Clever Geek Handbook
10 March 2026

How To Be An Instant Expert

Recommendation

If you’re an exec whose position requires any writing at all, it might occur to you that before you write an article or a speech you should jump on the Internet and do a thorough topic search – an original suggestion from author Stephen Spignesi. Thanks. You might even already know that you have to check reference materials at the library – another handy nugget of advice. But if your background is in technical expertise, not in word crafting, and you find writing as enticing as root canal, then this book is for you. It organizes ideas concisely and simply (Almost too simply: Any sixth grader could use it). While some content appeals only to freelancers (like a talk with a publishing-house acquisitions editor), BooksInShort recommends the guidance and direction this book gives to would-be or must-be writers who are uncomfortable with writing. You know who you are.

Take-Aways

  • The first step toward writing about anything is to immerse yourself in the subject.
  • Only 5,000 people in the United States make their living as professional writers.
  • The Internet is an invaluable source of information and is now considered almost mandatory if you’re truly trying to research a project.
  • Most search engine results are worthless, although you can usually find what you are looking for quickly with Google.com.
  • If you are writing an article, always look for an interesting or weird angle.
  • Ask yourself the seven questions of who, what, when, where, why, how and weird.
  • Dedicate your first book to your editor and read your contract carefully.
  • If you’re a new writer, you’ll have better luck getting published by sending out query letters than you will trying to find an agent.
  • Vagueness is the enemy of efficient and targeted research.
  • You do not need to be a natural born writer to train yourself to think like one.

Summary

What Is an Instant Expert?

An instant expert is someone who must learn a great deal about a subject in a relatively short period of time (usually under a deadline of some sort), in order to write something about that subject.

The purpose of this book is to help you find what you need to know so that you can write your book, magazine article, speech or term paper, presenting yourself as an authority on the subject - no matter how narrow the parameters of your topic may be. The whole point of this process is that you must come across as an expert on your subject if you want people to take you seriously, be they your readers, listeners, employees, clients or professors.

Six Steps to Authoritative Writing

You have to take six steps to become an expert on any subject and to be able to write about it with clarity and authority. The six steps, which are explained in more detail below, are:

  1. Immersion - Find out as much as possible about your subject, to the point of being almost overwhelmed with information.
  2. Notes - Find the diamonds in the heaps of rough data you have compiled and then select the best.
  3. Review and think - Step back, mull over what you have learned and rethink your original vision for your product. Review your materials and your notes again, and think about what to leave in and what to throw out as you begin to write.
  4. Table of contents - Bring order to chaos. Structure your work and see it for the first time with a beginning, middle and end.
  5. Chapter by chapter - By doing this step, you will learn how to write each chapter of your book, or each section of your article or speech, with confidence, using your notes, materials, and other sources.
  6. Review and polish - Now, after a long pause, rewrite. Even Hemingway and Faulkner wrote second drafts, so don’t get too attached to your first version.

Step One: Immersion

The research process is fascinating, but it is actually more of a quest for insight. As a writer, you first must become thoroughly acquainted with the subject you want to write about; find out all you can. Initially, your research results and findings may seem too confusing. You may be looking at too much information, too soon. However, as you slowly work your way through the treasure trove of sources and resources available to you, an awareness of your subject will begin to permeate your consciousness.

This awareness occurs almost at a subconscious level, but it does take place. As you repeatedly hunt down and review Web site descriptions, book titles and magazine articles, you will begin to notice Web sites that keep popping up, books that are referred to repeatedly, author names that keep appearing in bibliographies, articles and interviews that are constantly cited, and certain organizations that are mentioned all the time.

Searching the Web

Begin with an Internet search. If you’re not online at home or office, you should be. But for those of you without computers, off-site Internet research can be done at your local public library, your university library or various commercial establishments that lease computer usage by the hour. Almost all libraries are connected to the Internet and they allow free access, though you may have to wait in line for a time-limited turn.

“An instant expert is someone who must learn a great deal about a subject in a relatively short time in order to write something about it.”

Most search-engine results are worthless or confusing, although you can usually find what you are looking for quickly with Google.com.

One huge difference between accessing the Internet from your home instead of at the library or a commercial facility, is that at home you can download search results and documents onto your hard drive and peruse them at your leisure. With a click, you can "own" the materials you think might be useful.

Sources of Information

Your research targets include:

  • An exhaustive Internet search for Web sites, books, articles, organizations and other resources accessible online.
  • A review of the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature at your local public or university library, followed by a review of pertinent findings.
  • A search of the New York Times Index (if available), or of other indexes that are pertinent to your topic or general enough to be inclusive and helpful.
  • A search of Lexis-Nexis (if available) or other online research services that are relevant to your particular field or profession.
  • A review of the library’s catalog (usually a computerized version of the old card catalogues) for relevant books in circulation.
  • A meeting with one of the library’s reference librarians for referral to important, relevant reference materials.
  • A bookstore trip (if necessary).
  • Interviews with local experts.
“You do not need to be the natural born writer to train yourself to think like one.”

Notes Selective topics for note taking may have occurred to you as you read through the books, magazine articles, Web site documents and other research materials you acquired during your initial immersion. To help you find all the information you need, you’ll need to ask yourself the seven questions of who, what, when, where, why, how and weird.

Some writers dictate their notes at this stage of a project and then have them transcribed for later review and modification. Other writers type everything into their computers and avoid as much as possible ever writing anything by hand. Whichever system helps you compile the information you need as efficiently as possible is the right system for you.

Review and Think

Review your selectively culled compilation of notes, go through every item on your list one by one and make a decision as to whether or not this note topic is something worth pursuing and including in your work. Take an objective look and think through your new data.

“Vagueness is the enemy of efficient and targeted research and, by extension, it is the enemy of interesting and effective writing. And perhaps worst of all, vagueness is boring.”

Useful criteria for narrowing down your topic and for determining what to incorporate and what to leave out include:

  • Is this critical information necessary to making my project as comprehensive as possible?
  • Will I be able to track down the information I need efficiently and in a thorough enough manner so that I will be able to write confidently about this topic?
  • Is the topic interesting?
  • Am I personally interested?
“Immersion means plunging head-first into your subject, to the point of being overwhelmed by information. But data immersion is not information overload for the sake of information overload.”

If you apply these questions to your master list of notes, you should be able to pick and choose appropriately, with the ultimate result being your working table of contents.

Table of Contents

The table of contents structure can be applied to many writing projects, not just books.

A table of contents can be accurately, justifiably complied for everything from articles, interviews and essays to letters and speeches. The technique is a good way to visualize a clear, logical, chronological outline of the material you want to cover in the piece you are writing.

If you force yourself to create a working table of contents immediately after your "review and think" selection process, you will be able to move headlines and complete sections around within that framework. It will allow you to rearrange features, delete items and manipulate the individual components of the book, speech or article easily and quickly. Plus, the table of contents outline gives you - at a glance - a one or two page blueprint of your project, which you will find extremely useful in keeping you focused.

Chapter by Chapter

This step has a very straightforward mandate: Create a structure and begin writing your work.

“One of the first steps in assembling your research materials - regardless of the subject you are writing about - should be an Internet search.”

By this stage of the game, you have read through all your materials and made copious notes. You have reviewed these notes and refined them into a working table of contents. The magic will now take place as a joint effort of your conscious and subconscious minds working together to make the words flow.

“It cannot be overemphasized how important it is to step back for a time before you review and polish your work. A change occurs in your writer’s mind that allows you to see your writing through a different set of eyes. What was once brilliantly composed may perhaps seem clumsy and in need of tweaking.”

This part of the process is all about you. Your readers or listeners want to hear your voice. Yet, heed one note of caution as you proceed - Do not try to write what you think they want to hear or what they expect. Instead, write what you want them to know, and do it one chapter at a time.

Review and Polish

As the chapter-by-chapter step is all about the writer in you, the review and polish step is all about the reader in you. You want to do the work to make your manuscript readable.

This final step of the six-step approach to research and writing is important because it is your last chance to get it right. Before you edit anything, print out a copy of the manuscript, if at all possible. When you hold 10 or 20 pages of copy in your hand to read and edit, the piece comes to life and the necessary revisions become more apparent. All writers do revisions and rewrites as part of the process of writing.

Eliminate Mistakes

One of the quickest and easiest ways to identify clumsy construction and bad flow is read your work aloud, preferably in private.

“A writer is a channel, an interpreter and a filter.”

Be on the lookout for sentences that don’t seem to make sense, split infinitives, redundancies, cliches, misspelled words, excessively long paragraphs and the passive voice. Eliminate these stumbling blocks to help your readers understand and enjoy the work you have created.

