More Praise for The Warren Buffett Way, First Edition

The Intelligent
Investor.
You need the right mind-set, the right temperament.
You should be interested in the process and be in your circle of
competence. Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher, read annual
reports and trade reports, but don’t do equations with Greek
letters in them.
8
W
ARREN
B
UFFETT
, 1993

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T H E W A R R E N B U F F E T T W AY
Buffett, over his lifetime, has tried different investment gambits. At a
young age he even tried his hand at stock charting. He has studied with
the brightest financial mind of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham,
and managed and owned a host of businesses with his partner, Charlie
Munger. Over the past five decades, Buffett has experienced double-digit
interest rates, hyperinf lation, and stock market crashes. Through all the
distractions, he found his niche, that point where all things make sense:
where investment strategy cohabits with personality. “Our (investment)
attitude,” said Buffett, “fits our personalities and the way we want to live
our lives.”
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Buffett’s attitude easily ref lects this harmony. He is always upbeat
and supportive. He is genuinely excited about coming to work every day.
“I have in life all I want right here,” he says. “I love every day. I mean, I
tap dance in here and work with nothing but people I like.”
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“There is
no job in the world,” he says, “that is more fun than running Berkshire
and I count myself lucky to be where I am.”
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Afterword
Managing Money the
Warren Buffett Way
I
began my money management career at Legg Mason in the summer of
1984. It was a typical hot and humid day in Baltimore. Fourteen newly
minted investment brokers, including myself, walked into an open-
windowed conference room to begin our training. Sitting down at our
desks, we all received a copy of 
The Intelligent Investor
by Benjamin
Graham (a book I had never heard of ) and a photocopy of the 1983
Berkshire Hathaway annual report (a company I had never heard of )
written by Warren Buffett (a man I had never heard of ).
The f irst day of class included introductions and welcomes from top
management, including some of the f irm’s most successful brokers. One
after another, they proudly explained that Legg Mason’s investment
philosophy was 100 percent value-based. Clutching 
The Intelligent In-
vestor,
each took a turn at reciting chapter and verse from this holy
text. Buy stocks with low price-to-earnings ratios (P/E), low price-to-
book value, and high dividends, they said. Don’t pay attention to the
stock market’s daily gyrations, they said; its siren song would almost
certainly pull you in the wrong direction. Seek to become a contrarian,
they said. Buy stocks that are down in price and unpopular so you can
later sell them at higher prices when they again become popular.

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A F T E R W O R D
The message we received throughout the first day was both consis-
tent and logical. We spent the afternoon analyzing Value Line research
reports and learning to distinguish between stocks that were down in
price and appeared to be cheap and stocks that were up in price and ap-
peared to be expensive. By the end of our first training session, we all be-
lieved we were in possession of the Holy Grail of investing. As we packed
up our belongings, our instructor reminded us to take the Berkshire
Hathaway annual report with us and read it before tomorrow’s class.
“Warren Buffett,” she cheerily reminded us, “was Benjamin Graham’s
most famous student, you know.”
Back in my hotel room that night, I was wrung out with exhaus-
tion. My eyes were blurry and tired, and my head was swimming with
balance sheets, income statements, and accounting ratios. Quite hon-
estly, the last thing I wanted to do was to spend another hour or so read-
ing an annual report. I was sure if one more investing factoid reached my
inner skull, it would certainly explode. Reluctantly and very tiredly, I
picked up the Berkshire Hathaway report.
It began with a salutation