by Alice Schroeder is an incredibly comprehensive biography of the stock market icon par excellence. Anyone who has ever bought shares, studied the stock market or even looked at the list of the world's wealthiest people will know Warren Buffett, at least by name. It's a well-known fact that what we really know about people is often far different from what we think we know.
Warren Buffett has been such a mystery to me for many years. You read a lot about him, but very little of it was really personal. Most texts about such successful people are more concerned with their strategies, their successes and the tips they have for posterity. This biography delves deeper into the life of Warren Buffett, who most of us probably never knew before.
This book undoubtedly became a Spiegel bestseller, and not without reason, and is definitely a book for those who enjoy reading for a little longer. After all, over 1,000 pages with appendixes and indexes are not easy to read, and frankly speaking, a Warren Buffett would not have deserved to be devoured like this.
For decades, he has been one of the wealthiest people on our planet, and he can look back on an eventful history. The author spent a lot of time with him, his family and his friends for her research. That alone makes me jealous. She was allowed to peek into photo albums and learned firsthand what he personally defines as his most difficult phases and greatest successes.
What such biographies always bring to light above all is the fact that even personalities like Warren Buffett are, in the end, one thing above all else: People. Completely normal people like you and me, who have only made a few different decisions in their lives, have had the opportunity to learn a lot, but of course have just as many strengths and weaknesses as we do. Warren Buffett is not a superhuman, nor is he a genius; rather, he was and is incredibly down-to-earth, inquisitive and hard-working. These three qualities in particular - especially when combined with his success - set him apart from the average person out there.
A person like him could boast so enormously about his own success, but he doesn't. He could also flaunt all the material things on the web that he could afford a dozen times over by now, but he doesn't do it. And he could also rub his performance as an investor in every person's face over and over again, stage himself as a speaker at events and as a great guru, and thus fleece crowds of hungry young people, but he doesn't need to do that either. Warren Buffett is perhaps a mystery to many people precisely because he is so different from the typical image of a billionaire that the media want to paint, half enviously, half ideologically.
Alice Schroeder has managed to put his story down on paper in a beautiful way, but hasn't particularly tried to compress things either. Biographies are usually already much more extensive than regular nonfiction books anyway. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 pages is quite a statement. However, this becomes especially problematic due to the truly gruesome binding.
I have no idea myself how to better package 1,000 pages, but these really incredibly thin, easily torn pages are absolutely disastrous to read. Also, the thin cover looks after only a few days as if it had been on the rummage table or on the beach for months. So it's really no fun to leaf through this 10 kg book. I've never mouthed these words before, but this is the first book I'd actually prefer to recommend as an audiobook.
Nevertheless, it is simply worth soaking up the contents of this book like a sponge. Especially for those people who haven't made it to an AGM in Omaha yet, but have always wanted to.
The whole book is furthermore peppered with illustrated quotes from the recorded interviews. Warren Buffett gave the author full access to all his files and correspondence and, above all, as much time as she would need.
"In the end, my own intense experiences with Warren and the thousands of pieces of the puzzle from so many different sources resulted in this portrait of a fascinating and highly complex man."
Alice Schroeder
The result is an undoubtedly exciting biography of a stock market icon. But this experience is then actually probably better suited as an audio book than in this bound version with its 1,000 thin and slightly cracked pages. Although I don't want to know how many hours the audiobook covers.
I have to say, somewhat critically - even if it doesn't feel right to even write this - that a Warren Buffett is not as exciting as an Elon Musk, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michelle Obama or Steve Jobs in over 1,000 pages. It's perfidious to compare people to each other in this way, which is why I'm reluctant to do so right now. The point is: that's what I like about Warren Buffett. He's rather calm, analytical, humble and level-headed, which is something you can say about many others. He is a person who has accomplished so much in life, has had to stand his ground so many times, and has succeeded. Yet he is brimming with humility and gratitude.
He still wants to learn, grow and pass on what he has worked hard for himself, even into old age. He is not only one of the wealthiest people in the world. That description is not accurate. He is one of the most remarkable people in the world. Because he simply falls outside the norm in so many ways. He is not the typical stockbroker, he is not the typical billionaire, he is not the typical 80-year-old, and he is not the typical achiever. At least in the limited view that society and the media give us as a yardstick. He shows that there can be so much more. That you can be like this and like that at the same time, that you can simply be yourself.