About the Author

Stephen J. Spignesi specializes in popular culture subjects, including television, film, contemporary fiction and historical biography. His many books include JFK Jr., The Complete Titanic, The Lost Works of Stephen King, The Beatles Book of Lists and the Italian 100. The author says he has written many nonfiction books about subjects that he admits he knew nothing about before he got the book assignments.

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How To Be An Instant Expert

Book How To Be An Instant Expert

Six Steps to Being an Authority on Any Subject

Career Press,
 


10 March 2026

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Recommendation

On the whole, this book resembles a televangelist’s Sunday morning sermon. It is full of passion, action and emotion. The “preacher,” The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, exhorts a congregation of true believers with a rousing endorsement of their shared faith, hitting all the familiar themes, stories and touchstones, plus a heartfelt environmental alert. Even for nonbelievers, the spectacle is impressive. Friedman is a skilled coiner of phrases and he sure can work a crowd. To judge by the many interviews and conversations referenced in this book, he has gone to great effort to assemble a corpus of evidence in support of his argument. Baldly put, his message is that conventional wisdom about global warming is true: Because of irresponsible consumption, the world faces an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude. He explains that George W. Bush’s administration was unconscionably negligent in this crisis, that most honest scientists agree something must be done, and that climate change deniers are mostly hirelings in the service of the oil industry or ideological conservatives unwilling to face facts. For any reader reasonably acquainted with the news media, much of what Friedman says, though urgent, will be somewhat familiar. However, BooksInShort notes, he always has a strikingly entertaining and persuasive way of saying it.

Take-Aways

  • Much of the world’s population aspires to the American lifestyle.
  • The world simply doesn’t have enough resources to allow everyone to live the American dream, including Americans.
  • Americans’ addiction to oil harms the environment and props up oil-selling regimes.
  • Global warming and environmental degradation threaten biodiversity and the quality of life.
  • “Energy poverty” leaves 1.6 billion people without access to electricity.
  • The environment is a national security issue.
  • The countries that lead in developing green industries will be at the forefront of economic growth in the new “Energy-Climate Era.”
  • Governments can accelerate necessary change by establishing the right regulatory environments and price signals.
  • Even the Chinese Communist Party has adopted a green agenda.
  • America is at its best when it cooperates in solving global problems.

Summary

Too Much Security

In Istanbul, walls, guard booths, security barriers, and bulletproof doors and windows surround the American Consulate, located roughly 12 miles from downtown. A captured terrorist involved in an attack on the city’s British Consulate told police that his group had scouted the US Consulate but gave up hope of attacking it. “It was so well guarded they don’t even let birds fly there,” he said.

“The convergence of hot, flat and crowded has created a challenge so daunting that it is impossible to imagine a meaningful solution without America really stepping up.”

America has walled itself off from the rest of the world. It has also walled itself off from rational thinking about such important challenges as global warming. Oil and car companies have had too great a voice in impeding laws and policies that could have made the world a better, cleaner place. Now the US must help the world solve one of history‘s gravest crises.

The “Energy-Climate Era”

The world is entering the energy-climate era. Greater global demand is focused on dwindling supplies of resources. Easy oil money is keeping repugnant regimes in power. The climate change, “energy poverty” and species extinctions that threaten biodiversity all require innovative ideas, action and infrastructures. The countries that invent the tools and industries that address these problems will lead the era.

“Later is over.”

The energy-climate era sneaked up on developed nations when they were busy with other things. Their post-World War II policy priority was to prevent World War III. Their goals were to develop their economies, secure human rights and keep the peace. Environmental treaties were something of an afterthought. Now, however, if society does not address the challenges of environmental degradation and global warming, achieving those other goals will be impossible.

The American Lifestyle Gone Global

Demographers estimate that the world’s population may be nine billion people by the middle of this century. Most of this population growth will occur in unstable nations. An impossibly large number of people in these growing populations are drawn to the “American dream” of consumption and convenience, but their growing energy demands and the proliferation of power plants to serve them are accelerating global warming.

“The effects of our way of life on the earth’s climate and biodiversity can no longer be “externalized” or ignored or confined.”

The US lifestyle of private cars and growing consumption has a certain appeal. However, this resource-intensive way of life is unsustainable and physically impossible for everyone on the planet to achieve. The globe simply does not have enough resources to go around. In the 1950s, when President Richard Nixon used kitchen appliances to convince Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that democracy was better than communism, America wanted the rest of the world to adopt its dream. Now, clearly, that would cause global environmental catastrophe. Americans, too, must learn hard restraint.

Energy and Dictatorship

Oil money flows to countries that have oil. This is bad for those countries and for the world. Oil money keeps dictatorial regimes in place, because they don’t need to empower their people. Oil wealth gives them a free pass. Why educate people, encourage entrepreneurship, stimulate innovation and take the risk of the citizenry demanding a voice in the country’s affairs? Consider Russia. President Vladimir Putin turned off the gas tap to Europe to remind Europeans that they are dependent on him. Russia is not powerful because it has industries, skills, knowledge or leadership. It is powerful because Europeans are addicted to its resources.

“We have been living for far too long on borrowed time and borrowed dimes.”

Petrodollars also help fund terrorism. Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam is spreading through the Middle East. But, in the same cultural atmosphere, Bahrain has made striking progress toward democracy and women’s rights. Why? Because the decline in its oil supply at the end of 1990s created a “burning platform” for change, though Bahrain was actually the first Gulf state to find and exploit oil. Falling oil prices can help bring similar change to other oil-producing countries. But while demand for oil stays high, so will prices.

The Problem of Poverty

According to World Bank estimates, 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity. That is energy poverty. Lacking electricity, millions cook their food over smoky indoor fires and die from respiratory diseases as a result. Energy poverty is involved in every problem facing the developing world and climate change exacerbates the suffering.

“We wanted everyone to be converted to the American way of life, although we never really thought about the implications. Well, now we know.”

Rising energy prices are crippling infrastructure in struggling countries, such as Rwanda. In Bangladesh, the World Bank found that having electricity boosted a family’s income 20% and gave children 35% more study time. The problem of education is about a teacher shortage – and an energy shortage.

Strange Weather

Odd things have been happening as a result of changing weather. Montana’s elk descend from the hills much later in the year. The western North American mountains’ snowpacks are declining. Maryland’s daffodils bloom in January. Drought forced both former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to call on their populations to pray for rain. Warm days come in midwinter. Melting tundra threatens to release billions of tons of carbon, amplifying the greenhouse effect caused by burning fossil fuels. Biodiversity – crucial to human life – is at risk. The biosphere depends on its splendid balance, but species are going extinct before science can even catalogue them, or learn what they are and what they do. There is no time to waste.

The Role of IT

Information technology (IT) can help create an “Energy Internet.” Indeed, tinkerers and garage entrepreneurs are already working on prototypes. Shrewd use of IT could be part of transforming the US’s electrical grid, which dates back to Thomas Edison. It was built to meet the demand for power, but it began fragmented – with authority divided among state regulators – and is still fragmented.

“Wherever governments can raise most of their revenues by simply drilling a hole – rather than tapping their people’s energy, creativity and entrepreneurship, freedom tends to be curtailed, education underfunded and human development retarded.”

The US has more than 3,000 electric utility companies. No wonder there is so little integration. IT could make the grid more intelligent, perhaps by allowing those with solar panels or electric cars to sell surplus electricity back to the grid. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, merely by using more energy-efficient appliances, installing fluorescent light bulbs and insulating their homes, US homeowners could cut the nation’s electricity consumption by a third.

Energy Opportunities

Green living has become fashionable in America, Europe and Israel. Even some Osama bin Laden supporters have lifted their voices to advocate environmentalism. However, support is only easy to find for simple measures. In fact, going green will be a hard road of sacrifices and trade-offs. This means it will require tough political choices. Substantive change is never widely fashionable. It is too controversial and draws too many opponents.

“A strategy that depends on outmining, outdrilling, outconsuming, out exploiting your own resources or a global commons – is not going to offer a sustainable competitive advantage any longer.”

Energy problems are energy opportunities. The green agenda is a red, white and blue agenda. The greening of America can make it stronger. By developing tools and solutions to grapple with the world’s global warming problems, America can position itself in the vanguard of economic leadership in the energy-climate era. By weaning itself from dependence on Gulf oil imports, the US reduces the threat of terrorism. By cooperating with others in pursuit of a better world, America is doing what it does best.

The Role of Economic Policy

Economic policy could also help solve the problems of a hot, flat and crowded world by sending the right price signals, and providing economic incentives for environmentally sound behavior. This tactic has worked in health care and it can work in energy. When going green is cheaper, better and faster, people will buy green. This doesn’t require a massive, bureaucratic government program; it simply calls for economic incentives that give entrepreneurs a reason to be green. Quite possibly, the best thing would be a green technology bubble. Investors in bubbles may go broke, but they leave useful things behind, such as the railroads, the telegraph and the Internet.

