One day, Jeff Bezos asks Warren Buffett; “Warren, your investing style is overly simple. Why does not anyone follow your tactics?” In response, Warren Buffett says: “Because no one wants to get rich slowly.” 91-year-old Warren Buffett is among the 10 richest people in the world. Although Warren Buffett is rich, he also has a very philanthropic personality. He started making investments when he was only 11 years old. Warren Buffett has large investments in companies such as Apple, Coca Cola, American Express and Bank of America. Although Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, he lives an extremely modest life. We wanted to present to you to our readers, the interesting information we have compiled from the 91-year life of Warren Buffett, for whom a documentary titled “Warren Buffett” was shot about his lifestyle.
Childhood of Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, one year after the Great Depression. His father, Howard Buffett, was a four-time US senator. Warren Buffett is the middle child of a family of 3 children. Buffett’s interest in money and business issues from an early age has made him a prominent figure. Warren Buffett worked at the grocery store owned by his grandfather when he was 5-6 years old. Buffett, bought Coca Cola bottles for 25 cents each and then he had already started selling these bottles for a profit of 5 cents. Warren Buffett had the opportunity to visit the New York Stock Exchange during a trip to New York with his father when he was 10 years old, and this impressed him greatly.
Warren Buffett bought his first stock when he was only 11 years old. He purchased 3 shares of Cities Services Preferred stock for $38 each. He stayed calm even though the value of the shares dropped to $27. Little Buffett sold stocks as soon as they reached 40, but this was a mistake he would later regret. This was because after a while the value of one of the shares skyrocketed to $200. Warren Buffett had his first investment experiences at the age of 11 and he has already learned his first trading lesson; “When it comes to investing, patience is a virtue, just buy and hold!”
Warren Buffett invested in his father’s company during high school. After that he sold these shares a few years later and bought a farm. Additionally, Warren and his friend Don purchased a second-hand pinball machine for $25. These two went to a barbershop in their town and introduced themselves as the “Wilson coin-operated machines company.” They told the barber that they would place this machine there and customers could play games while waiting. In this way, Warren and Don earned $4 on their first night. Within a few months, these two installed these machines in different barber shops in their town. A year later, Warren Buffett sold the business to a war veteran for more than $1,000. Along with his Pinball business, Buffett delivered newspapers, sold gum and soda, and even washed cars during high school.
When Buffett was only 16 years old, he had a fortune of $53 thousand in today’s money. He planned not to go to college, and succumbed to his father’s wishes. He studied at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania for 2 years. When his father was interested in politics, lost the congressional elections, they returned to Omaha. Returning to Omaha, Buffett transferred to the University of Nebraska Lincoln, where he successfully studied and graduated in 3 years.
After graduating from university in 3 years, Buffett applied to Harvard Business School for a Master’s degree. However, his application was rejected due to his young age. After this application, Buffett started attending Columbia Business School, where he met Benjamin Graham. Graham largely shaped Buffett’s investor identity. Benjamin Graham is Warren Buffett’s professor at the university. Buffett learned many lessons about investing from Graham.
Benjamin Graham was affected by the great economic depression in 1929 and it changed his life. Benjamin Graham lost most of his investments after this crisis, and then focused on determining the real values of stocks and did a lot of work on this subject. Graham wrote a book called “The Intelligent Investor.” This book is what Warren Buffett describes as the best book ever written in the field of investing.
Buffett was the only student who received an A+ in all of the courses taught by Graham during his master’s degree. However, Graham refused to give Warren Buffett a job in his company. After completing his master’s degree in 1951, Warren returned to Nebraska and started working in his father’s brokerage firm.
Private Life of Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett married Susan Thompson who worked at his father’s company in 1952. This couple had 3 children in total. After a turbulent relationship, Mrs. Buffett left her husband at the age of 45. The couple, who were married until 2004, and separated after Susan’s death. Buffett married actress Astrid Menks, whom Susan introduced to him and arranged with him, so to speak.
Buffett continues to work in his father’s company and receives a job offer. A few years later, Graham changed his mind about Buffett and made him a job offer in 1954. After this offer, Buffett moved to New York with his family. Buffett worked at Graham-Newman Corporation for 2 years, he was earning 105 thousand dollars a year in today’s money. When the Graham-Buffett partnership ended in 1956, Warren Buffett returned to his hometown, Omaha, and established Buffett Partnership Ltd. his company.
If you don’t find a way to make money when you sleep, you will work until you die.
Warren buffett
By the early 1960s, Warren Buffett had 7 different partnership companies. He became a millionaire at the age of 32 with the money he earned from these partnerships in 1962. In 1962, Warren Buffett wanted to gather all his partnerships under one roof, he invested in a textile company called Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett started buying shares of this company in 1960, and after a while, all control of the company passed into his hands. While the price of a share of Berkshire Hathaway company is 80 dollars, this figure is $364,580 as of 2021. Towards the end of the 1960s, Warren Buffett moved the company out of the textile industry and entered the insurance industry.
In the 1980s, while people were showing off their hairstyles, Buffett’s fortune was increasing even more. In 1986, at the age of 56, he became a billionaire despite the salary of 50 thousand dollars he received from Berkshire Hathaway. After the economic crisis in 1988, Warren Buffett started buying shares of the Coca Cola company like an addict person. Warren Buffett’s former neighbor was the manager of Coca-Cola, and Buffett would own 7% of the Berkshire company, or Coca-Cola shares worth $1.02 billion, within a few months. Buffett’s investments in Coca-Cola grew 16 times in the period until 2015. Warren Buffett made an annual profit of 11% from this growth.
Warren Buffett was named the richest person in the world by Forbes with a fortune of $62 billion. Bill Gates has not given the top spot to anyone for 13 years in a row, fell to second place, but this decline lasted only 1 year. In 2009, Bill Gates took back the first place from Buffett. Buffett who has never refrained from donating throughout his life, has reached 28.5 billion dollars in donations throughout his life, after donating $2.86 to the Bill and Melinde Gates foundation in 2016. Warren Buffett is close friends with Bill Gates, they has agreed to donate at least half of their wealth by taking the Philanthropy Oath. Since 2010, more than 150 people, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, have participated in this oath.
In conclusion; Warren Buffett, who was born as the son of a father who was a trader and investor, is now 93 years old and is among the 10 richest people in the world. Buffett, a prominent name in the investment world, is offering his lunch to auction for those who want to have lunch with him. The lunch sold at auction in 2016 was worth $3 million. In addition; Even though Buffett owns 6% of Apple shares, he uses a slider phone and drives classic vehicles. Buffett devotes 80% of his day to reading books. Despite his wealth, he has donated 40 billion dollars in the last 40 years.
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