The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

by Alice Schroeder and Alice Schroder

Book Overview

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553805096
• ISBN13: 9780553805093
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 976 Pages
• Weight: 2.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Informative book on a great American investor

Great book that breaks down the life of the greatest American investor in detail. From his personal to business life, this book covers near 100 years of living a fulfilling life and being a great fudiciary of others assets.

Take Time to Read This Book

Alice Schroeder, Buffett's authorized biographer, does a stellar job of revealing the man without exposing him. She covers him in detail, faults and all, without sacrificing her deep respect for him. She captures the tycoon's life from before he was born up to mid-2008, when he found himself shuffling, much to his own surprise, through stacks of undervalued bonds. Things change around Buffett, but his themes--picking extraordinary values, teaching, utter absorption in his work, and paradoxical variety of character traits--remain the same. Style Like Buffett himself, the book doesn't entertain slouches. Schroeder does a fine job of idiot-proofing some of the more elaborate concepts in the book, such as derivatives, but the 800-odd page tome is rather large to swallow in a byte-sized world. The author's style is graceful and respectful. It is alternately informative and intimate. At times, it appears as though Buffett himself wrote parts; during other chapters, Schroeder the journalist comes out, favoring facts over poetry. The stylistic fluctuations are minor, however, and they work well. If there are flaws in the book, they have to do more with the details than the overall story. For example, the author mentions Carnegizing quite a few times before finally explaining it to the reader on page 500. It would have helped to clarify that earlier. Also, Schroeder's fine attention to detail sometimes borders on irrelevant, until you progress and realize that even the more obscure tidbits--Buffett's first wife Susie's childhood illnesses come to mind--do either provide depth to characters or bear on their future development. That's a sign of good editing, something that endures throughout the book. The book hooks readers with an intimate portrait of Buffett in his office, then a description of Herbert Allen's exclusive high-roller event in Sun Valley, Idaho, which introduces readers not only to the caliber of Buffett's peers, but gives a glimpse into a world rarely uncovered by outsiders. After that, the book flows more or less in chronological order, from a biography of Warren's parents all the way through to mid-2008. Financial Lessons Schroeder doesn't teach you how to invest, but she does give readers a sweeping tour of American financial history through Mr. Buffett's life, facilitating a sharper understanding of the US investing landscape before this past year's dramatic fallout. Warren Buffet was something of a child investing prodigy who has spent his lifetime building on his substantial natural skills. At the age of 10, he knew more about investing than the average American. He was a seasoned businessman and property owner by the age of 15. He can do his income taxes in his head. Buffett's childhood ventures into finance, which included forays to the racetrack and his father's brokerage firm, offer an opportunity to see finance from a bright child's eyes, then from a brilliant young man's--Buffett's time at Columbia with Benjamin Graham

Investor since 1981.

Very in depth material about Warren Buffett. Since we may very well be coming to an end of an era in the stock market, both the Greenspan book and this book are giving us a history lesson of the market and business world we have experienced. Since times have been very good in the market since 1982, and some would argue even before; there is a huge audience for this book at this time. Those who don't read it and are interested in investments will miss a great history lesson on what they have been investing in. Not to mention what could be in our future. Much written here about Buffett is definitely true, eventhough very little is known about him, simply because the amount of detail could not be gotten without the cooperation of the whole Buffett family. You could say this book is like living the life of Warren and his family, because every detail is so laid out, you feel like you are there. In fact I found myself developing opinions, and wanted to tell this one or that one to act differently or compliment them on their life choices depending on their story, especially Warren and his wife Susie. But the most important story of the book is the story of Berkshire Hathaway, GEICO, Salomon Brothers, Long Term Capital Management, and labor strikes at the Buffalo and Washington Post papers, the annual meeting at Coca Cola. These stories show that what happened in the past is not all that different from what is happening today. I don't think I could do the book justice to try and bottom line it. All I can say is you just have to read the book and then you can decide for yourself. I thought I knew a lot, but soon found that even in this day and age, that the J.P. Morgan's and Warren Buffett are essential to the functioning of our economy. This is far from the idea I matured on, of a computer on every desktop, with the self reliance for everyone that would bring to us all. I came of age with that dream and am only a few years younger than Bill Gates. This book may well be best read by someone who is in their 20s and 30s, and hoping and dreaming of hitting it big in the business world and through their investments. A real history lesson, don't miss it.