“The Energy Internet [could] give us more growth with – better energy efficiency – by smoothing out the peaks and valleys in energy demand.”

The government’s role is to establish the price signals and the economic playing field – not to carry the ball. In terms of regulation and governmental decision making, the crucial details are boring. However, as environmentists say, “If it isn’t boring, it isn’t green.” Government leaders must understand how to use regulations to promote necessary changes. Regulation can give companies incentives to innovate and compete. For example, regulations establishing emission caps led General Electric Transportation to manufacture energy-efficient, low-emission locomotives, which it now exports worldwide. GE rose to the regulatory challenge. Pollution, after all, is unproductive and wasteful. Companies that reduce waste improve their economic performance.

Winning Wars Greenly

Energy independence is a national security issue and a battlefield security issue. In 2006, a US general in Iraq pointed out that using diesel generators for battlefield power was getting soldiers killed because roadside bombers were targeting the Marines who were transporting the fuel. That spurred the armed forces to work on alternative power. One creative solution was to insulate tents with energy-efficient foam to reduce the electricity needed for air conditioning.

“Congress and the Bush administration count pennies when it comes to building new industries, as if the money for wind, solar and biomass were coming out of their own children?s piggy banks.?

The armed forces’ green initiative reduced casualties, cut costs and improved its ability to innovate. Corporate green-innovation initiatives also can generate new products for export and attract valuable talent.

The National Ethic of Environmentalism

Nations must preserve their natural resources. Pollution in China and Indonesia is killing forests and oceans, as overfishing is wiping out food stocks. More than a third of Indonesia’s catch is baby fish; in 2000, baby fish were only 8%. Reversing such trends requires commitments from the public as well as from leaders. People must recognize the personal economic value of preservation. However, this means governments must expand today’s limited efforts to make sure that preservation is in their citizens’ economic interests.

“As an Egyptian cabinet minister remarked...It is like the developed world ate all the hors d’oeuvres, all the entrées and all the desserts and then invited the developing world for a little coffee – and asked us to split the whole bill?.”

Under environmental duress, China is moving toward green awareness. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party replaced Maoism with a focus on GDP growth. In the 1990s, it began to turn toward greener practices in the face of tremendous problems.

In fact, China may have no alternative to going green. People are choking on Beijing’s air. Pollution is poisoning the nation’s dwindling water supply. Droughts and development are depleting northwestern aquifers. Moreover, green technology exports are making Chinese entrepreneurs rich. Chinese solar power entrepreneur Shi Zhengrong is one of the country’s wealthiest men, according to Forbes.

“Yet they throw money out the window...[on] the old, established, well-capitalized oil, coal and gas industries.”

America could learn from China, but American democracy is a messy process. Chinese leaders can promulgate policies and put them in effect by fiat. Of course, enforcement may be spotty. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if the US could use democracy and consensus to sweep away vested interests in dirty fuel, land-destroying agriculture and industrial pollution? Why should cars, oil and big agriculture reap billions in subsidies while innovative green technology starves for funds?

“Global warming, global flattening and global crowding [are] driving...energy supply and demand, petrodictatorships, climate change, energy poverty and biodiversity loss...well past their tipping points.”

If America starts now and commits, it can make the necessary changes. The green revolution needs the same level of national commitment as the civil rights movement. The government can launch the ship. The same corporations that now obstruct the solutions to environmental problems will get on board when the right regulations and price signals make it in their interest to do so. The country is on another Mayflower, sailing to an undiscovered continent. It’s time to do new things.

About the Author

Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas L. Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, a winner of the National Book Award, and the two-time winner of the Overseas Press Club Award. His books include the bestseller The World Is Flat.

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Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Book Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America

FSG,
 


10 March 2026

The Snowball

Recommendation

Warren Buffett is “everyman” as multibillionaire. Despite his vast wealth, he has always eschewed ostentation. He pays himself about $100,000 annually, which in today’s U.S. economy places him in the upper-middle-class. He lives in the same simple Omaha, Nebraska, house that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. He prefers an old gray suit to expensive London tailoring. In Buffett’s early days, when he was only a multimillionaire and not a multibillionaire, he walked around with holes in the soles of his shoes. To Buffett, wardrobe doesn’t matter; what matters is making money. He is better at this pursuit than anyone else in the world. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked him as the globe’s richest man, with a net worth of $62.3 billion. Author Alice Schroeder does a masterful job of chronicling Buffett’s improbable, inspiring life. As a former superstar research analyst, Schroeder uses her expert knowledge of finance and commerce to detail Buffett’s investment philosophy and business activities. BooksInShort praises Schroeder’s remarkable skills as a researcher and writer. Her book is packed with fascinating details and trenchant observations about the “Oracle of Omaha.” One of the best business biographies available, this book shows how the world’s greatest investor amassed the world’s greatest fortune, while staying true to his essential self.

