Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings

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Introduction
sold his Texas Instruments stock in the 1980’s but continued to 
use old and antiquated Texas Instruments calculators the rest of his
career because he hated changing. 
By Father’s admission, he had just five friends in his whole life— 
David Samuels (his younger first cousin), Ed Heller, Frank Sloss, Louis 
Lengfeld, and John Herschfelder—and they from fairly early on and all 
but one family connected. Despite all these friends being local, as a 
mature adult, he rarely saw them. Father knew David Samuels all his life 
and telephoned him regularly but only saw him, maybe, twice a year. 
Mentioned earlier, Ed Heller was a half generation older and successful
and wealthy before my father’s time and became a major mentor 
early on.They met when Ed married a cousin. Heller was a suc-
cessful stock market investor, an overall businessman, and a venture 
capitalist and may have been the man Father admired most until 
the early 1950’s. Heller died soon thereafter. Frank Sloss shared a 
room with Father at Stanford, and they remained close ever after 
and, hereto, Frank married a cousin and Father and Frank remained 
close until Frank died in the 1980’s. Frank was what today we 
call an estate planning attorney in San Francisco and did most of 
Father’s non-securities legal work until Frank died; and in that 
way they spoke often. But they saw little of each other other-
wise. Louis Lengfeld was himself a distant relative and a client of
father for many years, and they often commuted together into San 
Francisco. I saw him far more often than the others because he lived 
close by and picked father up to commute together on the train. Louis 
died in the 1950’s; his son allegedly refused to pay the final bill, and 
Father sued him and won. Cool. Tough. Pretty darned solitary. And the 
son? He is now dead himself. Father’s longest lasting friend? John Her-
schfelder, an engineer, who had been close to Father since childhood. 
But he only saw or spoke to Johnny maybe once every four years as an 
adult. Father couldn’t stand the guy’s wife—drove him crazy. Still, when
Johnny was in the hospital, dying, Father made regular trips there to sit 
with him. Johnny was important to Father. Yet in life, he couldn’t find 
ways to be with the man, because Father was solitary. Stoic. Alone,
except with my mother. He just didn’t like people very much. Most 
people like to be around friends, just to be with them and bask in 
their companionship, sort of glowing. He didn’t. 
He liked to be alone or with my mother; and pretty much of the 
time when he was with my mother, they were both alone, she in the 

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