To a great extent, his life has been business...and business has been his life

I recently re-read Roger Lowenstein's biography, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (first published in 1995 and now re-issued with a new Afterword), and then read this more recent one by Alice Schroeder. Both are first-rate. Which to select if reading only one? That depends on how much you wish to know about Buffett's personal life, including his relations with various family members, and how curious you are about his personal hang-ups, peculiarities, eccentricities, fetishes, etc. If you can do without any of that, Roger Lowenstein's biography is the one to read. I also highly recommend the recently published Second Edition of The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America, with content selected, arranged, and introduced by Lawrence Cunningham. The heft of Schroeder's biography may discourage some people from obtaining a copy. To them I presume to suggest that they not be deterred by that factor. Schroeder has a lively, often entertaining writing style that drives the narrative through just about every period and (yes) interlude of Warren Buffett's life and career thus far. There is much more information provided than most readers either need or desire. However, she had unprecedented access not only to Buffett but to just about everyone else with whom he is (or once was) associated as well as to previously inaccessible research resources. It is possible but highly unlikely that anyone else will write a more comprehensive biography than Schroeder has, at least for the next several years, if not decades. Also, her opinion of Buffett seems to me to be balanced and circumspect. No doubt he wishes that certain details about his life and career were not included. However, there has been no indication from him or those authorized to represent him that any of the material in this biography (however unflattering) is either inaccurate or unfair. Both halos and warts are included. Others have shared their reasons for holding this book in high regard. Here are two of mine. First, although I had already read various Buffett's chairman's letters that first appeared in a series of Berkshire Hathaway's annual reports, I did not understand (nor could I have understood) the context for observations he shared, especially his comments about especially important 12-month periods throughout BRK's history. Schroeder provides the context or frame-of-reference I needed but previously lacked. For example, whereas in previous letters, Buffett merely offered brief updates on how each BRK company was doing, in 1978 he began to share his thoughts about major business topics such as performance measurement for management and why short-term earnings were a poor criterion for investment decisions. With the help of Carol Loomis, especially since 1977, his chairman's letters "had grown more personal and entertaining by the year; they amounted to crash courses in business, written in clear language that ranged from biblical quotations to references to

This will be the book that changes lives

Like many, I have studied Warren Buffett for countless hours, learning about how his simple ideas served him so well in business. I am only on page 210 of this amazing book and I will tell you that this book will change many lives for the better. Each one of us has a story to tell, though most of us will never find an audience. Life is complicated, and there is much adversity and potential hardship along the way. In the end, there are universal truths and there are personal truths. Warren Buffett found a universal truth in business, and this allowed him to deal with the many fascinating variables of his life that involved family and other cicumstances that were personal to him. The importance of having success in your career cannot be overstated. We all have to deal with many emotions through life, and if you enjoy your daily routine you will have a much greater chance of being able to put a positive twist on the numerous other areas, which can so easily spin out of control into results that lead to an unhappy life. Amazing read, and I would actually pay those who are close to me to read it. I saw myself in many ways, and I have a feeling that a lot of people will see bits and pieces of themselves. This is a groundbreaker.

Valuable Insight into an Enigma!

The title of this book refers to Buffett's likening life to a snowball - "the important thing is to find wet snow and a really long hill." Buffett certainly has had that effect with money. "The Snowball" begins with a Buffett presentation to an elite 1999 group at Sun Valley, suggesting in a humorous manner that the ".com" frenzy was no more than a bubble. Then, its on to learning why his associate Charles Munger (an inseparable partner since 1959) is both the opposite and highly similar to Buffett. Warren Buffett, we learn comes from a heritage of very thrifty small business owners. His parents initially struggled through the Great Depression, carried initially by grandfather's letting the food bill run at his grocery store, then by the success of his newly opened stock brokerage that focused on conservative investments. Unfortunately, his mother was somewhat unbalanced, directing frequent tirades at Warren and his sister, creating a lifelong need for the approval of women. Calculating the comparative life spans of religious song writers while in church led Warren towards religious skepticism at an early age. Armed with his father's nostrums and examples, his early business experiences (selling gum, pop, magazines, refurbished golf balls, delivering papers) and stock investment (sold too early, losing most of his potential profit), learning that he didn't like physical work (helping his father and grandfather), an early meeting with the head of Goldman Sachs (Buffett just pumped $5 billion into the firm), and knowledge from Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School (Harvard turned him down), he went on to become the richest man in the world (had $5,000 by the time he finished high school - equivalent to $53,000 today) in a series of interesting stories within "The Snowball." Buffett learned a number of important lessons en route to becoming the richest man in the world. 1)Commitments are so sacred that they should be rare; allies are important; grandstanding rarely gets anything done. 2)Customer loyalty is valuable (bought a gas station across from one with established clientele - never did well). 3)GEICO had a sustainable competitive model - lowest costs, protected by limiting clientele to government workers (more likely to be responsible), ability to invest funds prior to use. 4)Looking at management, ability to maintain sales growth (Charlie Munger) are important in addition to financial data emphasis (Benjamin Graham). (This was an important change because the number of statistical bargains had shrunk to virtually nil and tended to be small companies which did not work when large sums of money were involved.) 5)Public often overreacted - eg. American Express hit by Kennedy Assassination + DeAngelis soybean scandal at same time = good opportunity. 6)Diversification was not a good thing, as long as investment analysis had a high probability of correctness and low probability of drastic change. 7)Corollary of #6 was ruling out