““Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferraris — I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.” — Charlie Munger The world can appear vastly unequal in terms of the goods and services
Berkshire Hathaway’s Great Transformation
On a spring day in 1964, Warren Buffett received a letter from Seabury Stanton offering to purchase the Buffett Partnership’s stake in Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett and Stanton had agreed to a price of $11.50 but Stanton’s letter offered only $11.375. This annoyed the thirty-three year old Buffett and he started buying more shares starting his long journey of transforming Berkshire Hathaway into what it is today.
Lighthouse: Women Leading the Way in Finance
Maya Peterson wrote Lighthouse to inspire and empower women to study “female lighthouses in the world of finance.” While these women have navigated different paths, what they have in common is the shared experience of being women in a male-dominated field and how they found ways to overcome challenges. Although young women embarking on their careers will find the stories highly relevant, all readers should be able to draw lessons from the book.
The Buffalo News: From Butler to Buffett
From Butler to Buffett provides a great example of the evolution of newspapers from the late nineteenth century up through the consolidation of the industry that was largely complete a hundred years later. Murray Light provides a fascinating account of how the paper transformed from a scrappy startup founded in 1873 into the only surviving newspaper in the city 110 years later following Buffett’s acquisition of the paper.
Summer Book Recommendations for 2020
Summer is a great time to get away from the business world. Although taking a vacation during a pandemic can involve overcoming a number of issues, it is always possible to take a virtual vacation through the pages of a great book. The mini-reviews in this article cover a range of topics, most unrelated to the business world, and hopefully a few of them will spark an interest this summer.