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Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

latimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#421

Post by option »

agnosticmantis wrote: post #388
walthamstow wrote: post #10

Driving 7 minutes to work and stopping at a drive-thru to pick up McDonalds breakfast every day. The man is a true American hero.

He shamelessly advertised companies in his portfolio, whether it was always having a can of coke or candies on the table or stopping at a McDonald's in a documentary. I refuse to believe that his lifestyle was what was on display. He lived in the same house for 60 years, sure, but his private jets kept getting upgraded. Good for him, but I find the frugality theater very off putting.

He definitely had a multi million (vacation ?) house in Laguna Beach, California

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#422

Post by itake »

mschuster91 wrote: post #409
EliRivers wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old." Good for him. Big savings right there. Buying/selling/moving house can cost a fortune.

... which makes the need for rent control and renter protection laws obvious. When people have the "choice" between paying their landlord 5k more just because the landlord can or spending 5-10k on finding a new home and moving, landlords have all the cards.

Renter control is the "got mine, lets pull the ladder up" version of Nimby-ism for renters.

Amazing for Grandma to pay $500/mo to live alone in a 2b Manhattan where she raised her family.

Terrible for the young families try to find their own 2b bedroom to start their family.

[0] - higher paying, emotionally rewarding, etc.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#423

Post by iancmceachern »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #329
wickedsight wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old. Really makes me wonder what drives him. For many people it's the money, but with him it doesn't seem that way. But I haven't read too much about him, so if anyone has insight I'd love to hear about it.

Read his biography - "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life". It's quite long but pretty accurate picture of the man and what drives him. His answer was always that he just loves what he does and he does it with people he loves (Charlie). One can hardly ask for more in life.

Loosing him has had to be hard for Warren.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#424

Post by dingaling »

WalterBright wrote: post #332
yndoendo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, a person who life is built around greed is no hero.

Buffet has also made a lot of money for his investors. People can buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway.

> People can buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway.

They can buy stock, but B-H doesn't pay dividends. So the only way to make money with its stock is to flip it to someone who's willing to pay more.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#425

Post by iancmceachern »

kwanbix wrote: post #3

I will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner. I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.

He did exactly what he wanted to do. That's all you need to know. To each their own.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#426

Post by iancmceachern »

andrewaylett wrote: post #67
kwanbix wrote: post #3

I will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner. I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.

I would probably be Software Engineering even if my employer didn't pay me to. As evidence, note that it's new year's eve and I'm writing patches (and waiting for tests) during my holidays for someone else's FOSS project I'm contributing to :). I my employer didn't pay me, I'd stop working on their projects. But in the meantime, I enjoy my profession (at least most of the time) and get paid. If I had enough money the…

This is how I am.

I can design and build anything. If I didn't have to do it for work, I'd be making my own evil projects.

You can't take the country out of this boy it turns out...

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#427

Post by solatic »

twodave wrote: post #243
sethev wrote: post #205

We should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire. - He maintained a disciplined approach to investi…

I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.

The key to a happy life is to learn how to reduce the amount of things you own and how to build strong relationships. Once you have enough to put a roof over your head and food on your table, more than that can only be used to purchase increasing amounts of comfort, which is not the same as increasing amounts of happiness.

YouTube has plenty of videos of people calling in with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year in income and somehow they are still broke and in debt. Live below your means, save the excess income into an investment portfolio, keep doing that until you have enough money to live off the interest. Don't even think about buying a Rolex until you have so much money coming in from interest that you don't even know what else to do with it. Even then, remember that the Rolex, like anything else, requires maintenance, but that if you make someone else happy, they can take care of themselves.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#428

Post by sadeshmukh »

esseph wrote: post #367
WaxProlix wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insanely humble by billionaire standards. Any FAANG SWE over 30 or so in the United States can get that. Contrast with multiple compounds, entire islands, etc.

> Any FAANG SWE That is so few people. So, so, few people. Rough lookup says less than 150,000 people in the US, or 0.044% of the US population.

They're not the only group that can afford it. They're just one that also happens to be much larger by multiple orders of magnitude than billionaires.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#429

Post by globular-toast »

blackoil wrote: post #396
globular-toast wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quarter pounder is loaded with sugar too unfortunately. The sweet bread is one of the worst things about it. The salad dressing will be too. It's not healthy and doesn't even taste good. But it's addictive.

It has 10g of sugar, which isn't good but no where near a medium coke. Though not a healthy meal because of high sodium, but with some added fibers isn't very bad.

It's a bit more subtle than that. The sugar is there to make it palatable and addictive. The real problem is it's hyper-processed and ridiculously easy to digest. It'll spike your blood sugar levels then have you wanting more an hour later. There's no point looking at a single food in isolation, you have to look at the entire lifestyle and the kind of lifestyle that includes McDonald's is not a generally a healthy one.

Then again Buffett apparently did it for 6 decades. But he also only had to drive a few minutes to work and probably had a mostly stress free life. You can eat all the healthy veg you want but if your day is punctuated by a dreadful commute and generally filled with stress, that's what will get you.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#430

Post by utopiah »

kwanbix wrote: post #3

I will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner. I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.

What does retiring even means when

- you enjoy it AND

- you do not have a "boss" telling you what to do AND

- it makes you more "popular" because the World you live in associate a higher number with your "value" in society

Why would you even stop? It's not about having enough to survive.

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