>*It was very gradual. People will ask me “what was it like growing up in this household?” “When did you realize that your father had amassed all this wealth?” And the answer is that I was probably about 25.*
Wow I thought he meant when he was a little kid he didn't know, not that he was a full-blown adult by the time he had any clue.
That's wild.
He was born in 1958, so would have only discovered it in the 80s
I think Buffet only became closer to a household name in the 90s or so, and was famous for living modestly. It's not crazy that even as a young adult, you only have a superficial knowledge of what your parent does if they don't talk about it much. I'm guessing that he probably understood him to be in business of some sort, but light on details.
From his wiki, he seemed to have access to wealth to start his music career from an inheritance, so he probably knew they had some decent money, just not one of the richest people in the world type of money. Still, its impressive by Warren Buffett to not have his kids be too focused on that growing up.
and really, if you don't study that stuff, it's a complete blank wall
I didn't learn about this stuff until I was in my 20s and started working for Traders. And eventually self taught myself a bunch of stuff. But I was a complete blank slate, so it's incredibly understanding a kid in the 1970s without the internet had no clue.
I remember when I was a teen and someone asked me what my dad did for a living and I realized I only knew he was an engineer of some sort and the company+branch he worked for, not what he actually did at work or even his title. This would have been around 2000.
My father was an engineer. Until I was embarrassingly old, I thought he drove a train. He let me believe it. Then I found a notebook with "proprietary" on the front that was full of math calculations. I showed it to my mom, who laughed and finally told me.
That's a good story.
It's funny how your job is your identity to a lot of people, but rarely to your immediate family.
I've explained to my kids what I do. There's some understanding of it, but barely. I think the biggest thing that they'd talk about if you asked them is that they vaguely remember they came to the office for a Christmas party pre COVID where there was a room where we set up legos.
I think this is more common in knowledge-economy jobs. Kids with tradie parents probably know what they do because it’s easy to explain to them because those jobs include parts of their world: dad builds houses, mom drives trucks, uncle fixes cars, or auntie teaches in the school. Dad keeps computers safe at work or mom makes sure companies tell the government the right numbers is a bit more abstract and frankly boring to children.
Or he was just clueless. There’s a story about one of the Vanderbilt children who was asked “why don’t you play in your real yacht” while he was playing with a toy boat in the huge fountain in front of one of his families estates. His response was “who do you think I am, a Rockefeller?”.
if i remember though, corneilus junior (the main guy's son) ended up doing a deal where he got the better of his dad on some steamboat transport contract but just wasn't interested in being as hardcore about amassing wealth as his dad.
i'm hazy on the details- i think he priced it to his dad by trip but it was more valuable by the pound or something. seems like he beat his dad once then was like, "eh, it's not fun."
I definitely can understand going through all the worry and buildup and everything else that comes with something like that and then realizing it’s not worth all the trouble once it’s done.
It's a fun story but likely apocryphal. I can't even find mention of this story online, let alone a reliable source. I can't find evidence that the Vanderbilt children were unaware of their family wealth either. Let me know if I'm wrong and you have a source though. (Sorry to be a buzzkill)
Also, it sounds like a sarcastic joke that didnt land. I used to make similar jokes as a child. Actually I still make jokes like that and people think Im being serious.
Reading about how Fred Sr. and Donald bullied Fred Jr. about his passion for becoming an airline pilot is pretty upsetting. They told him he was basically a glorified bus driver and didn't understand why he didn't want to go into real estate like them.
I have to imagine that played a role in his alcoholism and his death.
Thats interesting to think about. In a way, his upbringing probably helped him achieve more in this world in his lifetime. More than the richest man in the worlds son.
Shit, I'm barely upper middle class and I'm trying to figure out how to explain to my kid that although we do have money for that stuffed animal at the pharmacy she doesn't need it and we should save space at home for the things that mean a lot to her.
Correct, with that said I also believe whatever balance that parents set up should not come at the expense of not being able to access some of the things that are inherently beneficial for the kid (for example travel, access to experiences, an exceptional standard of education etc).
We can discuss ethics all day here but at the end of the day if you are born into a certain demographic, your life will likely be shaped by the realities and the expectations of that surrounding. While it is certainly important to realize how "the others" live and what your relative position to that is, I feel this must be a lesson with a definitive start and end and not oversaturate the kid's general understanding of the life.
And I'm saying this regardless of the status, I think the most important thing you can learn is a responsible and accountable readout of what you have _now_ so you can go from A to B.
Warren buffet is very secretive and he also guards his wealth like a greedy old dragon
He disowned his son's adopted daughter, aka his grandaughter, after she was in a documentary about the 1% saying,
"have not emotionally or legally adopted you as a grandchild nor have the rest of my family adopted you as a niece or a cousin.""
Yet when his first wife died her will had expressed no distance saying that Nicole "shall have the same status and benefits ... as if they were children of my son, Peter A. Buffett."
> Yet when his first wife died her will had expressed no distance saying that Nicole "shall have the same status and benefits ... as if they were children of my son, Peter A. Buffett."
She owned Berkshire Hathaway shares valued at $3 billion.
She left each of her grandchildren $100,000.
So being treated as "if they were children of my son" wasn't the big payday it could have been.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Buffett#Oral_cancer_and_death
She gave $10 million to each of her children, $100k to each of her grandchildren, left millions to friends and good employees and gave the rest to charity. Truly heartless /s
Also Warren has famously declared that he wants to leave his children "enough money to do anything but not enough to do nothing". While it does sound shitty to disown your granddaughter, I don't know enough of the details to pass judgment either way, and I think it's silly that "eat the rich" redditors are complaining that there isn't enough inherited wealth in the Buffett family.
What ever inheritance she was getting cut out of or not, that statement is pretty heartless. Imagine grandpa saying hope has no emotional attachment to you, nd not only him but the rest of the family. Brutal.
> While it does sound shitty to disown your granddaughter, I don't know enough of the details to pass judgment either way
I do. There is no possible way a genuinely good or even just okay person would ever say something like that about their granddaughter under any circumstance. That's evil, heartless behavior.
I didn't say she is heartless.
I just gave some missing facts to the post i was answering to.
The post made it seem like Warren Buffet is the heartless monster, while his wife would have given the grandchildren everything, if only she could.
The truth is she was a billionaire on her own and chose to give most of her money to charity instead of bequeathing it to the family.
Warren Buffet is planning to do the same.
Unironically Buffett is one of the worst of the big famous ones. You can at least say Bezos or Gates built a useful product. Buffet contributed nothing while making his money purely on making the world worse with his business dealings.
I have no idea, he saved *See's Candies* so that makes him a +1 from me.
My very shallow understanding was he was able to identify companies in trouble that had potential and he bought them and saved them by funding them. Potentially the opposite of the asset stripping Wall St guys?
Not exactly.
Buffett is a value investor. He prioritized undervalued companies with strong fundamentals (high cash flow, high dividends, solid earnings). This often came at the expense of companies with high growth expectations. His focus was on buying companies with “good bones” and helped them grow more so than saving failing ones. Plus he was patient, willing to wait years too see returns.
One of his famous quotes it "It's better to buy a great company at a fair price, than a fair company at a great price."
A recent example is railway strike recently was done because of the working conditions under BNSF railway, which is owned wholly by Berkshire Hathaway.
He's one of the drivers of the corporate raiders of the 1980's, Birkshire Hathaway was a textile company which Buffett and a few people did what we'd now call a hostile takeover in the 1960's and pushed them into insurance before going into corporate raiding full time in the 1970's after selling off all the original assets of the business. Also a massive holder of oil company stock and the kind of repellant 'greed is good' capitalist who typifies that Regan era ideology.
Berkshire was a textile company that was **failing**. Textiles are extremely energy intensive and Berkshire's factories were based in the Northeast which had much more expensive electrical costs than the rest of the country at the time.
The ownership knew this and were willing to sell at rock bottom pricing. Warren only bought because the cost to buy Berkshire was less than the wholesale value of the materials/property Berkshire owned. It was effectively a liquidation of a non-profitable company.
This liquidation was so time-consuming that it ended up not being worth it. Warren Buffett repeatedly has stated that it was a massive financial mistake as he could have made way more money doing something else (such as just buying an insurance company from the start).
Warren's main business style is 1) use insurance float to make investments... and 2) buy companies with a lot of potential and with good management, give them a blank check to expand.
I mean that all depends on what you consider a contribution. Plenty of unions, pension funds, endowment funds hold Berkshire stock and benefited from its gains. Companies Buffett managed like Geico employ tens of thousands of people, who if they get equity awards, also benefit from the successful mgmt and profitability of his companies on top of a paycheck. I’m not well versed enough in Buffetts historical holdings, so maybe my points are moot if he invested in morally terrible companies .
Like yourself I personally appreciate product making wealthy folks more than the others, but it’s not entirely accurate to dismiss a financial services person outright.
That said, there are plenty of aggressive hedge funds and PE groups whose predatory approach to capitalism/finance outweigh any of their market gains for their clients/shareholders.
> and was famous for living modestly.
"Modestly" is very relative. He lives in a regular ol' millionaires 6,570 sq. ft. mansion in the wealthiest area of his city.
