Warren Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and subsequently transformed the struggling textile manufacturer into a diversified holding company. Insurance, stock investments and acquisitions of operating businesses became central to Berkshire’s expansion.
Early investing and Benjamin Graham
Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on August 30, 1930. His father, Howard Buffett, worked in the investment business and later represented Nebraska in the U.S. House of Representatives. Buffett bought his first stock at 11, delivered newspapers as a teenager and filed a federal income tax return while still in his teens.
Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor influenced Buffett’s investment approach. He enrolled at Columbia to study under Graham and graduated in 1951. Graham’s emphasis on buying below estimated underlying value and allowing a margin of safety became part of Buffett’s investment framework.
Buffett later recalled offering to work at Graham-Newman without pay after taking Graham’s class, only to be rejected. Graham eventually hired him in 1954. Buffett returned to Omaha in 1956 and established his first investment partnership with approximately $105,100: $105,000 from seven limited partners and $100 of his own money.
Berkshire’s expansion beyond textiles
Berkshire’s move into insurance began with its 1967 purchase of National Indemnity. In his 1985 shareholder letter, Buffett explained that cash from textile earnings and reductions in the money tied up in the textile operation helped finance that acquisition. Berkshire closed its textile operation in 1985.
Insurance supplied funds known as float: money collected in premiums that insurers hold before paying claims. Berkshire could invest those funds in the meantime. Float remained money owed to others, and its financial benefit depended in part on the cost of insurance claims and expenses.
Acquisitions also expanded Berkshire’s operating businesses. By 1987, its holdings included See’s Candies, Nebraska Furniture Mart and businesses acquired through the 1986 purchase of Scott & Fetzer, including World Book and Kirby vacuum cleaners. Buffett’s work therefore encompassed buying entire businesses as well as investing in publicly traded shares.
In Berkshire’s 1996 shareholder letter, Buffett said intrinsic value, rather than accounting book value, was the measure he and vice chairman Charlie Munger considered most important. He also expressed a preference for shareholders with long investment horizons.
That approach drew questions during the dot-com era. At Berkshire’s 2000 annual meeting, shareholder Gaylord Hanson challenged Buffett and Munger to invest some of the company’s money in technology stocks. Buffett responded that they would buy only businesses whose future economics they believed they could assess. In a separate answer, he distinguished understanding technology products from being able to predict their businesses’ economics a decade later.
Wealth and philanthropy
On February 3, 2026, Berkshire’s market capitalization was approximately $1.06 trillion, or roughly $1.1 trillion. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index estimated Buffett’s personal net worth at about $147 billion at that time.
Buffett has pledged to give more than 99% of his wealth to philanthropy during his lifetime or at death. In his philanthropic pledge, he described a commitment made in 2006 to gradually donate all of his Berkshire Hathaway stock to philanthropic foundations.
His longstanding Omaha residence also remained part of his personal history. In November 2025, Buffett said he still occupied the house he had bought there in 1958.
