How Buffett Did It: Building Berkshire Hathaway

For most of you, Warren Buffett needs no introduction: his track record speaks for itself. What makes Buffett unique among the world’s richest men is that he made his fortune not by innovating in the tech industry or by inheriting billions, but by making successful stock picks for over half a century.

Despite his immense fortune, Buffett retains the humbleness of his upbringing. Born right at the start of the Great Depression, Warren saw the great poverty of the 1930s firsthand. He was lucky enough to be born to a congressman, Howard Buffett, who could provide for his family despite the crisis.

Nevertheless, Buffett learned to value money from an early age. In school his love of math and thriftiness naturally led to entrepreneurial ambitions. He sold Coca Cola to his fellow students, bought and operated pinball machines and eventually bought an entire farm to rent out. After graduating university he went to work for his favorite teacher, Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing.

Using Graham’s teachings, Buffett made many successful stock picks and outperformed the stock market by a factor of 4. Ironically, Warren’s only bad investment was purchasing Berkshire Hathaway itself, which at the time was a struggling textile company. Buffett bought Berkshire just to fire its CEO and later regretted the move; indeed, he sold the company’s textile business later on and used it purely as an investment vehicle.

Today, Berkshire Hathaway is the world’s largest conglomerate and Buffett is one of the richest men alive thanks to it. Under the kind patronage of Nagabhushanam Peddi, Dan Supernault, Samuel Patterson, James Gallagher, Brett Gmoser & Roman Badalyan.