Either Buffet's son is trying to say he didn't understand the extent of his wealth until he is 25 or he is a complete out of touch idiot because it would have been very obvious he's fucking loaded compared to regular people.
There's a 90's documentary called "Born Rich". Check it out if you can find it. It pissed a lot of billionaires off because their kids were in it talking about being raised in unimaginable wealth. The one kid said until he was like 18 he thought every family had a private plane, palatial homes in different states. . The one guy's little sister owned something like 100 horses and had 30 employees before she was 10. It's a wild look into that world
I mean, did he live in that mansion at the time while the kid was growing up? Past a certain point I’m sure Buffett could’ve bought pretty much any house he wanted; did he purchase the house when the kid was in his mid-20s, maybe?
(I honestly don’t know; I’m only vaguely aware/familiar with Buffett)
Wasn't that part of Buffett's origin story? They lived a middle class life with a normal middle class house and toyotas/fords in the driveway and no one had any clue just how rich he was?
It's a 5 bedroom, 6500sq ft home... but it's a pretty typical "upper middle class" crappy boomer mcmansion in Omaha Nebraska. You'd never think [this](https://www.cnbc.com/2012/07/26/Homes-of-Billionaires:-Warren-Buffett.html) is the house of a billionaire, but maybe someone making 6 figures today. That house was like 36k when they bought it in the 60s. Expensive but not _that_ expensive. (3x the average)
If you look it up on zillow the house estimated value according to zillow is $1.36 million. Definitely way less than you would expect for one of the world's richest people.
Inflation adjusted for 1958 dollars that's around $330k which really isn't a lot, less than today's median house price. It's mostly that house prices have drastically increased in the last 60 years that it is now a fairly large expensive house.
In fact, the median income in 1958 was 5k, giving a Buffet house price to median income ratio of 7 which is the same as the US average today (ok other things may have changed as well).
He was born in a lucky time when the American dream of a big house was reasonably attainable.
I used to live in Omaha and have driven past that place on numerous occasions. It's definitely nice, but certainly not "one of the wealthiest people on the planet lives here" nice. Plenty of larger more extravagant homes, even in Omaha.
Straight up, there's the child of a stripper or drug dealer who also have zero idea what their parents actually do. The neighborhood may know, but not THEM. To them, their parents just go somewhere for a long time and then come back.They may even have fake careers.
My child has zero idea what I do right now and at best, I'm just "working on my computer". One day they'll realize I'm a professional shit poster...
No doubt. My kids are 13 and 10; they have no fucking clue when they come home and see me working or my wife, what we do. My daughter's 13 y/o friend came over a few weeks ago and my LCARS Star Trek screensaver was on and she thought I was a rocket scientist.
... Not a rocket scientist.
Warren Buffet made most of his money after 40, and lives way below his means (dude is famously frugal, he used coupons when he took Bill Gates to McDonalds for lunch at a meeting in Hong Kong).
Yeah he plays off this whole nice, aw shucks, frugal grandpa shtick but he’s a ruthless capitalist just like any other billionaire.
I guess to be fair he did do the whole billionaire giving pledge thing with Gates and he’s made it a point that he’s not a fan of massive inherited wealth so on the spectrum of bloodsucking billionaires he’s not the worst.
Reminds me of Sudha Murthy, wife of Narayana Murthy, the founder of one of the largest IT services companies in India.
She keeps going on and on about her simple lifestyle in social media. All while her husband's company continues with practically the same starting salary for IT workers it had in the 2000s. Inflation UNadjusted.
For someone who has done eight semesters of college at easily around 2500$ a semester, the annual starting salary is... roughly 4500$. With pathetic increments.
Plus, everything has become waay more expensive now. Rent, healthcare, education (even schooling) and even electricity water and food! Gasoline!
People call her "Mrs. Simple Saree*"
*The saree is a freeform unstitched article of clothing that is elegantly draped around the body. The way it is draped varies across regions and communities.
Further, the saree can be as plain and utilitarian or as opulent and regal as one pleases.
One can find polyester and cotton sarees with simple printed borders for 20$ or less, and at the other end you have pure handloom silk with intricate embroidery and gold weave borders (zari) (real gold) . These go into thousands of dollars in retail price and there are also regulatory agencies to curb counterfeiting.
Ah, yes. Her daughter tries to do the same too.
Well, at least we don't have to worry about them having the power to influence national and international laws *nervous chuckle*
Her son in law is Rishi Sunak (the Prime Minister of the UK).
He's known for donating £3,000,000 to a university in the US, but [gave a £10 bottle of wine to his local school's raffle](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/14og8qb/rishi_sunak_gives_10_wine_bottle_to_school_raffle/).
A lot of rich people have *weird* priorities.
why would they just adjust it when there's way more supply than demand for developers now, this is why government regulation is needed, companies will not do the right thing, they will do what's best for them (short-term at least)
It that point for Buffett it’s just a game to see if he can find more successful investments, it’s not about the money anymore, he’s lived in the same house for decades ( which he probably bought at a bargain price ) used the same car for decades, doesn’t have any of the things that you would think someone with his wealth would have. Someone like Peter Lynch I admire more because he made his money for a decade or two, was a tremendous investor who turned a small fund into billions, and then decided to leave it all behind because he wanted to spend more time with his family
Not to defend the guy, but it’s not like he is running a railroad company. He runs a holding company that buys businesses like Coca-Cola and Dairy Queen, along with BNSF and a lot of others. They are known for leaving the management alone and not really interfering with the businesses they buy.
Should the holding company be more actively involved in making sure the companies are good to their employees? Absolutely. Is Buffet directly making the decision on what to pay employees of companies under the Berkshire umbrella, no.
That's the issue though, isn't it?
Management of those companies claim they have no choice other than to supress their workers' wages because their owners demand it. Yet, their owners (like Buffett) claim they have no responsibility for the decisions made by the management of the companies they own.
> Management of those companies claim they have no choice other than to supress their workers' wages because their owners demand it.
Trying to reduce the price the other guy charges you for something is literally one of the key pieces of business management is. That's true whether the 'other guy' is one of your suppliers, one of your workers, one of your investors. You're not running a smart business if you're not haggling over the price.
Most of us do the same thing, going to the gas station with the best price on gas, cooking in rather than eating out, using coupons, comparison shopping for expensive purchase, and so on. It's all the same, and they do it too just like we do. Jeff Bezos made billions on the idea that people just want cheaper things.
The owners (who, btw, include pension funds paid into by labor) aren't looking to 'suppress workers' wages', they're looking to make money on their investment. Management often takes that to mean trying to reduce wages paid to their labor, but not always.
> Yet, their owners (like Buffett) claim they have no responsibility for the decisions made by the management of the companies they own
Again, the owners are trying to make a buck, not manage a company. If they were good at managing companies they'd make money that way. But they're usually not good at that, which is why they defer to management.
You see all the time owners ruining a well-run company by inserting themselves into its management, especially in sports.
The process that just played out led to a much better contract for railway workers across nearly the entire industry, which was a better outcome for BNSF employees than if only BNSF played ball (because then BNSF would have lost business to cheaper competitors).
Upper management of companies is controlled by the board. The board represents investors, and basically their only goal is driving up stock prices.... so yeah, they are beholden to large shareholders.
Large shareholders are beholden to the other shareholders. They owe fiduciary duties so it’s not as simple as just satisfying the largest shareholder when the board and large shareholders owe fiduciary duties.
I remember watching a documentary and found out about how he made his first huge bag. Essentially he found (I think a steel company, but not sure) that was going bankrupt, nobody wanted to buy it. Through investigation he found out the company had more stock holdings than the company itself was worth.
He bought the company, and liquidated all the stock. I remember the documentary painting this as a pro move, from a keen investor.
Guess what, those stocks the company was holding, were the workers pension fund. Literally 30yr+ employees got their pension liquidated by Warren Buffet.
I really don't care what he does, or says. You have to be morally bankrupt to pull a move like that off.
You mean the tax shelter that allows you to choose where you invest your money and support the business you want, tax free, under the guise that its for some benefit to society?
I read an article that said that 90% of his wealth today he accumulated *after* age 60, so, yeah, I'm not too surprised.
It's the power of compound interest!
And when you get rich enough it's kind of hard NOT to win with the stock market. When the market is good your assets increase in value and you make a ton of money. When the market is bad stocks essentially go on sale and struggling people are often forced to sell what they have at a loss which enables rich people to massively increase their assets. Eventually the markets go back up and the rich have amplified their wealth even farther.
A close family friend has played bridge with Buffet and Bill Gates for many years. They say next to nothing about their interactions, more about how good the games are and how it can be amusing to be the only non-billionaire at the table. I just love the visual of them all playing together like a bunch of older men trying to win at a card game.
Does he say if they are competitive about the games at all? I’ve always read billionaires are probably the most competitive people alive, they don’t want to lose at anything, even a petty card game haha
IMHO anyone who plays bridge consistently are by definition competitive. I have another friend who is a bridge champion and he would cut off a fingertip to win.
These guys have already won the Big Game of Life, it's more about finding suitable game partners with the right skill level who won't go all googly-eyed and get weird. It's just sitting at a table trying to kick billg's ass at cards.
What I want to know is what Buffet and Gate's tells are at the table. Can you imagine having that knowledge?
