The Gallery of Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur:
Warren Buffett

Winning School:
Westside Middle School, Omaha, NE
Teacher: Ms. Dostal

Winning Entry:

Warren Buffett always had big dreams to become an investor. He was born to Howard Buffett in Omaha, NE on August 30, 1930. His father was a very enthusiastic stockbroker, and a United States Representative. He first started purchasing Cities Services stock at the mere age of 11 years old. By 14, he had become skilled in investing and purchased 40 acres of farmland with his money from a paper route, and rented that land off to local farmers. He attended Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and then transferred to the University of Nebraska. He then studiedBenjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. In 1951, he obtained a Master's degree in economics at Columbia Business School, still studying Benjamin Graham's work.

Associated, Ltd., an investment partnership, but his greatest accomplishment with Berkshire Hathaway, happened when he was 29 when he met the man that eventually would become the Vice After this, he found Phillip Fisher to also be a wise investor. He started taking a Security Analysis class taught be Benjamin Graham himself, and received the only A+ Benjamin had ever give out! He then taught Investment Principles at the University of Nebraska. Benjamin gave Warren a 12K a year job, and when Ben retired, Warren's and Ben's partnership all went to Warren. Since then, his personal savings grew from $9,800 to over $140,000. Buffett returned to Omaha and created BuffettChariman of Berkshire Hathaway. At that time, Berkshire's stock went from $8 a share, and Buffett took 49% of all the stock. He then appointed a new President of the company, Ken Chace to run the business. At 40, he became the Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

He then made Berkshire acquire stock in the Washington Post, which was run by Katharine Graham, who later became part of the board of directors. When Buffett hit 49, Berkshire acquired stock in ABC. Berkshire stock was now being traded at $290 a share and had a net value of $140 million. Then at the beginning of the year, it skyrocketed to $775 per share and at the end of the year, $1,310. The net worth reached $620 million. He then invested in the Coca-Cola Company, eventually buying nearly 7% of the company with a total value of stock of a whopping 1.02 billion! Now, he is giving more than 80% of his earned $44 billion fortune to five foundations, most of which being the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This entrepreneur didn't really create anything really, he was just one of the wisest investors that brought together many different companies to make all for what Berkshire Hathaway is. When he did this, Berkshire Hathaway grew into the biggest holding company in the world, and that created thousands of new jobs for the rapidly expanding business. Also, the Stock Market was getting to be at it's all time high for some companies, because people are interested and studying Warren's ways. This created more demand for business to develop and expand, and for stockbrokers to have a better chance at making money with so many deals now forming.

Warren Buffett turned a weak company such as the computer industry at that time, and made it a part of Berkshire Hathaway, and that created the famous companies that we know today. He made investing something everyone could do instead of stockbrokers doing it for you. He showed how investing is a very skilled profession and a very big game of chance, but his tactics also showed how to overcome the confusion in investing, and how to make money by either monopolizing companies, or to simply have new management that make all the difference. Warren showed how to make people take up investing in their lives and how to make profits off of it.

All in all, Warren Buffett was a wise and powerful investor. He used the same strategies as some of his role models and used the to help achieve his goal. His lesson is to start early and practice in something that you love to do, and who knows, with a little study, and hard work, it could pay off for you.