Take-Aways

  • As a boy, Warren Buffett dedicated himself to becoming rich.
  • Now he has more money than anyone else on earth.
  • Buffett earned his fortune by being superb at determining a company’s long-term value and earnings potential, his primary investment criteria.
  • Buffett never lets the ups and downs of the stock market influence his investments.
  • He is always suspicious of stock booms and seldom surprised by stock busts.
  • Buffett carefully looks for undervalued companies.
  • He avoids Wall Street, much preferring to operate from Omaha, Nebraska.
  • Buffett set up his business affairs to operate with a tight center staff. This policy eases his mind about his responsibility to investors.
  • Buffett is a complex man with simple taste, a conventional man who has led an unconventional life.
  • Buffett plans to give the bulk of his massive fortune to charity.

Summary

The World’s Wealthiest Individual

Warren Buffett earned his vast fortune all by himself. Instead of living amid Wall Street’s bustle, Buffett lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska, a bucolic city in the U.S. heartland. Throughout his career, backwater Omaha has been Buffett’s base, though the rest of the business world sees it as a déclassé town of no special significance. To build his enormous wealth, Buffett exhaustively studied the stock market and the world of commerce, learning everything he could about individual companies, and their potential for growth and earnings. This hard-earned knowledge has been his guiding light and his path to becoming the richest man in the world.

“Warren Buffett was a man who loved money, a man for whom the game of collecting it ran in his veins as his lifeblood.”

Buffett’s investment philosophy, adapted from his mentor, investment guru Benjamin Graham, is remarkably simple: Look for companies whose stock values are priced less than the organization’s “intrinsic” value and invest accordingly. Buffett does not concern himself with the market’s temporary ups and downs. He invests for the long term, focusing on companies’ sound business fundamentals and capacity to generate superior earnings year after year. Through this straightforward process, he made his fortune. Of course, the “Oracle of Omaha’s” legendary expertise in separating commercial winners from losers is much easier described than accomplished. How did Buffett become the world’s best company evaluator and stock-picker?

“When Buffett walked into a room, the electricity was palpable. In his presence, people felt brushed by greatness. They wanted to touch him. They became dumbstruck before him, or babbled inane remarks.”

You can find the answer in his single-minded quest, from childhood, to become a millionaire. One of the earliest photographs of Buffett as a little boy shows him proudly holding his favorite toy, a nickel-plated change-maker, a small gizmo with four tubes that dispensed coins. As he grew up, Buffett zealously studied everything he could find about business and investing, including decades-old magazines and newspapers. That he far surpassed his initial financial goal is a testament to his prescience and steely-eyed focus, as well as to his idiosyncratic formula for financial achievement. His story is the classic American tale of hard work that pays off beyond all expectations. How the kid who wanted to make a million actually did that – and more – is a truly amazing tale.

The Early Years

The members of the Buffett clan were Nebraska tradespeople, straightforward, honest, no-nonsense types. Warren’s father, Howard, worked in his own father’s grocery store in Omaha before attending the University of Nebraska. After that, he sold insurance. In 1930, Howard’s second son Warren Edward was born just at the start of the Great Depression. Soon after, Howard opened a stock brokerage, Buffett, Sklenicka & Co. To do so when people were shunning stocks took real courage. However, Howard’s business was a winner from the start.

“Howard Buffett quickly gained a reputation as perhaps the least backslapping congressman ever to represent his state.”

A precocious toddler, Warren loved numbers and collecting things. His hobbies included counting and measuring. Of course, these interests would stand him in good stead. As a boy, Warren was a bona fide businessman. His first products were packs of gum, which he sold to his neighbors. Later, he sold golf balls that he retrieved from the lake at Omaha’s Elmwood Park golf course. He also sold popcorn and peanuts at local football games. Warren saved every penny he made. Even as a youngster, Warren avidly read all the investment books and periodicals at his father’s office. His favorite library book was One Thousand Ways to Make $1,000. He studied it religiously. He vowed to himself that by age 35, he would be a millionaire.

“Since Warren looked at every dollar as $10 someday, he wasn’t going to hand over a dollar more than he needed to spend.”

During the 1940s, Howard, a rock-ribbed Republican, was elected to Congress. He and his family moved to Washington, D.C., where Warren entered junior high school and became a newspaper boy. In 1944, Warren submitted his first income tax return. By age 14, he had saved $1,000. Through hard work, he doubled it and purchased a 40-acre tenant farm in Nebraska. As a teenager, Warren also went into the pinball business, buying and installing the machines in local barbershops. Additionally, he became a horse race handicapper, selling a tip sheet he entitled Stable-Boy Selections.

“He never hosted backyard barbecues, lazed around a swimming pool, stargazed or simply went for a walk in the woods. A stargazing Warren would have looked at the Big Dipper and seen a dollar sign.”

After high school, Warren briefly attended the University of Pennsylvania, which he did not like. He was shocked when Harvard turned him down. He got admitted to Columbia University, where he took classes with Benjamin Graham, the famous author of The Intelligent Investor. He quickly became Graham’s star pupil. Warren read and memorized Security Analysis, the influential book Graham wrote with Columbia professor David Dodd.

“Buffett had a buoyant optimism about the long-term economic future of American business.”

By this time, Buffett was a regular investor on Wall Street. He focused on companies that kept costs low and always made money, such as GEICO, an insurance firm that sold policies over the telephone. Buffett initially bought 350 shares and later bought many more. After graduation, he returned to Omaha, where he sold stocks for his father’s firm and taught investing at the University of Omaha. He married a sensitive, empathetic girl named Susan (“Susie”) Thompson. By 1951, Buffett’s capital was $19,738, which he invested and reinvested.

“The very mention that Buffett had bought a stock could, all by itself, move its price and revalue a company by hundreds of millions of dollars.”

He and Susie lived inexpensively on his earnings as a stockbroker and part-time teacher. This was not hard because Warren was quite cheap. He would wash his car only when it rained, so he could save on water. In 1953, Warren and Susie’s first child, Susan Alice, was born. She became known as “Little Susie.” They later had two sons, Howard and Peter.

“Buffett’s testimony in Congress as the reformer and savior of Salomon had turned him from a rich investor into a hero.”

In 1954, Buffett and his young wife moved to New York, where he went to work at Graham’s investment firm, the Graham-Newman Corporation. He subscribed fully to Graham’s investment philosophy of focusing on companies’ net worth and purchasing stock in firms that Wall Street undervalued. Graham called such companies “cigar butts.” Buffett studied Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, and “with his prodigious ability to absorb numbers and to analyze them,” he quickly became a sensation at Graham’s firm, invariably recommending great buys. Buffett learned a valuable lesson about “capital allocation” – “placing money where it would earn the highest return.” This became one of his bedrock investment principles. When Graham retired, he offered Buffett a partnership to keep him at the firm. But Buffett had come to New York to be close to Graham. With him gone, Buffett saw no reason to stay. He moved his family back to Omaha.

“Buffett would undertake almost anything from his short list of most-loathed tasks – get into an angry, critical confrontation; fire someone; cut off a long friendship carefully cultivated; eat Japanese food...almost anything – [rather] than make a withdrawal from the Bank of Reputation.”

Buffett Associates Ltd. By 1956, Buffett had $174,000. Although only 26, he planned to retire and live off the investment income that he could make from his nest egg. He invited some friends and relatives to benefit from his investment expertise. Six initial partners joined the new Buffett Associates Ltd., including his father-in-law, Doc Thompson ($25,000), his Aunt Alice ($35,000), and his sister Doris and her husband ($10,000). Buffett was the seventh partner. As a management fee, he charged his new partners “half the upside above a 4% threshold.” He also “took a quarter of the downside.” Soon others joined the partnership, which made money rapidly. Buffett set up numerous additional partnerships with other investors, including attorney Charlie Munger, who also operated his own investment firm. He eventually became Buffett’s primary partner. By now Buffett was making a large return from each partnership. He constantly reinvested his earnings, so his wealth kept increasing. Indeed, Buffett’s “snowball” was starting to grow substantially.

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it’s a weighing machine.”

