Part One: Early Influences, Long-Term Discipline, and Learning to Think About Business
Why Reflect on Warren Buffett Now
On January 1st of this year (2026), Warren Buffett officially stepped down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., the sprawling conglomerate and investment holding company that Buffett, alongside his late partner Charlie Munger, built up over five decades. As Buffett hands the reigns to Berkshire’s new CEO, Greg AbeI, I thought now is a good time to pen some essays reflecting on Buffett’s career.
Like many investors, I’ve intensely studied Warren Buffett’s career and investment philosophy, and I would encourage any budding investors to do the same. Buffett has been incredibly generous in sharing his intellectual capital through his shareholder letters, interviews, annual meetings, and other forums.
It’s also impossible to reflect on Warren Buffett’s career without acknowledging the influence of his longtime partner, Charlie Munger. While this series focuses primarily on Buffett, I’ve written previously about Munger’s thinking, his multidisciplinary approach to business, and the role he played in shaping Berkshire Hathaway’s long-term philosophy.
For readers interested in that side of the story:
– Charlie Munger and the Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Business
– The Life and Career of Charlie Munger
Discovering Buffett
But before we dive into Buffett’s career, I’d like to share a bit of my own experience.
As if to underscore Buffett’s “business-like” approach to investing, I initially encountered Buffett’s writing as assigned reading in an undergraduate corporate finance class rather than in an investment course. The book in question was Lawrence Cunningham’s The Essays of Warren Buffett, a compilation of Warren Buffett’s writings (mostly from his shareholder letters) thematically arranged by Cunningham. And like many who first encounter Buffett, I wanted to learn more and enthusiastically read everything I could from and about Buffett.
But I should also note that this was in the early 2000s, and Buffett was once again being widely recognized for his investment greatness. I say “once again” because during the 1990s bull market, Buffett bought very little stock and certainly didn’t buy any of the high flying “dotcom” companies that were failing to make money and yet still trading at insane valuations. And this is where I first read about Buffett – as he was being dismissed as a “has been” by the investment gurus at the time.
What Made Buffett Different
What made Buffett so great is not that he had impressive returns – there’s no shortage of people who take big risks and have a few great years in the market. What made Buffett so great is that he had impressive returns over a long period of time. Specifically, over the 60 years from 1964 to 2024, the gain in Berkshire Hathaway’s stock was roughly 20%. To put that into perspective, $1000 invested into Berkshire Hathaway’s stock in 1964 would have been worth over $53 million sixty years later. If only I had that Delorean retrofitted into a time machine that I saw in the movies.
I wish I could say that reading Buffett was my first foray into investing, but sadly it was not. In the late 1990s, while still in my teens, I busted my rear-end trying to save money to purchase stocks. I did everything I could to make money – worked construction with my father, stocked shelves at a grocery store, bussed tables, etc. And by late-90s teenager standards, I put aside quite a bit of money.
So, I opened an Ameritrade account and sought out to learn about investing. The internet was rather primitive back then, so I went down to the local bookstore and purchased as many investment books as I could. And yes, these were the same books that dismissed Buffett as a “has been” who was missing the greatest wealth creation opportunity in human history.
These books weren’t all bad. I did learn that buying a stock meant buying claim to a company’s future earnings. That is conceptually correct. But the argument was that while these dotcom companies were not making money now, they would do so in the future. And lots of it. And from what I can remember, the gist of the advice was to forget about established businesses and focus on finding the “next big thing.”
I followed the advice of these books and for a while looked like a stock market genius. My brokerage account was up significantly. And then it wasn’t. We all know what happened with the dotcom crash. Most of the companies that I bought became worthless. I lost most of my money. That stung hard.
I admitted my ignorance. And this is when Buffett, in the early 2000s, was starting to regain his reputation. And it is when I read Cunningham’s book. It has influenced the way I view investing ever since.
And what made Buffett so great? Do investors really have anything to learn from his career? That is what this blog series will focus on.
Summary
On January 1, 2026, Warren Buffett officially stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. This event marked the end of one of the most remarkable leadership tenures in business history.
This post begins a multi-part reflection on Buffett’s career. It focuses not on headlines or mythology. Instead, it examines how his ideas shaped generations of investors. This first installment draws on personal experience. It looks at market history and Buffett’s own writings. It explores why Buffett’s long-term discipline mattered. This was especially true during periods when his approach was widely dismissed.
Key Takeaways
- Buffett’s greatest achievement wasn’t extraordinary returns — it was extraordinary consistency over decades
- Long-term thinking often looks wrong during speculative periods
- Studying investing history matters more than chasing trends
- Personal mistakes can become the foundation for better frameworks
- Buffett’s career offers lessons beyond stock selection — it teaches how to think
For readers interested in hearing this topic discussed in more depth, Fundamentals Unfiltered — Warren Buffett: Reflections on His Career (Part One) — is now live.
