Warren Buffett - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, to his mom Leila and dad Howard, a stockbroker-turned-Congressman. The second earliest, he had two siblings and displayed a remarkable ability for both money and company at an extremely early age. Acquaintances state his uncanny capability to compute columns of numbers off the top of his heada feat Warren still surprises business colleagues with today.

While other children his age were playing hopscotch and jacks, Warren was making money. Five years later on, Buffett took his primary step into the world of high finance. At eleven years of ages, he acquired three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per share for both himself and his older sibling, Doris.

A frightened but resilient Warren held his shares till they rebounded to $40. He immediately sold thema mistake he would soon come to be sorry for. Cities Service shot up to $200. The experience taught him one of the fundamental lessons of investing: Patience is a virtue. In 1947, Warren Buffett graduated from high school when he was 17 years of ages.

81 in 2000). His dad had other plans and urged his child to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett only stayed 2 years, grumbling that he understood more than his teachers. He returned house to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Despite working full-time, he handled to graduate in just 3 years.

He was lastly convinced to use to Harvard Service School, which declined him as "too young." Slighted, Warren then applifsafeed to Columbia, where renowned financiers Ben Graham and David Dodd taughtan experience that would forever change his life. Ben Graham had become popular during the 1920s. At a time when the rest of the world was approaching the financial investment arena as if it were a huge video game of live roulette, Graham searched for stocks that were so low-cost they were nearly totally without danger.

The stock was trading at $65 a share, but after studying the balance sheet, Graham recognized that the company had bond holdings worth $95 for each share. The value investor attempted to persuade management to sell the portfolio, but they declined. Soon afterwards, he waged a proxy war and protected a spot on the Board of Directors.

When he was 40 years of ages, Ben Graham released "Security Analysis," one of the most noteworthy works ever penned on the stock market. At the time, it was dangerous. (The Dow Jones had fallen from 381. 17 to 41. 22 throughout three to four brief years following the crash of 1929).

Using intrinsic value, financiers could choose what a business deserved and make investment choices accordingly. His subsequent book, "The Intelligent Investor," which Buffett commemorates as "the best book on investing ever composed," introduced the world to Mr. Market, an investment example. Through his simple yet profound investment principles, Ben Graham became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one-year-old Warren Buffett.

He hopped a train to Washington, D.C. one Saturday early morning to find the head office. When he got there, the doors were locked. Not to be stopped, Buffett non-stop pounded on the door till a janitor came to open it for him. He asked if there was anybody in the building.

It turns out that there was a male still working on the sixth floor. Warren was accompanied up to satisfy him and instantly started asking him questions about the business and its business practices; a discussion that extended on for 4 hours. The male was none other than Lorimer Davidson, the Financial Vice President.