Читать книгу Attention. Deficit. Disorder. - Brad Listi - Страница 22

All throughout the holidays, I’d been feeling pretty listless, generally disinterested in any kind of socializing. San Francisco was particularly bad. It was followed by my family’s sojourn down to Louisiana to visit our extended clan for Christmas. From Louisiana, we headed back to Indianapolis, the place where I’d grown up, and there we endured the rest of our vacation in a state of relative harmony. I wound up spending most of my time in my old bedroom, reading and watching television. I found myself particularly captivated by a book on Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest stock market investor. At the time, Buffett was America’s second-richest man. His net worth topped out at approximately $36 billion, an amount of money that well exceeded the gross national product of several small nations, like, for instance, Estonia.

The population of Estonia: 1.4 million human beings.

gross national product n. (abbr. GNP)

The total market value of all the goods and services produced by a nation during a specified period.

Warren Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, during the Great Depression. As a child, he demonstrated a prodigious mastery of numbers and a precocious entrepreneurial streak. At the age of six, he was purchasing six-packs of Coca-Cola from his grandfather’s grocery store for twenty-five cents and reselling them for thirty cents. From there, he expanded his enterprises, buying various items and then turning them around for a handsome profit.

By the time he’d graduated from high school, Buffett had earned more than ten grand—roughly the equivalent of $100,000 in modern dollars, when you factor in the rate of inflation.

In 1988, Buffett began purchasing Coca-Cola stock (ticker symbol: KO) in massive quantities, quickly becoming the company’s largest shareholder. At the time, the shares were worth about $10.96 apiece. Five years later, they were worth $74.50. By the end of the 1990s, Buffet’s stake in the company was valued at around $13 billion.

His profits were enormous.

The ingredients found in a can of Coca-Cola are: carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, and caffeine.

A $10,000 investment in Buffett’s insurance and investment holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., back in 1965 was worth roughly $50 million in the year 2000.

Despite his massive wealth, Warren Buffett continues to live in his home state of Nebraska, in the same gray stucco house he purchased in Omaha for less than $32,000 in the 1950s.

As a youngster, he was rejected by Harvard Business School.

His nickname? The Oracle of Omaha.