Warren Buffett

At seven he borrowed a book from the Omaha public library called One Thousand Ways to Make 1000 Dollars, and the rest reads like a man following instructions. He sold gum and Coca-Cola door to door, worked his grandfather's grocery, and at 11 bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself and three for his sister Doris. His father, a stockbroker turned congressman, took him to the New York Stock Exchange at 10. At 14 he put 1,200 dollars of savings into 40 acres of Nebraska farmland worked by a tenant. On his first tax return in 1944 he deducted his bicycle and watch as costs of the paper route. He wanted to skip college, and his father overruled him.

Harvard Business School turned him down in the spring of 1950, so he went to Columbia, where Benjamin Graham taught. He sold securities at his father's firm, analyzed them for Graham's, and from 1956 ran partnerships of his own — 7.2 million dollars under management by 1962. He bought into a failing textile company called Berkshire Hathaway, took control of it in 1965, and later called it the worst trade of his life. He sold the last mill in 1985 and rebuilt the shell as an insurance company that bought other companies: the Washington Post, the Buffalo Evening News, a quarter of Capital Cities before it swallowed ABC, and a billion dollars of Coca-Cola in 1988. He chaired Salomon Brothers through its Treasury bidding scandal. In 2008 Forbes made him the richest man in the world at 62 billion dollars.

In 2006 he paid about 48.1 million dollars in federal tax, some 19 percent of his income, while his own employees paid 33 percent of theirs. "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning," he said. He was equally plain in 1987 about why he liked the cigarette business: a penny to make, a dollar to sell, addictive, with fantastic brand loyalty. The private life is its own country. He and his wife Susan lived apart from 1977 until her death in 2004 and stayed married the whole time. In 2006 he cut off his son's adopted daughter Nicole after she appeared in a documentary about inequality, writing that he had never emotionally or legally adopted her as a grandchild. They reconciled by 2022.

At 95, the disposal of the money is the story. He has pledged 99 percent of his fortune, has given away more than 60 billion dollars, and founded the Giving Pledge in 2010. Roughly 48 billion of it went to the Gates Foundation from 2006 onward. In 2026 he ended that relationship over Gates's ties to Jeffrey Epstein and redirected future gifts to four foundations run by his children. Greg Abel took over as chief executive at the start of 2026 and Buffett stayed chairman. He still lives in the stucco house he bought in 1958. The verdict on him is not settled, and he has spent 20 years arguing one side of it himself.

Warren Buffett's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Buffett Partnership, Ltd. company
  Eleven earlier partnerships merged into one vehicle. He liquidated it in 1969 1962
• Berkshire Hathaway company
  A textile mill he took over and later called his worst trade 1965
• The Berkshire Hathaway annual letter article
  Written every year since he became chairman 1970
• The Giving Pledge other
  Founded with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates 2010
• The Buffett Rule other
  A minimum tax on high incomes, named for him and never enacted 2011

• 1942 aged ~12 Buys three shares of Cities Service Preferred at 11
• 1944 aged ~14 Deducts his bicycle and watch on his first tax return Thirty-five dollars, against the paper route.
• 1945 aged ~15 Puts a used pinball machine in an Omaha barbershop He and a friend paid 25 dollars for it and sold the business in 1947 for 1,200.
• 1950 aged ~20 Rejected by Harvard Business School and enrolls at Columbia He went because Benjamin Graham was teaching there.
• 1956 aged ~26 Starts his own investment partnerships at 25
• 1965 aged ~35 Takes control of Berkshire Hathaway at a board meeting
• 1985 aged ~55 Sells the last Berkshire textile mill
• 2006 aged ~76 Begins giving the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation The gifts reached about 48 billion dollars before he ended them in 2026.
• May 3, 2025 aged 94 Asks the Berkshire board to make Greg Abel chief executive by year's end Abel took the job at the start of 2026. Buffett stayed chairman.

• Benjamin Graham 1894–1976
  Established value investing and securities analysis as a professional discipline. studied under
• Bill Gates b. 1955
  Co-founder of Microsoft who, through the Gates Foundation, has donated billions to global health and education. co-founded the Giving Pledge with
• Melinda French Gates b. 1964
  Philanthropist and former co-chair of the Gates Foundation focused on women's empowerment and global health. co-founded the Giving Pledge with
• Katharine Graham 1917–2001
  Publisher who strengthened The Washington Post and backed its reporting on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. invested in and sat on the board of her company
• Barack Obama b. 1961
  44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act. proposed a tax rule named for him