| ▲ | sethev 5 hours ago |
| We should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire.
- He maintained a disciplined approach to investing and managing risk over 60+ years.
- He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old.
Our society has become moralistic. It's so much more useful to identify behaviors to learn from - either to emulate or to avoid - than to debate whether various public figures are good or bad people.That said, it makes me a little sad that we've read the last of his annual letters. |
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| ▲ | twodave 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface. |
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| ▲ | _heimdall an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Avoiding scaling your lifestyle with tour current wealth seems like an extremely important lesson people could learn here. Very few people know what "enough" means to them. Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it. | |
| ▲ | rhubarbtree 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Disagree. The last one is important. You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy. | | |
| ▲ | ronbenton 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy. Well that seems like an assumption! Plenty of people are happier with nicer things. I don't think we need to tell people what should make them happy. | | |
| ▲ | toomanyrichies 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Plenty of people are happier with nicer things. Are they truly happier, in the sense of being more content? Or are they just deriving more temporary pleasure from the hedonic treadmill they're on? You can probably tell by how long their happiness with their house / car / TV / fill-in-the-blank lasts before they start thinking about trading up to an even nicer fill-in-the-blank. Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard wrote a great book on happiness, here's an excerpt I enjoy which talks about the difference between pleasure and happiness, in two parts. [1] [2] 1. https://www.matthieuricard.org/en/pleasure-and-happiness-the... 2. https://www.matthieuricard.org/en/pleasure-and-happiness-the... | |
| ▲ | joquarky 9 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That happy feeling only lasts about six weeks. Happiness is unsustainable. However, contentment is an attainable goal. | |
| ▲ | incanus77 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sure, but wisdom can be shared about what is less likely to make you happy. | |
| ▲ | dorfsmay 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | But commercialism keeps telling people that only nicer things can make them happy. |
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| ▲ | brk 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Though Buffet has kept that first house, he also bought several others along the way. | |
| ▲ | cortesoft 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, but if the first house you buy is a two bedroom at 28 when you are single, it isn't bad to buy a bigger house when you have a family and 3 kids. | |
| ▲ | JKCalhoun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's true (I live in Omaha). He is still in the same house. I didn't grow up here—my wife did. Very early on, when I first visited Omaha, she drove me by his place. After three decades or so in California, I retired and we moved back to her hometown. Buffett is still there. | | |
| ▲ | theonething an hour ago | parent [-] | | Like anyone can just drive up to his house? Doesn't seem safe for such a high profile billionaire's residence to be so accessible. | | |
| ▲ | matthewbauer an hour ago | parent [-] | | I went by it a few weeks ago. There's a gate on the driveway, and I assume some kind of security presence. Probably no different than anyone under constant public scrutiny. |
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| ▲ | dilawar an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "Happiness can't buy me money" -- Some actor | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | inetknght 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy. Speak for yourself. There are a lot of aspects to being happy, and having to not want for things certainly helps. | | |
| ▲ | _heimdall 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You will never not want for things, no matter how much you have. | |
| ▲ | BuckRogers 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But you can do that without any money. | | |
| ▲ | Nevermark 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever > But you can do that without any money. Well... Material things can contribute to happiness, or detract. Balancing the things we spend our life on, relative to an understanding of what makes us happy, is going to be an idiosyncratic exercise. Assuming that X won't contribute to the happiness of person Y is some deep projection. There seem to be many kinds of happiness too. Would I remain happy if I lost my house? Yes. I have gone through enough ups and downs to know that. But would I feel as fulfilled? No. I have gone through enough ups and downs to know that. |
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| ▲ | twodave 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is what I’m talking about. You’re assuming a lot about why and how people move. | | |
| ▲ | UqWBcuFx6NV4r 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nowhere did anybody say “moving house for any reason is bad”. Buffet could’ve moved if he wanted to, I presume. So, evidently, he didn’t have any of those ‘other reasons’. What we *can^ say is that he didn’t move, which shows that he didn’t allow lifestyle inflation to extend to his place of residence. |
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| ▲ | KPGv2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It will if you have had four children after 28yo. | |
| ▲ | dheera an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Meh. If you have the resources, buy whatever makes you happy. If a bigger house makes you happy because you have space for your hobbies and you don't need to fight with your family members for space, buy a bigger house. The whole "money doesn't bring happiness" thing is bullshit unless you are a Buddha. A mansion in Malibu isn't going to make me happy, because I wouldn't know what the hell to do in Malibu. An upgrade from a 2-bedroom to a 4-bedroom home with a garage so I don't have to smell laser cutter fumes anymore and hack a ventilation system out a bedroom window? That very well might. |
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| ▲ | TehCorwiz 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The house he bought at 28 is 3500 square feet in a very very nice neighborhood and was worth $1.2 million a few years ago. It's humble by billionaire standards, not by average person standards. He never needed to size-up because of children, or size-down because of a bad economy, he was already set for both space and finances. Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need. |
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| ▲ | nonethewiser 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | >Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need. That's the moral though. He didn't need it so he didn't do it. Whereas so many others with so much less do so much more. | |
