Warren Buffett: the reader who learned investing from a book and its author

A young reader finds his teacher

Warren Buffett was born in the United States in 1930. He studied at the University of Nebraska, and Forbes records that after he was rejected by Harvard Business School he went to Columbia University for a master's degree in economics instead.

The reason he chose Columbia was a teacher. Benjamin Graham, often called the father of value investing, had been teaching at Columbia's business school since 1928. With David Dodd he wrote Security Analysis in 1934, and in 1949 he published The Intelligent Investor. Buffett has said that reading the chapter of that book on how to think about falling and rising share prices changed how he saw markets, and he called picking up the book one of the luckiest moments of his life.

He became Graham's student at Columbia in 1951. Speaking at the school many years later, he said that what he learned from Graham at 19 or 20 he had applied ever since.

“I went there because Ben Graham taught there.”

— Warren Buffett, via Quartz

Working for Graham, then on his own

After business school Buffett worked at Graham's firm, Graham-Newman. When Graham retired, Buffett started his own business. He has said that Graham taught him that the key was to buy shares in good businesses when their market price was well below what the business was actually worth.

Buffett has also described where he differed from his teacher. Graham preferred owning a little of many companies and did not want to talk to managers, so that his results stayed close to what any reader of his book could achieve. Buffett, still in his early twenties, wanted to go further and study businesses more closely.

He made his home in Omaha, Nebraska, and Forbes notes he still lives in the house he bought there in 1958.

Berkshire Hathaway and the letters

In the mid-1960s Buffett's management took over Berkshire Hathaway, a textile company. In his 1985 letter to shareholders he explained why, after years of trying, Berkshire closed its textile operation that July. Over the decades Berkshire grew into a group that owns many businesses, including the insurer GEICO, Duracell and Dairy Queen.

Every year Buffett wrote a letter to Berkshire's shareholders, and the company's website keeps them online going back to 1977. In them he explains decisions, admits mistakes and tells stories about the businesses Berkshire owns. In his 1990 letter he pointed out that some of Berkshire's strongest businesses used very little borrowed money, and he warned about buyers who depend on large amounts of debt.

He retired as chief executive at the end of 2025, according to Forbes.

Giving it away

In 2006 Buffett committed to give all of his Berkshire Hathaway shares, gradually, to philanthropic foundations. In his letter for the Giving Pledge he wrote that more than 99 per cent of his wealth would go to philanthropy during his lifetime or at his death. He credited his fortune to living in America, some lucky genes and compound interest, and said that the asset he values most, apart from health, is long-standing friendships.

The skills and habits that made the difference

The first was reading. Buffett found his method in a book, then went to learn from its author. A single chapter on how to view price changes shaped his thinking for life.

The second was understanding the business behind a share. Graham's lesson, as Buffett tells it, was to compare the price of a share with the value of the business it represents.

The third was patience and caution with debt. His letters repeatedly favour businesses that do not rely on borrowed money.

The fourth was explaining things plainly. His yearly letters are written so that ordinary shareholders can follow them.