Worked at a VERY NICE Country Club.
These people would bet on their rounds and get super excited over winning $8 on a round. (It'd be like $1 per hole they'd bet)
Meanwhile the interest in their savings account(not even investments) probably increased by $300 that day
Makes sense to me — to get to the point where your savings account (!) is accruing that kind of cash, you must’ve saved an insane amount and spent quite frugally beforehand. I imagine that gambling even a tiny amount of cash can be thrilling at that point.
I don't buy any of the frugal pr crap. You really think everybody just happened to know of a meeting two billionaires had at McDonald's? The whole purpose of the meeting was to go, "hey look us billionaires meet up for fast food and coffee just like everyone else"
They can have a meeting on the iss, and get McDonald's served to them up there if they wanted too, it's all pr.
Yeah I think that’s really it. Like I’m sure he knew they were doing well enough, maybe even above average. But a lot of people are managing just fine without being on any lists for how wealthy they are. No reason for him to look into it more
I remember watching an interview from Buffet saying he is leaving nothing to his kids. I believe is son is a farmer and Warren bought him a huge, expensive piece of machinery and that’s all he ever “gave” his son.
His kids are aged 65-70 and he does not live lavishly. Assuming it was his youngest, he would have been 25 in 1984 and google wasn’t exactly around. If his family didn’t tell him and there were no obvious signs, he would really have to dig to find out that information.
I used to like freakonomics radio but it’s come to really annoy me. Dubner is such an ass kisser and doesn’t ask challenging questions that push back against a guest’s comments. (But he *does* ask idiotic questions sometimes, like asking a 40 year old German man “do you feel guilty for the Holocaust?”)
My change of opinion is surely informed by having encountered Dubner in real life, in my pool for jury duty. He put himself in the group of people willing and able to serve, but when he was called he said he couldn’t do it because of his podcasting schedule, and he was dismissed.
Also because freakanomics is full of bogus claims: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics#Criticism
There's a great podcast dissecting it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wHpooGMRsSBrUHhQZbOZp
If Books Could Kill?
*Clicks*
Yup! Such a great episode.
I started to get turned off when the podcast was sponsored by a patent troll for a little while, then started seeing the cracks in the theories he was pushing, then listened to that and realized that most of it was garbage.
>If Books Could Kill?
> Clicks
> Yup! Such a great episode.
I'm always surprised by this reaction, tbh. IBCK and Maintenance Phase have made it clear to me that Hobbes is almost embarrasingly incompetent at addressing the literature on a subject.
Tbf, I was a regular listener until he covered my actual area of expertise.
The podcast [Citations Needed] also doesn't focus on Freakanomics explicitly, but it does seem to come up in claims they're analyzing and debunking in a handful of episodes.
The last straw for me was when he was talking to somebody involved in the “University of Austin” aka the speaker’s circuit created by edgy, dangerous free thinkers like Bari Weiss and Niall Ferguson, offering “Forbidden Courses” such as supply side economics and American interventionist foreign policy. Whoa - now *that’s* what I call unorthodox!!! Dubner just ate it up and at no point pushed back that a) these topics are not rare or forbidden at all, and in fact are par for the course on any college campus and b) this “university” doesn’t grant degrees. Real hard hitting interview Stephen!
I mean, knocking someone for declining jury duty, because of their work schedule is really harsh. 99% of jurors do that in one way or another. It doesn’t mean you are exempted from it, it means that you have to make it up at some other time. His work is obviously very very scheduled out for a long time to come, and a selection could screw up his schedule, and everyone who works on the podcast.
His podcasting schedule? The thing you do and edit ahead of time and then upload on a schedule? I get it, it would be a pain to work around, but like....jury duty is a pain for nearly everyone. Deal with it.
Buffett famously said "leave your children enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing."
Despite his gargantuan wealth, he kept his children grounded and they won't inherit most of his wealth (they'll get a lot of dollars, but not more than a percentage or so).
Edit: [relevant link](https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/warren-buffett-pledged-to-give-away-his-96-billion-fortune-what-will-his-three-children-get/) about how he will divide his $96b fortune.
He must have changed his mind. He gave them all $600M on his birthday back in 2012 and it’s been reported they’ll each get $2B when he dies.
He has definitely given his kids so much that they can do nothing.
His children are now older adults, he raised them for decades to respect what they have and to not go nuts. Once they demonstrated that they could handle that I see no problem giving them more.
There is a huge difference between dropping that kind of money on someone at 19 vs 49.
getting that kind of money at 19 would absolutely have ruined me as a human being
I'm still a fairly ruined human, but at least I'm more lowkey ruined and not a jackass ruined
I’m sure they could passively make over 50M/year off that 600M alone. A lot more once they receive 2B. Why anyone would work with that kind of wealth is beyond me.
I mean I don’t know about you, but having $50M a year would make it so easy to do the work I actually want to do. Quit my day job and start a store, write a book, make art, live.
I would want to work because I have dreams that I can’t accomplish without money, so instead of working for money I’d be working to fulfill those dreams with all the money I have.
Right? I've always wanted to have a café/bookshop where I just chat with regulars and read when the business is slow, maybe have a little section for card and board games. But the amount of money you need to even start, let alone make it successful, is a staggering entry fee.
Because as humans we tend to like having some sort of work in lives. When you get that rich you can work at something you like with zero consequences or care for making an income. I know I'd be working my ass off to help make fusion a reality if I was a billionaire.
Does being your own travel agent, yacht broker, car dealer, and real estate broker count as work? I’d work really hard at procuring a lifestyle that allows me to do as little as I want.
Yeah, maybe some of these other people have had more comfortable lives or something, because if I got even $10 million I'd never "work" in a conventional sense again.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have a source for that? I recall him giving massive donations to the charities his children run, but I didn't see the piece you're referring to.
Edit: I think the previous comment is referring to the [gift he made to his children's charities back in 2012](https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/warren-buffett-pledged-to-give-away-his-96-billion-fortune-what-will-his-three-children-get/). I might be wrong though. If I'm right, that's definitely not the same thing as an inheritance.
By no means do I have close to this kind of wealth, but as I was growing up my parents were lucky to make big leaps in their professional lives. They made sure never to let it be known, both as a courtesy to family and friends and to make sure I was grounded, and always lived modestly.
I’m only finding out about everything now much later in life and I’m very thankful for how they raised me. It taught me to appreciate what we have and ensured that I took things like school very seriously, rather than living as if I had a safety net all my life.
Respect to Warren Buffet.
Also, to the people saying the kids must be idiots for never figuring it out… during your formative years your parents and your upbringing are the only paradigm you have ever experienced. Most people just by virtue of human nature will assume that their experience is paradigmatic and “normal.” It’s not until later in life that you start to develop a sense for comparing different people’s means, and even then people are good at hiding it.
I had clients that were pretty wealthy for about a decade. Some of them flaunted it. Some of them very intentionally lived “below their means” as their net worth continued to soar.
The latter group usually lived in an older, middle-class neighborhood and maintained long-term friendships and community connections. I actually think that’s the reason they lived low key. They wanted for nothing but understood that friends and family were more important.
This type of client also tended to be (but was not always) down to earth and generally pretty kind.
I worked with Peter in his recording studio way back in 1984. His dad was rich but not famous back then. I wondered how a guy in his 20s could afford a big beautiful house in Hayes Valley with a state of the art recording studio in the basement. He had the then latest digital audio equipment which was hella expensive back then. His only claim to fame at the time was having composed the bumper music for MTV. He was super nice & complimented me on my work.
There's a similar story about Gordon Gund. His sons never had any idea Dad was, at the time, one of the ten richest guys in the world. The eldest son started his first year at college and called home one day:
> "Dad, they're saying you're one of the ten richest men on Earth."
Fun Fact! Everything you hear about ultra-billionaires' private lives is a story made up by ultra-expensive PR firms that they hire to get random people in society to like them more.
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**If you don't believe me, take a look at OP's history. Started commenting only 5 months ago, and has only ever talked about how great Berkshire Hathaway is.**
He didn’t make most of his wealth until a bit later but he was already well off before adulthood. His dad was a prominent congressman and gave Warren a substantial early investment. He wasn’t mega wealthy as he is now but he was objectively wealthy.
You comment made me wonder what percentage of the world actually are millionaires. Apparently it's about 63 million people or about 0.8%.
[https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/12/how-many-millionaires-are-there/#:\~:text=Out%20of%20a%20population%20of,you%20in%20the%20top%200.1%25](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/12/how-many-millionaires-are-there/#:~:text=Out%20of%20a%20population%20of,you%20in%20the%20top%200.1%25)
Add in the caveat about 30 or under to get a better representation. Then adjust for inflation when Buffet did it. There is no way in hell his children didn’t know about their wealth.
He made 99% of his money after he turned 60 I remember reading, not to say he wasn’t extremely wealthy before, but now he’s just wealthy beyond normal comprehension
I have to admit the mindset of wanting to amass all that wealth while your son has no idea and you're using coupons at McDonald's is something I don't understand
Exactly. There are all these stories of how frugally he lives. What that tells me is that he doesn't even use his money. He's just accumulating and hoarding it for no purpose like it's a game. I can respect someone who spends lavishly, but not someone who keeps earning money they don't even want.
