bonuses for 2008, Goldman Sachs continues to demonstrate why it has always stood out from the rest of Wall Street as a leader that represents the best in capitalism. By giving up tens of millions of dollars in compensation, Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, its co-presidents, Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, and their colleagues understand that in tough times, leadership by example matters. Indeed, their willingness to give up money that they rightly deserve—these are the executives, after all, who deftly steered Goldman through the storm as peers such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch crashed and foundered on the rocks—proves why brilliant managers deserve big bucks when their companies have a good year.  read more »

From Janet Maslin's review of Alice Schroeder's new Warren Buffett biography The Snowball:

Ms. Schroeder is as insightful about her subject’s precise anticipation of current financial crises as she is about his quirky personal story. And she is a clear explicator of fiscal issues. This sprawling, colorful biography will mesmerize anyone interested in who Mr. Buffett is or how he got that way.

A photo of Mr. Buffett at age 2 shows him grinning cryptically while clutching a toy tightly to his chest. It goes without saying that he was an unusual child.

Here's the photo she's referring to, which appears to show a toddler with a toy. Cryptic, indeed.

As long as Warren Buffet's appearance tonight at an intimate and expensive fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton attracts plenty of high rollers to the campaign and helps line Hillary's coffers, an endorsement doesn't really matter.

That's the argument made by one one major Clinton fund-raiser who will attend the dinner this evening. The fund-raiser said that the fact that Buffet is not endorsing Clinton (he is also helping Barack Obama) doesn't matter so much as long as he draws out the top donors as the second-quarter deadline approaches.

"We're not talking Tony Bennett here," said the fund-raiser, arguing that Buffet amounted to a "new breed of celebrity" who could attract more issue-oriented and wealthy donors.

"I don't know who he endorses," said the fund-raiser. "Obvious he is trying to be helpful, but I don't know if he endorses, period."

Warren Buffet will be headlining a fund-raiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee tomorrow night at the Regency in midtown that is expected to bring in $1.5 million, according to a source with a role in planning for event.

In case you thought Chuck Schumer was slacking.  read more »

Is Morgan Stanley That Dumb?    read more »

Is Morgan Stanley That Dumb?    read more »

Is Morgan Stanley That Dumb?    read more »

I turned on Charlie Rose yesterday at lunch and had one of those frozen-to-the-table experiences. He was doing a three-part series on Warren Buffett, which concludes tonight. Rose gets access, and the access has been rewarded with an incredibly intimate portrait, which will be remembered in part for its exploration of Buffett's menage with his late wife Susan and the woman she chose to move in with him, Astrid...

Here as I gleaned them are the secrets of Buffett's genius:

1. Simplicity. He learned when he was young that he had a highly circumscribed "circle of competence," as he likes to say—basically, the love and study of good businesses. He stayed within that circle, forever. His judgments are filled with homespun simple analogies. "Leave yourself a margin of error. Don't try and drive a 9800 pound truck over a bridge that can only support 10,000 pounds."

2. Study, concentration. The thing Buffett likes to do most is read. He spends 80 percent of his time reading, company reports and journalism. He is a kind of luftmensch. Indeed, 45 years ago, his neighbor turned down an opportunity to give him $10,000 (a stake now worth $400 million) because he couldn't see giving money "to a guy who doesn't get up and go to work in the morning."

3. Humor. He loves to laugh at himself. He grabs every opportunity Rose gives him to do so.

4. Generosity. Many times Rose shows Buffett reaching out to others. He offered the neighbor an in on his investment company because he likes the guy's kids. He offered Katharine Graham companies he would have bought himself because he adored her so much. The third show, tonight, is about Buffett's recent gift to the Gates foundation. So brimming with generosity—and life has repaid him. "The gift is to the giver," as Whitman said.

5. The worship of women. Though psychologically incurious himself, he has, per the Jungian phrase, a "highly developed anima." He seems to respond to women more than men. This has led him to close relationships with some of the most sophisticated women on the planet. He seems to have fallen in love with Kay Graham, and made it his project to build her confidence as a manager—and his $10 million stake, picked up in the Nixon years, when the Republicans declared war, is now worth $1.5 billion. His late wife Suzie reveals herself—Rose says he got the only interview she ever did on TV, in 2004—as a woman of enormous depth and sensitivity (now reflected in her daughter) who had the wisdom to nurture Buffett when he chose to sit in his room and read all day long, and could make fun of him. The best line in the first show is when she tells Rose that her father told her when Buffett came a-wooing, "He has a heart of gold." Then she throws in, "No pun intended."

6. Pleasure-seeking. Buffett has always done what he most liked to do, and avoided all things that he disliked. "I knew what I enjoyed." Everything from delivering newspapers as a boy to hobbies of playing the ukulele and bridge and telling corny anecdotes.

Adding all this up, the one word I'd choose for Buffett is childlike. There is a naive and wondering quality to his statements. As his late wife says, he couldn't take care of himself. His humor is often cornpone, his psychological judgments seem credulous and boyish. And the joy he derives from his work, it's like a kid in a sandbox.

Property Grunt provides us with a link to CNN

Money where Warren Buffett says, "What we see in our residential brokerage business is a slowdown everyplace, most dramatically in the formerly hottest markets."

Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger adds: "There is a lot of ridiculous credit being extended in the U.S. housing sector."  read more »

Now, they're talking mainly about Florida here; still, it's Warren Buffett, not exactly a slouch in the investment business.

-Matthew Grace

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