| ▲ | g947o 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you compare that with Zuckerberg, Buffett is a saint without question. | |
| ▲ | jonemi 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For reference, this is the house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#/media/File:Dun... | | |
| ▲ | TehCorwiz an hour ago | parent [-] | | That's a very misleading photo. An aerial view shows the multiple large buildings much better. https://presidenthouse.org/entry-18 | | |
| ▲ | jonemi an hour ago | parent [-] | | That's a much better set of photos. It also confirms he was content with a two-car garage. It also stands in contrast to the other celebrities and business leaders featured on that site. If they had a ranking ordered by size/value ascending, I wonder what number he would be. I still suspect it'd be near the top. |
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| ▲ | WaxProlix 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's insanely humble by billionaire standards. Any FAANG SWE over 30 or so in the United States can get that. Contrast with multiple compounds, entire islands, etc. | | |
| ▲ | rapidfl 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Buffet surely made lots of upgrades and has added plenty of material comforts. But it is quite possible to be a kind of lazy where even 10-20x current wealth, people would live where they currently live. American neighborhoods are reasonable that way. It is just primary home and they would holiday/vacation wherever. | | |
| ▲ | tmule 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | It is highly unusual for someone to stay put after their net worth increases tenfold. Normally, you would expect an individual to seek out more elite social circles and embrace a significantly more opulent lifestyle. Not having that isn’t a sign of laziness (one can be certain that someone like Warren Buffett lives exactly as he chooses) but rather a reflection of the rare ability to decide that what he has is already enough. |
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| ▲ | brcmthrowaway an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not the daily FAANG SWE injection |
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| ▲ | santoshalper 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think it's more that he didn't build a gaudy billionaire mansion, even though he easily could have. |
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| ▲ | wickedsight 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > - He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old. Really makes me wonder what drives him. For many people it's the money, but with him it doesn't seem that way. But I haven't read too much about him, so if anyone has insight I'd love to hear about it. |
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| ▲ | TheAlchemist an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Read his biography - "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life". It's quite long but pretty accurate picture of the man and what drives him. His answer was always that he just loves what he does and he does it with people he loves (Charlie). One can hardly ask for more in life. | | |
| ▲ | Loughla 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, from the outside it seems like he has lived exactly the life he wanted to. I only know one person like that, and have always tried to learn from him. |
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| ▲ | chihuahua 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For some people, money is not for buying things, but just for keeping score. That can make it rewarding and addictive to accumulate money, even if you don't buy anything (like a giant house) with it. The score keeping aspect makes it interesting, just like playing tennis while keeping score is more interesting than just hitting a ball back and forth across the net without counting. | | |
| ▲ | JKCalhoun 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, I kind of agree. I read Andrew Tobias's (did I get the apostrophe right?) book on investing and he made a point very early on: the people who are rich like money. No, not like you and I like money, they like money the way you and I like fishing, or reading, or hiking or whatever. It's their hobby, their love, the thing they like to learn about, read about… Warren Buffett wouldn't be where he was if he wasn't obsessed with money. But to your point, that doesn't have to translate to material goods: the bigger house, yachts, etc. | |
| ▲ | creato 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe he just likes building things that others find useful. When I was younger I rented furniture from a company called CORT. I happened to notice on the contract or receipt or something, that it was a Berkshire company (I didn't know that before then). If I were Warren Buffet, I would have been happy to know that someone was a satisfied customer of one of his companies. I got some decent furniture for a few months at a reasonable price. Just like I'm happy when someone is a satisfied user of my software. | | |
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| ▲ | bdunks an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I can recommend the Acquired (podcast) 3 part series on Berkshire. There was a cool fact in there that he sees every price tag as the opportunity cost with compounding interest. | |
| ▲ | JuniperMesos 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Homes and physical community are a pretty personal thing. Also, given that he is a billionaire, I do kind of assume that he has paid money to upgrade his home at some point, probably also owns additional homes elsewhere, maybe has done other things with his vast amount of money that normal people don't do, that are still consistent with living at the same address as when he was 28. |
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| ▲ | xeromal 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I appreciate this viewpoint. Thanks for sharing. |
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| ▲ | anonu 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| He said he would keep writing at least once a year. |
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| ▲ | kamaal 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| >>Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): Perhaps the best thing Buffet has managed to do is to live long. Most of compounding magic begins at ages 60-65, a time where most investors start to die out. Second best thing he did was to start/acquire a insurance firm. The 'float' helps them to run a kind of in house index fund on other peoples money, without having to pay TERs/Fees. Thats basically no effort bogle style compounding. Even if you end with a situation where you have to return ALL the premiums collected, you still get to keep the returns. Other wise everything else is just fairly normal, if you are sitting in front of charts for long, its impossible to miss something that's going up on a weekly timeframe for long periods of time. You just pyramid upwards and wait, patiently. The real issue is waiting doesn't work too well for most people as you start to die out after 60. |