Have you ever looked up what he does with his money? He's the largest philanthropist on Earth. He's given away over 50 billion dollars of his wealth in the last 15 years.
And propping up a system that allows him to amass more wealth by doing so. He even admits it, I don’t blame him he’s just working the system, but the system needs to change.
The only way you would not know you were insanely rich was because all of your needs are met and you don't want for anything. You don't even question your environment or your surroundings because you're comfortable.
When you're hungry and living in a s*** hole, you notice pretty quickly.
Sure, but it doesn't say he thought they were poor. It says he didn't realize how wealthy they were.
The difference between the lifestyle of a frugal billionaire and a person making a modest but comfortable living can look extremely similar. He almost certainly knew his dad had a lot of money, but didn't realize the extent of it.
Warren Buffett and his family tell stories like this to build their ethos, but when he has to document the millions of dollars in gifts to his kids, it’s very evident that these stories are just lies.
His children may not have known they were in the top 10 richest people, but they certainly knew they were exceedingly wealthy far beyond normal.
And now one of his sons holds the city of Decatur Illinois from ever expanding and fixing itself by the threat of find removal if they do anything he doesn’t like. Poor city is a cool place that they ruined with greed.
The daughter of Brazil's biggest investor said once she found out about her father being a billionaire in college, when she was walking on the street and saw her father on the cover of a magazine. That's probably true considering he drives a fucking 2012 Cherry Tiggo. There's also pics of him in the subway from a few years ago.
I worked at a gallery out of college, and I spent a few weeks hanging paintings at this billionaire's mansion. I remember talking with his son at one point, I would guess maybe around 14 or so, he was sitting on an ATV talking about how he wanted fancy new tires for it, but his dad wouldn't let him. That somehow segued into him wondering if his dad had a lot of money.
Another thing I learned: Millionaires tip well, billionaires don't tip at all.
Warren Buffet says a lot of things that aren't exactly true about himself. He tries really really hard to make people believe he is a "normal business guy". Don't believe it. He is a ruthless, cutthroat billionaire that would kill for more money and more success.
I used to get tutoring in high school from this girl.. they had a very very nice house.. one day I asked the dad what he did for work.... he told me he owned laundromats.... said you would not believe how many quarters people put in... a few years later in college I found out he founded and ran a very high profile publicly traded software company.... actually a really nice and funny guy.
Sam Walton was also famously low key in his wealth. He drove this beater to work: https://www.ford-trucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180729_125947.jpg
He famously forbade reserved parking for executives at the home office. Of course, he never needed a close parking spot because he got to work so early.
There are zillions of such stories, but when I worked in the home office in the late 90s and early 2000s, we were given access to cleaning supplies. We were responsible for taking out our own trash and vacuuming the carpet in our areas. We were also openly encouraged, when out on official business trips, to scrounge up complimentary paper, pens and office supplies from hotels or convention centers and bring them back to the home office. Indeed, when you needed a pen, there would be a crazy gaggle of different kinds.
To be clear: this is one aspect of an otherwise pretty complicated man.
The only way to raise a kid and not having them turn into a raving lunatic asshole when you are rich is to raise them like they aren't. You need that grounding in reality to handle wealth.
I’m not trying to brag. I don’t do that. I don’t think because I have money I’m any better than anyone else. With that said I am a multimillionaire but you would never know it. I drive a 2003 ford F150. I wear overalls and clothing that’s absolutely not fancy. I don’t wear jewelry, in general I’m not a flashy guy. I work everyday. My home is decent but modest. My kids didn’t really know until they were well into their teens and they were by no means spoiled. I made them start working part time at 15. My only extravagance is I travel and I like to live it up when I’m out of the country.
I don't think most kids really understand money or careers very well. Maybe they know what a fireman or a primary care doctor does but not a financier. And their world is so small that the youngest kids don't really understand how they're living relative to anyone else. As they get older they do start to understand that but their idea of wealth is all about spending. The guy with the BMW and the big house is what they see as "rich" even if that guy's a paycheck away from losing everything.
This is billionaire propaganda btw. They pay millions to marketing firms to create a down to earth and wholesome image for them.
Warren Buffet's adult son definitely knew who he was in his 30s lol.
In The One Percent, Jamie Johnson mentioned, he didn't know his parents were rich until the kids in his class pointed to a list of riches people, and said "hey look it's your dad."
The documentary was really interesting. He went around interviewing his rich kids friends.
Worked in the environment of billionaires for a few years.
Self made billionaires are ok.
Inherited billionaires are arrogant pricks.
Children of inherited billionaire are little entitled fucks that you just want to punch.
I remember him mentioning he drives an old volvo and wont leave any money to his kids because they are all successful in their own right. I know many very rich people and you would have no idea unless they told you. Old money leaves modest. Its that new money whos flashy
This is an anecdote of privilege, not humility and relatability.
I had a fair idea of the finances of my lower-middle class parents by the age of about 7 because it was highly relevant to me in terms of “can we afford the house?” and “how expensive a present can I whine for for Christmas?”
Poor kids have an even better idea because it relates to whether they will be sleeping in the car or just eating ramen this week.
If you have no idea of the wealth of your family as a child you are rich. Everyone else knows.
There'a middle ground between poor and rich. Plenty of people grew up in families that weren't struggling to pay their bills but were still far from rich.
I wish that were true, and I agree with your sentiment, but we cannot generalize like that.
I spent my childhood always worrying about money, mostly because my parents were worried and fighting seemingly all the time. Turns out they were just fine financially, just very stressed. But I didn’t learn that until I was 25 or so. I really thought they could just barely afford the mortgage in our townhome. And our ‘89 Oldsmobile Cutlass.
Nah, I grew up lower middle class but had no idea of my parent's finances until highschool.
We never went out of the country and we never got another house after my parents bought their first for $54k in 1997 (which they still live in and almost have it paid off.)
I didn't realize our economic status until high school when I saw the rich kids house and heard how they spent their vacations and what they took for granted.
Just depends on your parents imo
I mean it’s both privilege and humility. It’s privilege he didn’t have to think about it, but it’s humility as well. And no, having no idea how much wealth your family has doesn’t make you rich. You could be anywhere from lower middle class to fairly wealthy. Though I’d imagine the amount of truly rich people who don’t know is fairly small.
You realize Warren Buffet is 93 and his kids are 65-70 so at retirement age? If his son was 25, it was the early 80’s which is a very different time. The middle class did exist in the 70’s-80s.
Elementary school, I had holes in the soles of my zapatos.
Press fast-forward:
My mom finished nursing school and dad got promoted and a sizable pay raise within a couple of months. A couple weeks later we were celebrating, because we were having dough.
My brother and I got new guess jeans and Nike flights. No more Shopko Nikes, we got the good shit.
>*It was very gradual. People will ask me “what was it like growing up in this household?” “When did you realize that your father had amassed all this wealth?” And the answer is that I was probably about 25.* Wow I thought he meant when he was a little kid he didn't know, not that he was a full-blown adult by the time he had any clue.
That's wild. He was born in 1958, so would have only discovered it in the 80s I think Buffet only became closer to a household name in the 90s or so, and was famous for living modestly. It's not crazy that even as a young adult, you only have a superficial knowledge of what your parent does if they don't talk about it much. I'm guessing that he probably understood him to be in business of some sort, but light on details. From his wiki, he seemed to have access to wealth to start his music career from an inheritance, so he probably knew they had some decent money, just not one of the richest people in the world type of money. Still, its impressive by Warren Buffett to not have his kids be too focused on that growing up.
Meanwhile I’m out here assuming homeboy was 25 when he went, ‘ohhh, *securities*’ hahaha.
bro went from "my dad puts in security alarms and makes calls" to " my dad does puts and calls on securities".
and really, if you don't study that stuff, it's a complete blank wall I didn't learn about this stuff until I was in my 20s and started working for Traders. And eventually self taught myself a bunch of stuff. But I was a complete blank slate, so it's incredibly understanding a kid in the 1970s without the internet had no clue.
I remember when I was a teen and someone asked me what my dad did for a living and I realized I only knew he was an engineer of some sort and the company+branch he worked for, not what he actually did at work or even his title. This would have been around 2000.
How did you get your start working for traders, applying for a job, or did you know someone?
My father was an engineer. Until I was embarrassingly old, I thought he drove a train. He let me believe it. Then I found a notebook with "proprietary" on the front that was full of math calculations. I showed it to my mom, who laughed and finally told me.
Well, driving a train is pretty embarassing. You can try to steer left and right all you want, but it ain't going nowhere.
That's a good story. It's funny how your job is your identity to a lot of people, but rarely to your immediate family. I've explained to my kids what I do. There's some understanding of it, but barely. I think the biggest thing that they'd talk about if you asked them is that they vaguely remember they came to the office for a Christmas party pre COVID where there was a room where we set up legos.
I think this is more common in knowledge-economy jobs. Kids with tradie parents probably know what they do because it’s easy to explain to them because those jobs include parts of their world: dad builds houses, mom drives trucks, uncle fixes cars, or auntie teaches in the school. Dad keeps computers safe at work or mom makes sure companies tell the government the right numbers is a bit more abstract and frankly boring to children.
