Famous Investors · definition
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett (born 1930) is an American investor who built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the world's largest companies and became the best-known practitioner of value investing.
Warren Buffett (born August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American investor and businessman who chaired Berkshire Hathaway for six decades, transforming a failing textile mill into a conglomerate worth over a trillion dollars at its 2025 peak. Often nicknamed the "Oracle of Omaha", he is the most famous student of Benjamin Graham and the public face of value investing. Profiling him is an Investing Value tradition: a Buffett biography stood on this site's front page as early as the 2000s.
Key takeaways
- Buffett studied under Graham at Columbia and worked at the Graham-Newman partnership.
- He took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and used its insurance "float" to fund investments.
- Berkshire's per-share market value compounded at roughly 19.9% annually from 1965 to 2024, versus about 10.4% for the S&P 500 including dividends.
- He announced in May 2025 that Greg Abel would succeed him as CEO at the end of 2025, remaining chairman.
- He has pledged the bulk of his fortune to philanthropy via the Giving Pledge.
From paperboy to Berkshire
Buffett filed his first tax return at fourteen (declaring paper-route income), ran small businesses as a teenager, and after reading Graham's The Intelligent Investor enrolled at Columbia Business School. He ran investment partnerships in Omaha through the 1950s and 60s before concentrating on Berkshire Hathaway. The pivotal move was insurance: premiums collected before claims are paid, the float, gave Berkshire long-term, low-cost capital to buy businesses (GEICO, See's Candies, BNSF Railway) and large stock positions (Coca-Cola, American Express, Apple).
Investment philosophy in his own words
Buffett's annual shareholder letters, published since 1965, are studied as a canon of plain-language business writing. Recurring principles: treat shares as fractional ownership of businesses; stay within a "circle of competence"; prefer wonderful businesses at fair prices over fair businesses at wonderful prices (a shift credited to his partner Charlie Munger, 1924-2023); and let compound interest do the heavy lifting over decades. His advice to most ordinary savers, repeated in letters and interviews, has been that low-cost index funds beat most alternatives; Investing Value reports that view as his, without endorsing any course of action.
Beyond investing
Buffett co-founded the Giving Pledge with Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010, committing the world's wealthiest to give away most of their fortunes. His lifestyle, the same Omaha house bought in 1958, Cherry Coke, annual shareholder meetings drawing tens of thousands, became part of investing folklore.
Frequently asked questions
Is Warren Buffett still running Berkshire Hathaway?
He stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025, succeeded by Greg Abel, while staying on as chairman of the board.
What is Berkshire Hathaway's track record?
Berkshire's own annual report puts the 1965-2024 compounded annual gain in market value at 19.9%, roughly double the S&P 500's 10.4% with dividends, with individual years ranging from +129.3% to −48.7%.
Sources
This entry is for education only. Investing Value describes how financial concepts work; it does not provide investment, tax or legal advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset.