Book 03 – The Snowball Warren Buffett and the Business of life – a memoir by Alice Schroeder

Where do I start with this book?

A person who loves to talk and write a lot, I barely fall short of words while talking about something or someone. This book by Alice Schroeder on the life of the ORACLE OF OMAHA is one of these things which humbles me to the core and I become speechless. There is just not enough words to express how good, thorough, simple, and inspirational this book is & for that, I would like to thank my friend, Megha, who graciously gifted me this book a couple years ago and the only thing I regret is reading it so late and wish I could have completed it back in 2018.

Anyway, I would try to put a few things that I learnt reading this book and I know, I would fall short of both words and feelings.

Beginnings – Mr. Buffett, initially, had a simple childhood, like everyone else. A few things that made his beginnings different than the rest of his friends, siblings, and cousins was his insatiable brilliance with the patterns and numbers.
If you know some kid who is really brilliant with the patterns and numbers, but, struggle with the social aspect of the regular life, that’s your little Warren Buffett for you.
Even though he struggled socially, he didn’t let that come in way to become a successful businessman. He used to help his grandpa at his store but not with the physical labor and help him with the business aspects of it.
His business acumen helped him start business efforts such as used golf balls and newspapers. He loved his job as a newspaper delivery person and that was his first real job. While delivering these newspapers, he quickly realized the better and more efficient ways to deliver the said newspapers.
While dealing with all these new efforts, he realized his life goal and that would be RETIRE BY 30 WITH A MILLION DOLLAR TO HIS NAME.

I think this was quite ambitious goal for a kid and it helps you “guess” how extraordinary this kid was from the young age.

Mentor – The second portion I want to touch upon is the mentor that he loved and utterly respected throughout his life.
One of the lines from this book that still gives me goosebumps is
IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO WORK FOR SOMEONE WHOM YOU DON’T RESPECT.

This one single line has such a deep meaning hidden in it. This line holds true for almost everything that we do in our daily lives and I try to implement it in whatever I do. This brings us to his mentor – Mr. Ben Graham. The way Mr. Buffett was introduced to Mr. Graham through the latter’s book The Intelligent Investor. Mr. Buffett has sung so many praises of this book, you can clearly imagine the positive impact that this book has had on his life in so many ways. This book made Mr. Graham an idol for Mr. Buffett. He was so enchanted by Mr. Graham that when he was rejected by Harvard, he decided to apply for Colombia just for the fact that Mr. Graham was teaching a class at Columbia.

As the stars aligned perfectly for Mr. Buffett, he was accepted at Columbia though he was late with the application process and his joy knew no bounds when he got the good news. Mr. Buffett, by that point in his life, had read The Intelligent Investor, that he could talk about it for hours, so, when the class actually started, usually, it used to be a dual of discussions between the class instructor Mr. Graham and the keen student Mr. Buffett. It was during these classes that Warren further developed and strengthened his relationship with Mr. Graham and successfully landed a job at Mr. Graham’s firm after graduating Columbia, which in itself was an achievement.

Warren was one happy guy after landing a job at Mr. Graham’s firm and this is where he learnt the different ways and sources to find a *hidden stock* which had tremendous potential and was heavily undervalued.
In the later part of the book, Mr. Buffett reflects upon this time of his life and realizes how important these few months were to *informally* start the SNOWBALL rolling.

Emotional Support – This is one area of Mr. Buffett’s life that he really relies on someone. Warren has been an emotional kid since young age and always needed someone by his side to survive. Be it his sister (surprisingly, he couldn’t get along with his mother, since the young age), aunt or other family friends; he was always surrounded by someone who would eventually take care of him.

After leaving his parents’ place, the role of supporting him emotionally was transitioned to his girlfriend, followed by his first wife, Susan, and then his 2nd wife, Astrid, after his Susan’s demise. Be it any emotional moment, a stressful situation at work, or some of the complexities with this relatives or family who kept pestering him for money – there always was someone who took care of him like you take care of a little kid.

This part of Mr. Buffett’s life surprised me the most and made me wonder it doesn’t matter how wealthy and successful you are, you are just a little kid at the heart. It soothed me to further read into his personal life and different people who were part of this awesome journey.

How THE SNOWBALL was formed – This is the question I needed answer to and hence I started reading this book. What was this SNOWBALL and how did it form in the first place? I never knew the answer would be this simple yet profound.

There are many things in life that we pay attention to and usually get caught up in the daily struggles and rat race, but, this is not the way Mr. Buffett operated while making deals and running his business.

I distinctly remember his dilemma and clever way with which he overcame it. The dilemma was whether to continue as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway or keep working with his friends and relatives managing their money and use it to invest in stocks. As we all know, he chose to be the CEO and earned himself an invincible name in that category. But, what impressed me the most is the way he made that “choice” and how “bluntly honest” he was while giving reasoning to his relative/family who were his “business partners”.

One more key aspects that you can study (if you are interested) are his annul letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. These letters are so profound and carefully written that someone wrote a book about these letters alone and tried explaining the minute details hidden in those letters which a normal person (such as myself) might have missed.

One last thing before actually closing this section is his conviction regarding people that he works with and all the businesses that he invests in. He rarely sells stocks and when that happens, it really is not a good news for those stocks, so, the one thing I learnt from this aspect of the book was to believe in whatever you do, no matter what anyone would say.

The unpredictable move – Initially, this was the most controversial move (at that time) by someone – TO GIVE AWAY HIS ALMOST ENTIRE FORTUNE POSTHUMOUSLY.

No one ever did that before him, so many were surprised at first and criticized Mr. Buffett for doing that. One person responsible for making Mr. Buffett think about others and using his fortune for good use was none other than his friend – Mr. Bill Gates. It will take me a lot of words to describe their journey to the lifelong friendship, so I will not do that. I will mention one sentence from Bill Gates which made Warren think about leaving his almost entire fortune to charity and that was – YOU WILL BE FAR BETTER OFF IF YOU KNOW YOUR MONEY COULD SAVE AT LEAST ONE LIFE.

Warren never thought of giving away his hard earned money, not even to his immediate family. But, this one sentence from his close friend, helped him see beyond himself and what a wonderful feeling it is to save people’s lives with your money and time. For Warren, help always meant professional or financial advise, but, after this incident he started giving away a little portion of his fortune to charity and to do it more efficiently and legally, he setup a foundation too, which later would donate all of its money to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In closing, he was the first person to come up with an idea to give away his money to charity after his death.

What really matters at the end? – And this brings us to the MOST IMPORTANT LESSON from this book.
This question and its answer is simple, yet so overlooked and unfathomable.

This question/answer is mentioned in almost the last chapter of the book when the author describes how he used to host young people (college graduates) at his Omaha office and used to answer their questions.
While answering one of the questions, this sentence made me stop and reflect upon it, and, he put it so casually, it is easy to just skip through this sentence, but, for me, this was the answer to the most important question that I ask myself all the time – what is the most important thing in this life and will I be able to achieve it?

The answer for the above question, as Mr. Buffett puts it, “once you get to my age, all that matters is how many people actually love you and you want them to.” This is one of the most eye-opening answers I have heard. May be it is a simple answer for you, but, for me, it was like knowing the purpose of your life and I was so glad I got to know it. From this point onwards, whatever I do and wherever and whenever I do something, it will all be concentrated around this one analogy – “how many people love me and I want them to”.

I am so glad I got to read it and actually understand the meaning of it. I spent a good couple months to read this book and I am glad that I did, because I am never going to forget the lessons from this book.

Many thanks, Mr. Buffett.