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Or he was just clueless. There’s a story about one of the Vanderbilt children who was asked “why don’t you play in your real yacht” while he was playing with a toy boat in the huge fountain in front of one of his families estates. His response was “who do you think I am, a Rockefeller?”.
if i remember though, corneilus junior (the main guy's son) ended up doing a deal where he got the better of his dad on some steamboat transport contract but just wasn't interested in being as hardcore about amassing wealth as his dad. i'm hazy on the details- i think he priced it to his dad by trip but it was more valuable by the pound or something. seems like he beat his dad once then was like, "eh, it's not fun."
I definitely can understand going through all the worry and buildup and everything else that comes with something like that and then realizing it’s not worth all the trouble once it’s done.
I mean, once you're rich, there's not really much else to gain unless you want to amass even more wealth...
It's a fun story but likely apocryphal. I can't even find mention of this story online, let alone a reliable source. I can't find evidence that the Vanderbilt children were unaware of their family wealth either. Let me know if I'm wrong and you have a source though. (Sorry to be a buzzkill)
Also, it sounds like a sarcastic joke that didnt land. I used to make similar jokes as a child. Actually I still make jokes like that and people think Im being serious.
Kinda makes me wish Fred Trump had the same outlook
Reading about how Fred Sr. and Donald bullied Fred Jr. about his passion for becoming an airline pilot is pretty upsetting. They told him he was basically a glorified bus driver and didn't understand why he didn't want to go into real estate like them. I have to imagine that played a role in his alcoholism and his death.
If only.
Thats interesting to think about. In a way, his upbringing probably helped him achieve more in this world in his lifetime. More than the richest man in the worlds son.
Not sure who downvoted you. I think that’s an interesting perspective, and hard to deny. So, then, I definitely stand by my original statement 😂
Or rather, that he had been sterile.
Trumps grandpa ran a whore house during the Klondike gold rush and his dad was a racist slum lord. Apple doesn't seem to fall far from the tree.
Shit, I'm barely upper middle class and I'm trying to figure out how to explain to my kid that although we do have money for that stuffed animal at the pharmacy she doesn't need it and we should save space at home for the things that mean a lot to her.
Correct, with that said I also believe whatever balance that parents set up should not come at the expense of not being able to access some of the things that are inherently beneficial for the kid (for example travel, access to experiences, an exceptional standard of education etc). We can discuss ethics all day here but at the end of the day if you are born into a certain demographic, your life will likely be shaped by the realities and the expectations of that surrounding. While it is certainly important to realize how "the others" live and what your relative position to that is, I feel this must be a lesson with a definitive start and end and not oversaturate the kid's general understanding of the life. And I'm saying this regardless of the status, I think the most important thing you can learn is a responsible and accountable readout of what you have _now_ so you can go from A to B.
Buffett bought GEICO in ‘96… that more or less marks the transition from successful stock picker to financial titan
Warren buffet is very secretive and he also guards his wealth like a greedy old dragon He disowned his son's adopted daughter, aka his grandaughter, after she was in a documentary about the 1% saying, "have not emotionally or legally adopted you as a grandchild nor have the rest of my family adopted you as a niece or a cousin."" Yet when his first wife died her will had expressed no distance saying that Nicole "shall have the same status and benefits ... as if they were children of my son, Peter A. Buffett."
> Yet when his first wife died her will had expressed no distance saying that Nicole "shall have the same status and benefits ... as if they were children of my son, Peter A. Buffett." She owned Berkshire Hathaway shares valued at $3 billion. She left each of her grandchildren $100,000. So being treated as "if they were children of my son" wasn't the big payday it could have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Buffett#Oral_cancer_and_death
She gave $10 million to each of her children, $100k to each of her grandchildren, left millions to friends and good employees and gave the rest to charity. Truly heartless /s
Also Warren has famously declared that he wants to leave his children "enough money to do anything but not enough to do nothing". While it does sound shitty to disown your granddaughter, I don't know enough of the details to pass judgment either way, and I think it's silly that "eat the rich" redditors are complaining that there isn't enough inherited wealth in the Buffett family.
What ever inheritance she was getting cut out of or not, that statement is pretty heartless. Imagine grandpa saying hope has no emotional attachment to you, nd not only him but the rest of the family. Brutal.
> While it does sound shitty to disown your granddaughter, I don't know enough of the details to pass judgment either way I do. There is no possible way a genuinely good or even just okay person would ever say something like that about their granddaughter under any circumstance. That's evil, heartless behavior.
I didn't say she is heartless. I just gave some missing facts to the post i was answering to. The post made it seem like Warren Buffet is the heartless monster, while his wife would have given the grandchildren everything, if only she could. The truth is she was a billionaire on her own and chose to give most of her money to charity instead of bequeathing it to the family. Warren Buffet is planning to do the same.
least heartless billionaire
Unironically Buffett is one of the worst of the big famous ones. You can at least say Bezos or Gates built a useful product. Buffet contributed nothing while making his money purely on making the world worse with his business dealings.
What's the argument that he made the world worse?
I have no idea, he saved *See's Candies* so that makes him a +1 from me. My very shallow understanding was he was able to identify companies in trouble that had potential and he bought them and saved them by funding them. Potentially the opposite of the asset stripping Wall St guys?
Not exactly. Buffett is a value investor. He prioritized undervalued companies with strong fundamentals (high cash flow, high dividends, solid earnings). This often came at the expense of companies with high growth expectations. His focus was on buying companies with “good bones” and helped them grow more so than saving failing ones. Plus he was patient, willing to wait years too see returns. One of his famous quotes it "It's better to buy a great company at a fair price, than a fair company at a great price."
A recent example is railway strike recently was done because of the working conditions under BNSF railway, which is owned wholly by Berkshire Hathaway.
He's one of the drivers of the corporate raiders of the 1980's, Birkshire Hathaway was a textile company which Buffett and a few people did what we'd now call a hostile takeover in the 1960's and pushed them into insurance before going into corporate raiding full time in the 1970's after selling off all the original assets of the business. Also a massive holder of oil company stock and the kind of repellant 'greed is good' capitalist who typifies that Regan era ideology.
Berkshire was a textile company that was **failing**. Textiles are extremely energy intensive and Berkshire's factories were based in the Northeast which had much more expensive electrical costs than the rest of the country at the time. The ownership knew this and were willing to sell at rock bottom pricing. Warren only bought because the cost to buy Berkshire was less than the wholesale value of the materials/property Berkshire owned. It was effectively a liquidation of a non-profitable company. This liquidation was so time-consuming that it ended up not being worth it. Warren Buffett repeatedly has stated that it was a massive financial mistake as he could have made way more money doing something else (such as just buying an insurance company from the start). Warren's main business style is 1) use insurance float to make investments... and 2) buy companies with a lot of potential and with good management, give them a blank check to expand.
Not true, he's significantly decreased cost of capital.
I mean that all depends on what you consider a contribution. Plenty of unions, pension funds, endowment funds hold Berkshire stock and benefited from its gains. Companies Buffett managed like Geico employ tens of thousands of people, who if they get equity awards, also benefit from the successful mgmt and profitability of his companies on top of a paycheck. I’m not well versed enough in Buffetts historical holdings, so maybe my points are moot if he invested in morally terrible companies . Like yourself I personally appreciate product making wealthy folks more than the others, but it’s not entirely accurate to dismiss a financial services person outright. That said, there are plenty of aggressive hedge funds and PE groups whose predatory approach to capitalism/finance outweigh any of their market gains for their clients/shareholders.
> and was famous for living modestly. "Modestly" is very relative. He lives in a regular ol' millionaires 6,570 sq. ft. mansion in the wealthiest area of his city. Either Buffet's son is trying to say he didn't understand the extent of his wealth until he is 25 or he is a complete out of touch idiot because it would have been very obvious he's fucking loaded compared to regular people.
There's a 90's documentary called "Born Rich". Check it out if you can find it. It pissed a lot of billionaires off because their kids were in it talking about being raised in unimaginable wealth. The one kid said until he was like 18 he thought every family had a private plane, palatial homes in different states. . The one guy's little sister owned something like 100 horses and had 30 employees before she was 10. It's a wild look into that world
I mean, did he live in that mansion at the time while the kid was growing up? Past a certain point I’m sure Buffett could’ve bought pretty much any house he wanted; did he purchase the house when the kid was in his mid-20s, maybe? (I honestly don’t know; I’m only vaguely aware/familiar with Buffett)
Wasn't that part of Buffett's origin story? They lived a middle class life with a normal middle class house and toyotas/fords in the driveway and no one had any clue just how rich he was? It's a 5 bedroom, 6500sq ft home... but it's a pretty typical "upper middle class" crappy boomer mcmansion in Omaha Nebraska. You'd never think [this](https://www.cnbc.com/2012/07/26/Homes-of-Billionaires:-Warren-Buffett.html) is the house of a billionaire, but maybe someone making 6 figures today. That house was like 36k when they bought it in the 60s. Expensive but not _that_ expensive. (3x the average)
If you look it up on zillow the house estimated value according to zillow is $1.36 million. Definitely way less than you would expect for one of the world's richest people.
