Comment by ProllyInfamous
3 months ago
>Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.
>I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.
>I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the jerks; it’s never too late to change. Remember to thank America for maximizing your opportunities. But it is – inevitably – capricious and sometimes venal in distributing its rewards.
>Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them. You will never be perfect, but you can always be better.
God speed, dearest Oracle of Omaha.
Warren Buffett is a great investor but nobody in finance buys his folksy image. Everybody knows he's an animal.
I heard from folks in the room that the way 3G and Buffett came in to do layoffs at Tim Hortons was one of the most cold blooded things they've ever seen.
It's funny - having followed Buffett for a while I was going to dispute the everyone knows he's an animal bit but wasn't sure of the definition of an animal in that context so googled it and google's AI came back referencing your HN post(!):
>The specific phrase was noted in a recent online discussion related to Warren Buffett, where a user commented, "Warren Buffett is a great investor but nobody in finance buys his folksy image. Everybody knows he's an animal," to suggest he is a ruthless, cold-blooded businessman, likely in reference to aggressive business tactics like mass layoffs.
Anyway I don't think he's a ruthless cold-blooded type, although he is educated and very hard working. Also sometimes layoffs happen in business.
Just look at how he chopped up GEICO (his favorite company). The company imploded under Buffets hand picked snake of a CEO (Todd Combs).
Seems to be making decent profits though https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...
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Warren Buffet is the definition of oligarchy. Dude runs a rail and insurance monopoly while buying large top stocks for yield. He maintains a persona of this traditional and nice family dude who is old and wise. But this is the US, and people are ranked/valued by how rich they are regardless of how it is acquired.
Still, he avoided political scrutiny (say comparing to Musk or Bezos) by maintaining this image. That was wise.
The image machine for him really is something.
Buffet is a bigamist. By all intents and purposes he lived with two wives. The legal status was not that of bigamy, to be clear. He married his other wife after his first wife died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett
The personal section here is not exactly false, but is a great example of how one should not trust Wikipedia outright. A careful reading of it shows his lifelong relationships/marriage with two women at the same time.
Look, I'm not going to yuck his yum. Do whatever you want man. But the homely aww shucks image is very intentional. And very much against his actual life choices. Homespun he ain't.
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> Warren Buffet is the definition of oligarchy.
Find a better dictionary.
He's donated, already, the equivalent of 200+ billions USD (give or take 420M class B shares).
Say what you want, but the list of billionaires who have donated such large amounts of money while still alive (or dead) is small.
Cherry picking events like layoffs, without truly knowing how much was he involved (Berkshire directors notoriously enjoy lots of autonomy) or if the layoffs made sense, etc, seems a stretch when we're drowned with sociopath world-ruling-ambitious CEOs, from Musk to Altman, through Thiele.
If somebody focuses on something negative, it's cherry-picking, but if you focus on something positive it isn't?
How much money has he saved dodging taxes over the years[1]?
[1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...
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To whom? To "charities" owned by other billionaires such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and those owned by his children.
I don't want billionaires to donate anything, I don't want them to use their money to shape the world to their liking. I want them to pay their fair share of taxes and a functional government that properly allocates those extra funds instead of funding the bare minimum.
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We are saying different things.
You're saying that WB was not shy to give away money. I'm saying that he was not shy to make it.
> Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.
Considering the Warren Buffett wisdom-industrial complex this might be the best place to share these nuggets. And I know his heart is in the right place, but the fact that you need to spell this kind of thing out is somehow extremely depressing.
The fact that he spelled it out does not imply that it needed to be said. There is no idea in that letter, that is not personal history, that hasn't been said before.
"Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman."
Keep also in mind that the cleaning lady and the receptionist usually know way way more about the insides of a company than an entire board of directors and managers ever will.
It is also extremely beneficial to your own health to be nice and friendly to the people who clean, prepare your food and aid your medical well being. They will remember. They will decide how to help you when you absolutely need it.
In general please always follow Wheaton's Law.
//Keep also in mind that the cleaning lady and the receptionist usually know way way more about the insides of a company than an entire board of directors and managers ever will.
In Buffet's time maybe. Nowadays the sanitation staff more likely to be a contractor from some form of MSP on an exploitative contract with a 3-6 month lifespan. All the more reason to be nice, but don't expect an 'Inside Baseball' level of insight. That sort of thing is generally the realm of Executive Assistants in contemporary offices.
Oh i was not referring to corporate or investments strategies here. I was talking about what is actually going on inside the building and who hates who. Always assume the highest-ups hate everything and each other, it is all fake, ever.
That means they know way more about what's going on at many companies. Maybe listen to them for market tips.
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You should absolutely be a good human to people, but I don't think it is at all true to say "the cleaning lady and the receptionist usually know way way more about the insides of a company"
Truth is they generally don't and they also don't care. Why would they? They literally are not paid enough to care.
I have never worked anywhere where the cleaning staff knew anything about what the company does or cares. They are cleaning a dozen other offices too.
This is lovely writing. I need to go back and read some of Buffett's other letters.