Kempton’s Review/Best of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” « Kempton

Kempton’s Review/Best of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”

Oct 2nd, 2008 Update: Check out Warren Buffett’s chat with Charlie Rose (video recorded Oct 1st, 2008) – When a Wise Man Speaks in a Crisis.

Dec 25th, 2008 Update: Finally finished this great bio on Dec 19th (thanks Alice for writing this great book). And now I’ve also picked the “best of” pages from each chapter.

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I am going to share with you some of my favourite text in my review of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life“. You see, when I read a good book I will underline text, add notes in the margin, and sometimes dog-ear my books quite heavily and proudly (see Bill Buxton’s site for a photo of me holding his book).

So for this 960 Pages, 62 Chapters + Afterword biography about Warren, I will highlight some of my favourite text in each of the 62 Chapters + Afterword and then take a picture of the marked up pages. Enjoy.

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PART ONE / The Bubble

Chapter 1 – The Less Flattering Version

I don’t know many people who has the humility to tell their biographer, “Whenever my version is different from somebody else’s … use the less flattering version.“

(note: click on photo to see a large & clearly readable version of the text)

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Chapter 2 – Sun Valley

I see, I finally know where did Warren first come up with his explanations using the automobiles and airplanes industries. He did it at Sun Valley and then later used them in his 2000 annual letter to shareholders. (If you are too cheap (big smile) to buy this book, download and read some of Warren annual letters to shareholders and gain some investment insights for free.)

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Chapter 3 – Creatures of Habit

Wow, I know Warren reads a lot, but I have no idea that he reads this much. And he also read “… newsletters from writers he admired on the stock and bond market.” My friend, just think for a moment, Warren Buffett reading someone else insights on the stock and bond market. If this is not humble and willing to learn from others, I don’t know what is !!!

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Chapter 4 – Warren, What’s Wrong?

Great insight, “The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. I always pose it this way. I say: ‘Lookit, Would you rather be the world’s greatest lover, but have everyone think you’re the world’s worst lover? Or would you rather be the world’s worst lover but have everyone think you’re the world’s greatest lover?’ Now, that’s an interesting question.“

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PART TWO / The Inner Scorecard

Chapter 5 – The Urge to Preach

Now, can I get someone to work on me? (big smile)

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Chapter 6 – The Bathtub Steeplechase

“But no matter what she [Warren's mother] thought she was doing, by the time Warren was three years old and their sister Roberta, known as Bertie, was born, “it couldn’t bee put back together,” he says, for him or for Doris. The damage to their souls was done.”

This is the toughest and most insightful chapter for me to read about Warren as I had no idea the challenges that Warren and his sister Doris had to face when they were little. I cry too easily and I did cry when I read this chapter.

I hope when some readers read this section, they will take a moment to reflect upon their own actions towards their children and decide to change. It is never too late. The readers may start reading the book thinking they will get tips on how to get rich, but I hope they will allow what they’ve read/learned to help them grow and change. For the souls of ** your children ** are worth much much more than the money that one may wish to gain from reading the book.

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Chapter 7 – Armistice Day

Those bottle caps. :) “All this free information was lying around untouched — and no one wanted it!” Ask yourself, are there similar untouched and unloved information around you? There may be some use in them after all. :)

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Chapter 8 – A Thousand Ways

I want to pick more than one section in this chapter but I pick this one at the end. I love little kids and I try never talk down to them. And I think Warren’s example here showed clearly why this is important.

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Please leave a comment to talk about your favourite parts of the book. Thanks.

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Chapter 9 – Inky Fingers

I guess everyone can have a “bad boy/girl” phase including Warren. It is almost unbelievable to read that he had grades like Cs, Ds and even D minuses. And Cs in math!

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Chapter 10 – True Crime Stories

Not idea that Warren has his bad boy side too.

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Chapter 11 – Pudgy She Was Not

Cute, no idea Warren used to weight-lift.

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Chapter 12 – Silent Sales

Brilliant in the creating this $25 pinball machine idea and working with barbershops. Simply brilliant.

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Chapter 13 – The Rules of the Racetrack

We learn a lot from our bad decisions and I think Warren learned a lot from this lost in the racetrack. Some lessons, like this lost in the racetrack, have general applicability and can benefit us in unexpected ways.

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Chapter 14 – The Elephant

The one class Warren like in freshman year, “… Industry 101, which discussed different industries and the nuts and bolts of running a business. ‘It was textiles, it was steel, it was petroleum. I can still remember the book. I got a lot of stuff from it. I can remember talking about the laws of capture in petroleum …’”

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Chapter 15 – The Interview

How Warren got rejected by Harvard and how he came to study in Columbia under Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.

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Chapter 16 – Strike One

“The truth was that I know the book [Security Analysis] even better than Dodd. I could quote any part of it. At that time, literally, almost in those whole seven or eight hundred pages, I knew every example.“

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Chapter 17 – Mount Everest

I had no idea of the private life of Graham is so, shall I say, “colourful”, “About the only way a human being competed with the classic authors for Graham’s attention was to be female and beddable.“

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Chapter 18 – Miss Nebraska

Susie and Warren. Very interesting read.

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Note: This and other things in life interrupted my original plan to write a little about each chapter. I hope you will still enjoy the remaining “best of” selections of The Snowball. If you can, please buy a copy of The Snowball and share your “best of” selections with us here by leaving a comment.

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Chapter 19 – Stage Fright

Excerpt (link to a picture of the pages with text highlighted)

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PART THREE – The Racetrack

Chapter 20 Graham-Newman

Kempton – ideas Revolutionary

Kempton’s Review/Best of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”

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