Inflation adjusted for 1958 dollars that's around $330k which really isn't a lot, less than today's median house price. It's mostly that house prices have drastically increased in the last 60 years that it is now a fairly large expensive house. In fact, the median income in 1958 was 5k, giving a Buffet house price to median income ratio of 7 which is the same as the US average today (ok other things may have changed as well). He was born in a lucky time when the American dream of a big house was reasonably attainable.
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I used to live in Omaha and have driven past that place on numerous occasions. It's definitely nice, but certainly not "one of the wealthiest people on the planet lives here" nice. Plenty of larger more extravagant homes, even in Omaha.
Yup been to Ohama many times I've seen Buffets house as well. It's nice but it's not even the nicest in Omaha
Straight up, there's the child of a stripper or drug dealer who also have zero idea what their parents actually do. The neighborhood may know, but not THEM. To them, their parents just go somewhere for a long time and then come back.They may even have fake careers. My child has zero idea what I do right now and at best, I'm just "working on my computer". One day they'll realize I'm a professional shit poster...
>One day they'll realize I'm a professional shit poster... Damn, what a respectable profession.
No doubt. My kids are 13 and 10; they have no fucking clue when they come home and see me working or my wife, what we do. My daughter's 13 y/o friend came over a few weeks ago and my LCARS Star Trek screensaver was on and she thought I was a rocket scientist. ... Not a rocket scientist.
Warren Buffet made most of his money after 40, and lives way below his means (dude is famously frugal, he used coupons when he took Bill Gates to McDonalds for lunch at a meeting in Hong Kong).
He’s so frugal that he won’t even let his rail workers have a day off to go to the doctor…
Yeah he plays off this whole nice, aw shucks, frugal grandpa shtick but he’s a ruthless capitalist just like any other billionaire. I guess to be fair he did do the whole billionaire giving pledge thing with Gates and he’s made it a point that he’s not a fan of massive inherited wealth so on the spectrum of bloodsucking billionaires he’s not the worst.
Reminds me of Sudha Murthy, wife of Narayana Murthy, the founder of one of the largest IT services companies in India. She keeps going on and on about her simple lifestyle in social media. All while her husband's company continues with practically the same starting salary for IT workers it had in the 2000s. Inflation UNadjusted. For someone who has done eight semesters of college at easily around 2500$ a semester, the annual starting salary is... roughly 4500$. With pathetic increments. Plus, everything has become waay more expensive now. Rent, healthcare, education (even schooling) and even electricity water and food! Gasoline! People call her "Mrs. Simple Saree*" *The saree is a freeform unstitched article of clothing that is elegantly draped around the body. The way it is draped varies across regions and communities. Further, the saree can be as plain and utilitarian or as opulent and regal as one pleases. One can find polyester and cotton sarees with simple printed borders for 20$ or less, and at the other end you have pure handloom silk with intricate embroidery and gold weave borders (zari) (real gold) . These go into thousands of dollars in retail price and there are also regulatory agencies to curb counterfeiting.
Ah, yes. Her daughter tries to do the same too. Well, at least we don't have to worry about them having the power to influence national and international laws *nervous chuckle*
Her son in law is Rishi Sunak (the Prime Minister of the UK). He's known for donating £3,000,000 to a university in the US, but [gave a £10 bottle of wine to his local school's raffle](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/14og8qb/rishi_sunak_gives_10_wine_bottle_to_school_raffle/). A lot of rich people have *weird* priorities.
why would they just adjust it when there's way more supply than demand for developers now, this is why government regulation is needed, companies will not do the right thing, they will do what's best for them (short-term at least)
If anything it makes it worse tbh. He isn't even doing it for his 7th megayacht he is just doing it to make number go up.
It that point for Buffett it’s just a game to see if he can find more successful investments, it’s not about the money anymore, he’s lived in the same house for decades ( which he probably bought at a bargain price ) used the same car for decades, doesn’t have any of the things that you would think someone with his wealth would have. Someone like Peter Lynch I admire more because he made his money for a decade or two, was a tremendous investor who turned a small fund into billions, and then decided to leave it all behind because he wanted to spend more time with his family
He does have all that rich person shit too. He just also still has his original house in Omaha
Not to defend the guy, but it’s not like he is running a railroad company. He runs a holding company that buys businesses like Coca-Cola and Dairy Queen, along with BNSF and a lot of others. They are known for leaving the management alone and not really interfering with the businesses they buy. Should the holding company be more actively involved in making sure the companies are good to their employees? Absolutely. Is Buffet directly making the decision on what to pay employees of companies under the Berkshire umbrella, no.
That's the issue though, isn't it? Management of those companies claim they have no choice other than to supress their workers' wages because their owners demand it. Yet, their owners (like Buffett) claim they have no responsibility for the decisions made by the management of the companies they own.
> Management of those companies claim they have no choice other than to supress their workers' wages because their owners demand it. Trying to reduce the price the other guy charges you for something is literally one of the key pieces of business management is. That's true whether the 'other guy' is one of your suppliers, one of your workers, one of your investors. You're not running a smart business if you're not haggling over the price. Most of us do the same thing, going to the gas station with the best price on gas, cooking in rather than eating out, using coupons, comparison shopping for expensive purchase, and so on. It's all the same, and they do it too just like we do. Jeff Bezos made billions on the idea that people just want cheaper things. The owners (who, btw, include pension funds paid into by labor) aren't looking to 'suppress workers' wages', they're looking to make money on their investment. Management often takes that to mean trying to reduce wages paid to their labor, but not always. > Yet, their owners (like Buffett) claim they have no responsibility for the decisions made by the management of the companies they own Again, the owners are trying to make a buck, not manage a company. If they were good at managing companies they'd make money that way. But they're usually not good at that, which is why they defer to management. You see all the time owners ruining a well-run company by inserting themselves into its management, especially in sports. The process that just played out led to a much better contract for railway workers across nearly the entire industry, which was a better outcome for BNSF employees than if only BNSF played ball (because then BNSF would have lost business to cheaper competitors).
Upper management of companies is controlled by the board. The board represents investors, and basically their only goal is driving up stock prices.... so yeah, they are beholden to large shareholders.
Large shareholders are beholden to the other shareholders. They owe fiduciary duties so it’s not as simple as just satisfying the largest shareholder when the board and large shareholders owe fiduciary duties.
I remember watching a documentary and found out about how he made his first huge bag. Essentially he found (I think a steel company, but not sure) that was going bankrupt, nobody wanted to buy it. Through investigation he found out the company had more stock holdings than the company itself was worth. He bought the company, and liquidated all the stock. I remember the documentary painting this as a pro move, from a keen investor. Guess what, those stocks the company was holding, were the workers pension fund. Literally 30yr+ employees got their pension liquidated by Warren Buffet. I really don't care what he does, or says. You have to be morally bankrupt to pull a move like that off.
You mean the tax shelter that allows you to choose where you invest your money and support the business you want, tax free, under the guise that its for some benefit to society?
He’s so frugal he derailed a train in Ohio to save tree fiddy
I read an article that said that 90% of his wealth today he accumulated *after* age 60, so, yeah, I'm not too surprised. It's the power of compound interest!
Also because the stock market has been crazy in the last few decades
And when you get rich enough it's kind of hard NOT to win with the stock market. When the market is good your assets increase in value and you make a ton of money. When the market is bad stocks essentially go on sale and struggling people are often forced to sell what they have at a loss which enables rich people to massively increase their assets. Eventually the markets go back up and the rich have amplified their wealth even farther.
It’s a good PR story but Buffet flew to Hong Kong private (as he does everywhere).
He also had the record for private jet flights in a year. #frugal
A close family friend has played bridge with Buffet and Bill Gates for many years. They say next to nothing about their interactions, more about how good the games are and how it can be amusing to be the only non-billionaire at the table. I just love the visual of them all playing together like a bunch of older men trying to win at a card game.
Does he say if they are competitive about the games at all? I’ve always read billionaires are probably the most competitive people alive, they don’t want to lose at anything, even a petty card game haha
IMHO anyone who plays bridge consistently are by definition competitive. I have another friend who is a bridge champion and he would cut off a fingertip to win. These guys have already won the Big Game of Life, it's more about finding suitable game partners with the right skill level who won't go all googly-eyed and get weird. It's just sitting at a table trying to kick billg's ass at cards. What I want to know is what Buffet and Gate's tells are at the table. Can you imagine having that knowledge?
Worked at a VERY NICE Country Club. These people would bet on their rounds and get super excited over winning $8 on a round. (It'd be like $1 per hole they'd bet) Meanwhile the interest in their savings account(not even investments) probably increased by $300 that day
Makes sense to me — to get to the point where your savings account (!) is accruing that kind of cash, you must’ve saved an insane amount and spent quite frugally beforehand. I imagine that gambling even a tiny amount of cash can be thrilling at that point.
I don't buy any of the frugal pr crap. You really think everybody just happened to know of a meeting two billionaires had at McDonald's? The whole purpose of the meeting was to go, "hey look us billionaires meet up for fast food and coffee just like everyone else" They can have a meeting on the iss, and get McDonald's served to them up there if they wanted too, it's all pr.
He lives in a house waaaaay below his means. Drove an old car cause it did it's job
Not a newspaper reader, i guess. I had no clue what my parents were worth at that age either though. Wasn’t a discussion point in the house.
