Total Page : 976
Publisher : Bantam
Publication Date : 2008 09 29
>> Too Much Personal Gossip but Intriguing Anyway
Personally I think Warren Buffett is overrated He is an excellent personal PR machine who sings his own glories exactly the way he wants to spin them and most of the media swallows it a little like Obama and the mainstream media during the 2008 election He is a smart shrewd investor unquestionably but his recent errors are pretty unforgiveable and it s amazing that he still has the following that he has I m impressed that Gates father is impressed this says something But this book is more for the people who soak up aspects of his personal life than for serious students of his investing concepts and the extent to which they re still applicable The Snowball Warren Buffett and the Business of Life The Intelligent Investor The Classic Text on Value Investing
>> Very informative though too detailed
This book does a wonderful job of shedding light on the real Warren Buffett It really brings to light his human side light and dark
Unfortunately the author sidetracks the reader many times by offering overly detailed accounts of specific events related to the story of Warren Buffet Easily 50 and probably more of the 700 pages could be cut out without any loss of clarity around understanding who Warren Buffett really is
I hope this book gets vigorously edited down to remove much of the filler as that will allow the reader to more easily get the powerful nuggets of information included within
Tristan
Seattle WA
>> An important book beyond its value as a biography
I enjoyed the details in this lengthy biography Other reviewers have contributed most interesting thoughts
I just have two observations to add First Buffett seems to me to illustrate many of the points made by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers in which he looks at common threads in the lives of extremely successful people Two of these particularly stand out First they are born in a time and place and family in which their particular gifts are likely to be rewarded On page 817 Buffett speaks of winning the Ovarian Lottery I have been very lucky I was born in the United States in 1930 and won the lottery the day I was born I had terrific parents a good education and I was wired in a way that paid off disproportionately in this particular society If I had been born long ago or in some other country my particular wiring would not have paid off the way it has
Second as Gladwell discusses in 10 000 Hour Rule these individuals are often obsessed from childhood in pursuing their interests As Buffett put it Intensity is the price of excellence
Second the author s ability to clearly describe arcane financial instruments and transactions shines a light not only on the life of Warren Buffett but on the times in which he has operated and particularly on factors leading up to the meltdown of recent years It seems to me that in the future this work will be valuable far beyond its merit as a biography as business and economic historians as well as politicians try to figure out what went wrong