Buffett was managing more than a million dollars a year by 1958. His goal was to outperform the Dow by 10% annually. He was doing so well he no longer recruited new partners. Now someone who wanted his investment advice had to solicit him. In 1962, Buffett merged his partnerships into Buffett Partnership Ltd. (BPL), with assets of $7.2 million. Buffett was now a millionaire. His early $3 million investment in American Express paid handsomely, but his investment in Berkshire Hathaway, a New England textile firm, initially did not. In 1962, he bought 2,000 shares of Berkshire at $7.50 per share. Then he bought more. Eventually, he bought the company, as well as the Blue Chip Stamps Company, Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Rockford, Sun Newspapers in Omaha, See’s candy company and, over time, many more.

San Francisco Susie

While Buffett made himself and his partners wildly rich, Susie became socially active on behalf of Omaha’s poor black community. She also became a part-time singer, making a separate life for herself though remaining deeply supportive of her husband. By 1966, Buffett’s wealth totaled nearly $10 million, but Berkshire Hathaway was now “on life support.” He tried to sell it to Charlie Munger. But Munger, who deeply respected Buffett’s investment acumen, had no interest in owning a firm Buffett did not want. Eventually, Buffett closed the Berkshire Hathaway plant and laid off the workers. From then on, Berkshire Hathaway became Buffett’s holding company, his main corporate enterprise. By 1974, Buffett, with his many companies, was a business mogul, although a small one. By 1977, his wealth surpassed $70 million. He was only 47. But Susie wanted more. By this time she had moved to San Francisco, where she now lived alone. She loved her husband, but wanted a life outside Omaha. Warren and Susie remained devoted, and talked daily on the phone. In 1978, at Susie’s urging, Astrid Menks, age 32, began to take care of Buffett, eventually moving in with him. The arrangement was an unusual triangle, but Buffett never felt the need to explain it to anyone. It worked well for all the parties concerned.

Richer and Richer

As the years progressed, Buffett continued to expand his fortune, along with those of his partners and fellow investors. By 1980, when Buffett was 50, Berkshire Hathaway was listed for $375 a share. By 1983, the Buffetts were worth $680 million and he was a billionaire by 1985. In 1987, Berkshire Hathaway traded at $2,950 per share and Buffett was worth $2.1 billion, making him the ninth-richest person in the United States. By 1991, he was the second richest, with a net worth of $3.8 billion. Buffett’s initial partners each had made $3 million for every $1,000 they originally invested with him. Year after year, Buffett’s fortune (his “snowball”) grew exponentially. By 2008, he was the richest man in the world. Throughout his climb, he watched his expenses and invested carefully, always investing his profits and letting his funds appreciate at compound interest. Buffett never allowed the fickle stock market to dictate to him, particularly when it plunged into high tech. He freely admitted he didn’t understand it, saying, “The software business is not within my circle of competence...We understand Dilly Bars and not software.” Thus, he avoided high tech’s bubbles, booms and busts. Instead, Buffett dictated to the market.

The Salomon Brothers Debacle

Buffett loved money, but he loved his hard-won reputation for honesty even more. In 1991, Salomon Brothers – a Wall Street investment bank in which Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway had a $700 million investment – tested his reputation. A Salomon executive, Paul Mozer, had engaged in a series of rule-breaking bids in his dealings with the U.S. Treasury. News of his violations hit Wall Street, which went into a fury. It turned out that other Salomon executives, including CEO John Gutfreund, had known of Mozer’s misdeeds. This implicated the firm in the scandal. Gutfreund, who should have fired Mozer and didn’t, had to resign. Salomon’s stock nosedived.

“Balzac said that behind every great fortune lies a crime. That’s not true at Berkshire.” (Buffett)

During this rough period, Buffett put his reputation on the line by assuming the post of Salomon’s interim chairman. He was known worldwide for his probity, honesty, openness and integrity. Thus, his willingness to rescue Salomon Brothers saved it from declaring bankruptcy. During Buffett’s testimony before the U.S. Congress about this affair, he said he had told Salomon’s executives, “Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”

Family Matters

In 2004, Buffett’s beloved wife Susie died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Two years later, he married Astrid Menks, his longtime live-in companion. Also in 2006, Buffett announced that he planned to give away his Berkshire Hathaway stock, valued at $37 billion. He stated his intention to donate some 83% of it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “for the betterment of the world.” Buffett did not ask the Gates Foundation to memorialize him. He made only one precondition: It should spend the money quickly to help people in distress.

About the Author

Alice Schroeder, initially a CPA, became a respected research analyst. Impressed with her writing skills, Warren Buffett recommended that she become a full-time writer instead.

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The Snowball

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Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

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