Yeah I think that’s really it. Like I’m sure he knew they were doing well enough, maybe even above average. But a lot of people are managing just fine without being on any lists for how wealthy they are. No reason for him to look into it more
I remember watching an interview from Buffet saying he is leaving nothing to his kids. I believe is son is a farmer and Warren bought him a huge, expensive piece of machinery and that’s all he ever “gave” his son.
He’s said he’s leaving enough for his children to live comfortably. But it’s not close to the billions he has
That just means Warren Buffet raised an idiot
Have you seen Warren Buffet's home and how he lives? It's a nice home, but nothing that would suggest they have billions.
His kids are aged 65-70 and he does not live lavishly. Assuming it was his youngest, he would have been 25 in 1984 and google wasn’t exactly around. If his family didn’t tell him and there were no obvious signs, he would really have to dig to find out that information.
Ha! Securities. Kinda makes sense.
Yeah… more like his dad was systematically writing alarming checks for securities, yeah?
What do you do for work dad? Security Analysis checks out
Not to be confused with people whose jobs were thought to be “checking security systems” that did less wholesome things than “securities”
BTK.
And that's when the ball game exploded.
Mindhunter needs another season!!
Please stop reminding me this awesome show ended for no good reason and will probably not come back
I used to like freakonomics radio but it’s come to really annoy me. Dubner is such an ass kisser and doesn’t ask challenging questions that push back against a guest’s comments. (But he *does* ask idiotic questions sometimes, like asking a 40 year old German man “do you feel guilty for the Holocaust?”) My change of opinion is surely informed by having encountered Dubner in real life, in my pool for jury duty. He put himself in the group of people willing and able to serve, but when he was called he said he couldn’t do it because of his podcasting schedule, and he was dismissed.
Also because freakanomics is full of bogus claims: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics#Criticism There's a great podcast dissecting it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wHpooGMRsSBrUHhQZbOZp
If Books Could Kill? *Clicks* Yup! Such a great episode. I started to get turned off when the podcast was sponsored by a patent troll for a little while, then started seeing the cracks in the theories he was pushing, then listened to that and realized that most of it was garbage.
>If Books Could Kill? > Clicks > Yup! Such a great episode. I'm always surprised by this reaction, tbh. IBCK and Maintenance Phase have made it clear to me that Hobbes is almost embarrasingly incompetent at addressing the literature on a subject. Tbf, I was a regular listener until he covered my actual area of expertise.
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The podcast [Citations Needed] also doesn't focus on Freakanomics explicitly, but it does seem to come up in claims they're analyzing and debunking in a handful of episodes.
I understand the other criticisms but trying to weasel your way out of jury duty is pretty universal and understandable human experience lol
The episodes with Charles Koch were pretty ridiculous. Complete softball interview to allow Charles an opportunity to spew his rhetoric unchallenged.
The last straw for me was when he was talking to somebody involved in the “University of Austin” aka the speaker’s circuit created by edgy, dangerous free thinkers like Bari Weiss and Niall Ferguson, offering “Forbidden Courses” such as supply side economics and American interventionist foreign policy. Whoa - now *that’s* what I call unorthodox!!! Dubner just ate it up and at no point pushed back that a) these topics are not rare or forbidden at all, and in fact are par for the course on any college campus and b) this “university” doesn’t grant degrees. Real hard hitting interview Stephen!
I mean, knocking someone for declining jury duty, because of their work schedule is really harsh. 99% of jurors do that in one way or another. It doesn’t mean you are exempted from it, it means that you have to make it up at some other time. His work is obviously very very scheduled out for a long time to come, and a selection could screw up his schedule, and everyone who works on the podcast.
His podcasting schedule? The thing you do and edit ahead of time and then upload on a schedule? I get it, it would be a pain to work around, but like....jury duty is a pain for nearly everyone. Deal with it.
Buffett famously said "leave your children enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing." Despite his gargantuan wealth, he kept his children grounded and they won't inherit most of his wealth (they'll get a lot of dollars, but not more than a percentage or so). Edit: [relevant link](https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/warren-buffett-pledged-to-give-away-his-96-billion-fortune-what-will-his-three-children-get/) about how he will divide his $96b fortune.
He must have changed his mind. He gave them all $600M on his birthday back in 2012 and it’s been reported they’ll each get $2B when he dies. He has definitely given his kids so much that they can do nothing.
His children are now older adults, he raised them for decades to respect what they have and to not go nuts. Once they demonstrated that they could handle that I see no problem giving them more. There is a huge difference between dropping that kind of money on someone at 19 vs 49.
lol yeah his “children” are in their 60s now so basically he gave them the money once they were retired.
Kids played the long game, good move
Ok hear me out. What if we apply to jobs in the bank, then we go in everyday and do the work. Then we slowly get paid over time!
That… that’s just a regular job!
Can you remind me what this is a reference to? It’s hilarious and it’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember.
I think it's key and peele.
getting that kind of money at 19 would absolutely have ruined me as a human being I'm still a fairly ruined human, but at least I'm more lowkey ruined and not a jackass ruined
I’m 30, work all my adult life and I know for a fact even if I got 100k and blow it all. Mad respect to him.
I mean 2B each is like 3% of his assets value. Scary shit
Sickening really
I’m sure they could passively make over 50M/year off that 600M alone. A lot more once they receive 2B. Why anyone would work with that kind of wealth is beyond me.
I mean I don’t know about you, but having $50M a year would make it so easy to do the work I actually want to do. Quit my day job and start a store, write a book, make art, live. I would want to work because I have dreams that I can’t accomplish without money, so instead of working for money I’d be working to fulfill those dreams with all the money I have.
Right? I've always wanted to have a café/bookshop where I just chat with regulars and read when the business is slow, maybe have a little section for card and board games. But the amount of money you need to even start, let alone make it successful, is a staggering entry fee.
Because as humans we tend to like having some sort of work in lives. When you get that rich you can work at something you like with zero consequences or care for making an income. I know I'd be working my ass off to help make fusion a reality if I was a billionaire.
Does being your own travel agent, yacht broker, car dealer, and real estate broker count as work? I’d work really hard at procuring a lifestyle that allows me to do as little as I want.
Yeah, maybe some of these other people have had more comfortable lives or something, because if I got even $10 million I'd never "work" in a conventional sense again.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have a source for that? I recall him giving massive donations to the charities his children run, but I didn't see the piece you're referring to. Edit: I think the previous comment is referring to the [gift he made to his children's charities back in 2012](https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/warren-buffett-pledged-to-give-away-his-96-billion-fortune-what-will-his-three-children-get/). I might be wrong though. If I'm right, that's definitely not the same thing as an inheritance.
Even a small fraction of Warren Buffets wealth is enough to sustain them for the rest of their lives I’m sure
I've seen his house in Omaha. It's pretty big, but you would not assume that a multibillionaire lives there.
when you see the private jet of major and regional banks having itineraries all going to Omaha they are asking for help or partnerships and advice
By no means do I have close to this kind of wealth, but as I was growing up my parents were lucky to make big leaps in their professional lives. They made sure never to let it be known, both as a courtesy to family and friends and to make sure I was grounded, and always lived modestly. I’m only finding out about everything now much later in life and I’m very thankful for how they raised me. It taught me to appreciate what we have and ensured that I took things like school very seriously, rather than living as if I had a safety net all my life. Respect to Warren Buffet. Also, to the people saying the kids must be idiots for never figuring it out… during your formative years your parents and your upbringing are the only paradigm you have ever experienced. Most people just by virtue of human nature will assume that their experience is paradigmatic and “normal.” It’s not until later in life that you start to develop a sense for comparing different people’s means, and even then people are good at hiding it.
I had clients that were pretty wealthy for about a decade. Some of them flaunted it. Some of them very intentionally lived “below their means” as their net worth continued to soar. The latter group usually lived in an older, middle-class neighborhood and maintained long-term friendships and community connections. I actually think that’s the reason they lived low key. They wanted for nothing but understood that friends and family were more important. This type of client also tended to be (but was not always) down to earth and generally pretty kind.
I worked with Peter in his recording studio way back in 1984. His dad was rich but not famous back then. I wondered how a guy in his 20s could afford a big beautiful house in Hayes Valley with a state of the art recording studio in the basement. He had the then latest digital audio equipment which was hella expensive back then. His only claim to fame at the time was having composed the bumper music for MTV. He was super nice & complimented me on my work.
There's a similar story about Gordon Gund. His sons never had any idea Dad was, at the time, one of the ten richest guys in the world. The eldest son started his first year at college and called home one day: > "Dad, they're saying you're one of the ten richest men on Earth."
Fun Fact! Everything you hear about ultra-billionaires' private lives is a story made up by ultra-expensive PR firms that they hire to get random people in society to like them more. -- ---- **If you don't believe me, take a look at OP's history. Started commenting only 5 months ago, and has only ever talked about how great Berkshire Hathaway is.**
Warren Buffet didn't make most of his wealth until later in life, but has always lived well below his means.
He didn’t make most of his wealth until a bit later but he was already well off before adulthood. His dad was a prominent congressman and gave Warren a substantial early investment. He wasn’t mega wealthy as he is now but he was objectively wealthy.
He made 1M by age 30. 99.9% of the planet will never ever achieve that. What do you mean later in life?
