The Legends Who Inspired Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett born as Warren Edward Buffett is an American Businessman and also the greatest Value Investor Worldwide.

Warren Buffett also known as the most successful investor of the 20th Century, but have you ever wondered how he did so? Like, the people who inspired Warren Buffett the most with their philosophies?

In this post we will know about the legends who inspired Warren Buffett the most with their unique philosophies in investing.

Legends Who Inspired Warren Buffett

The Legends Who Inspired Warren Buffett are:

1. Benjamin Graham
2. Philip Fisher
3. Charlie Munger
4. John Burr Williams

Let’s learn about each of them and their philosophies and How they Inspired Warren Buffet…

1. Benjamin Graham: Ben Graham the teacher and also good friend of Warren Buffet, Warren Buffet first got to know about Ben Graham after reading his book The Intelligent Investor in 1949.

Warren Buffett also worked for him in his fund management company – Graham-Newman Corporations.

The Lessons Warren Buffet Learned from Ben Graham were:

• Look Stocks as a Business,
• Use Market Fluctuations to your advantage
• Margin of Safety

Benjamin Graham also focused on buying the cheap stocks – the companies that were selling less than their net working capital.

But, this thing didn’t worked well for Buffett as Ben Graham didn’t focused on the underlying business and management.

Still, the greatest lesson from Ben Graham that inspired Warren Buffett for his own Investment philosophy was Margin of Safety.

Now, another legend who inspired Warren Buffet is…

2. Philip Fisher: Philip Fisher is another Legendary Investor who inspired Warren Buffet with his teaching on Finding Better Businesses and Management.

Warren Buffet met Philip Fisher in early 1960s after reading his book Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits.

Fisher used to focus on the quality of the businesses and the managements those who runs the businesses.

He also believed in, to invest in a business an investor must be fully informed about the business he is investing in.

Warren Buffett found lot of value  in the teachings of Philip Fisher to focus on quality of businesses that he also adopted Fisher’s philosophies in his own Investing Philosophy – It also helped Buffett a lot to become who he is today.

3. Charlie Munger: Charlie Munger is an alter ego of Warren Buffet also a Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

Charlie Munger also had great believes to value the quality of businesses instead of the numbers showing in the balance sheet and annual reports.

Munger is also interested in many areas of knowledge to whom he calls “the big ideas” or the “latticework of mental models” for investors.

He believes that the solution to every problem in the world is not stored in any single academic, therefore he recommends to keep knowledge in each areas like science, history, philosophy, psychology, mathematics etc.

Charlie Munger also inspired Warren Buffett in many ways like Value the Quality of Businesses, Psychology of Human Misjudgment.

4: John Burr Williams: John Burr Williams was the 20th Century economist and also known for pioneering the calculation methodology of ‘intrinsic value’ 

Williams inspired Warren Buffet with his methodology of calculating intrinsic value of stocks.

John Burr Williams also wrote The Theory of Investment Value in 1937, that Buffet calls as the most important book on investing ever written.

So, these are the four legends who inspired Warren Buffett with their philosophies and how Buffett adopted their philosophies and added his own philosophies in investing to become one the successful value investor worldwide.

---

If you have any query/feedback then please tweet me @gurpreet_saluja.

If you liked this post then don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter service to receive all the updates directly in your inbox.