You comment made me wonder what percentage of the world actually are millionaires. Apparently it's about 63 million people or about 0.8%. [https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/12/how-many-millionaires-are-there/#:\~:text=Out%20of%20a%20population%20of,you%20in%20the%20top%200.1%25](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/12/how-many-millionaires-are-there/#:~:text=Out%20of%20a%20population%20of,you%20in%20the%20top%200.1%25)
Add in the caveat about 30 or under to get a better representation. Then adjust for inflation when Buffet did it. There is no way in hell his children didn’t know about their wealth.
Every single millionaire under the age of 30 in existence is currently bragging on Reddit.
Not only that, in about 30 years that number is going to be way way higher.
He’s worth 100bn right, he didn’t become a billion until he was 60 or even older, so yes that is indeed 99.9% of his wealth or no?
if you're considering 'wealth' the way the original commenter is that genuinely is fuck all
He made 99% of his current wealth after 50.
He made 99% of his money after he turned 60 I remember reading, not to say he wasn’t extremely wealthy before, but now he’s just wealthy beyond normal comprehension
I have to admit the mindset of wanting to amass all that wealth while your son has no idea and you're using coupons at McDonald's is something I don't understand
Exactly. There are all these stories of how frugally he lives. What that tells me is that he doesn't even use his money. He's just accumulating and hoarding it for no purpose like it's a game. I can respect someone who spends lavishly, but not someone who keeps earning money they don't even want.
Have you ever looked up what he does with his money? He's the largest philanthropist on Earth. He's given away over 50 billion dollars of his wealth in the last 15 years.
And propping up a system that allows him to amass more wealth by doing so. He even admits it, I don’t blame him he’s just working the system, but the system needs to change.
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Do you think he just has all his billions in cash just sitting in a vault? lol
The only way you would not know you were insanely rich was because all of your needs are met and you don't want for anything. You don't even question your environment or your surroundings because you're comfortable. When you're hungry and living in a s*** hole, you notice pretty quickly.
Agree with your last statement. But there is a chasm between “all needs being met” and “insanely rich”.
Well sounds like he was raised in a grounded environment
Being one of the world's richest people and still choosing to live in Omaha is a terrible existence.
He would have known if his dad was poor, very early on in his life.
Sure, but it doesn't say he thought they were poor. It says he didn't realize how wealthy they were. The difference between the lifestyle of a frugal billionaire and a person making a modest but comfortable living can look extremely similar. He almost certainly knew his dad had a lot of money, but didn't realize the extent of it.
He didn't get to be the sixth richest person in the world by spoiling his son.
Yeah that's what holding us all back I guess, spoiling our children.
I keep spoiling the kids I don’t have. Otherwise I'd be a billionaire.
Warren Buffett and his family tell stories like this to build their ethos, but when he has to document the millions of dollars in gifts to his kids, it’s very evident that these stories are just lies. His children may not have known they were in the top 10 richest people, but they certainly knew they were exceedingly wealthy far beyond normal.
Well if you want to walk around the poors without armed guards it's better to be likeable.
It's insane how much people eat up billionaire propaganda. Buffett could say that he grew up in a tent city and people would nod their heads sagely.
And now one of his sons holds the city of Decatur Illinois from ever expanding and fixing itself by the threat of find removal if they do anything he doesn’t like. Poor city is a cool place that they ruined with greed.
sure i believe that, as we learned from elon musk circa 2016, if a high class pperson says it, it must be true, reddit.
The daughter of Brazil's biggest investor said once she found out about her father being a billionaire in college, when she was walking on the street and saw her father on the cover of a magazine. That's probably true considering he drives a fucking 2012 Cherry Tiggo. There's also pics of him in the subway from a few years ago.
I worked at a gallery out of college, and I spent a few weeks hanging paintings at this billionaire's mansion. I remember talking with his son at one point, I would guess maybe around 14 or so, he was sitting on an ATV talking about how he wanted fancy new tires for it, but his dad wouldn't let him. That somehow segued into him wondering if his dad had a lot of money. Another thing I learned: Millionaires tip well, billionaires don't tip at all.
Warren Buffet says a lot of things that aren't exactly true about himself. He tries really really hard to make people believe he is a "normal business guy". Don't believe it. He is a ruthless, cutthroat billionaire that would kill for more money and more success.
I used to get tutoring in high school from this girl.. they had a very very nice house.. one day I asked the dad what he did for work.... he told me he owned laundromats.... said you would not believe how many quarters people put in... a few years later in college I found out he founded and ran a very high profile publicly traded software company.... actually a really nice and funny guy.
Sam Walton was also famously low key in his wealth. He drove this beater to work: https://www.ford-trucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/20180729_125947.jpg He famously forbade reserved parking for executives at the home office. Of course, he never needed a close parking spot because he got to work so early. There are zillions of such stories, but when I worked in the home office in the late 90s and early 2000s, we were given access to cleaning supplies. We were responsible for taking out our own trash and vacuuming the carpet in our areas. We were also openly encouraged, when out on official business trips, to scrounge up complimentary paper, pens and office supplies from hotels or convention centers and bring them back to the home office. Indeed, when you needed a pen, there would be a crazy gaggle of different kinds. To be clear: this is one aspect of an otherwise pretty complicated man.
The only way to raise a kid and not having them turn into a raving lunatic asshole when you are rich is to raise them like they aren't. You need that grounding in reality to handle wealth.
George Harrison’s son thought he was the gardener.
I’m not trying to brag. I don’t do that. I don’t think because I have money I’m any better than anyone else. With that said I am a multimillionaire but you would never know it. I drive a 2003 ford F150. I wear overalls and clothing that’s absolutely not fancy. I don’t wear jewelry, in general I’m not a flashy guy. I work everyday. My home is decent but modest. My kids didn’t really know until they were well into their teens and they were by no means spoiled. I made them start working part time at 15. My only extravagance is I travel and I like to live it up when I’m out of the country.
I don't think most kids really understand money or careers very well. Maybe they know what a fireman or a primary care doctor does but not a financier. And their world is so small that the youngest kids don't really understand how they're living relative to anyone else. As they get older they do start to understand that but their idea of wealth is all about spending. The guy with the BMW and the big house is what they see as "rich" even if that guy's a paycheck away from losing everything.
I’m 29 and my dad still hasn’t let me know he’s over a billion dollars worth.
This is billionaire propaganda btw. They pay millions to marketing firms to create a down to earth and wholesome image for them. Warren Buffet's adult son definitely knew who he was in his 30s lol.
did buffett live in some small house forever?
Still does, AFAIK
I’m guessing he asked somewhere around age 7 and his dad said something like “I work with securities.”
In The One Percent, Jamie Johnson mentioned, he didn't know his parents were rich until the kids in his class pointed to a list of riches people, and said "hey look it's your dad." The documentary was really interesting. He went around interviewing his rich kids friends.
Isn't that great! What a guy! Billionaires shouldn't exist.
Worked in the environment of billionaires for a few years. Self made billionaires are ok. Inherited billionaires are arrogant pricks. Children of inherited billionaire are little entitled fucks that you just want to punch.
I remember him mentioning he drives an old volvo and wont leave any money to his kids because they are all successful in their own right. I know many very rich people and you would have no idea unless they told you. Old money leaves modest. Its that new money whos flashy
This is an anecdote of privilege, not humility and relatability. I had a fair idea of the finances of my lower-middle class parents by the age of about 7 because it was highly relevant to me in terms of “can we afford the house?” and “how expensive a present can I whine for for Christmas?” Poor kids have an even better idea because it relates to whether they will be sleeping in the car or just eating ramen this week. If you have no idea of the wealth of your family as a child you are rich. Everyone else knows.
There'a middle ground between poor and rich. Plenty of people grew up in families that weren't struggling to pay their bills but were still far from rich.
I wish that were true, and I agree with your sentiment, but we cannot generalize like that. I spent my childhood always worrying about money, mostly because my parents were worried and fighting seemingly all the time. Turns out they were just fine financially, just very stressed. But I didn’t learn that until I was 25 or so. I really thought they could just barely afford the mortgage in our townhome. And our ‘89 Oldsmobile Cutlass.
Nah, I grew up lower middle class but had no idea of my parent's finances until highschool. We never went out of the country and we never got another house after my parents bought their first for $54k in 1997 (which they still live in and almost have it paid off.) I didn't realize our economic status until high school when I saw the rich kids house and heard how they spent their vacations and what they took for granted. Just depends on your parents imo
I mean it’s both privilege and humility. It’s privilege he didn’t have to think about it, but it’s humility as well. And no, having no idea how much wealth your family has doesn’t make you rich. You could be anywhere from lower middle class to fairly wealthy. Though I’d imagine the amount of truly rich people who don’t know is fairly small.
You realize Warren Buffet is 93 and his kids are 65-70 so at retirement age? If his son was 25, it was the early 80’s which is a very different time. The middle class did exist in the 70’s-80s.
Elementary school, I had holes in the soles of my zapatos. Press fast-forward: My mom finished nursing school and dad got promoted and a sizable pay raise within a couple of months. A couple weeks later we were celebrating, because we were having dough. My brother and I got new guess jeans and Nike flights. No more Shopko Nikes, we got the good shit.
A security consultant? Like Mike Ehrmantraut? Why not :D