There’s one thing Warren Buffett says he owes his success to more than anything else: luck.
He insists he’s been lucky to spend most of his life in Omaha, to raise a family and business in the middle of the country. He was lucky to be born in the 30s, white, male, American. He was lucky to be alive at 95 years old. He was lucky, he says, to pull “a ridiculously long birth stick,” Bloomberg columnist Beth Kovit wrote in an op-ed.
In fact, he’s so lucky that he used the word luck in some form as many as 12 times in his US Thanksgiving letter to shareholders this year. Buffett will step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. As part of the handover process, he will no longer write the company’s annual letter to shareholders, instead the duty will go to his successor, Greg Abel.
Attributing his success to luck is probably a little disappointing to his followers, who voraciously devour what he writes, trying to absorb the investment principles that have turned Berkshire into a company valued at more than $1 trillion. dollar. It’s not exactly a factor that could be replicated in the market.
But if you read between the lines, it’s worth paying attention to Buffett’s continued talk about the role fate has played in his life. “In many cases, our leaders and the wealthy receive much more than their fortunes suggest — which, all too often, these recipients refuse to admit,” Buffett wrote. You can’t recreate the elements of chance that put Buffett on his path, but you can try to follow his example of never being fooled by your own glory or the idea that your achievements are solely your doing.
It’s this long-stick mindset that drives Buffett’s philanthropy—the most recent example being the donation of more than $1.3 billion to four family foundations. According to him, the donations are a kind of payback to the system that allowed him to amass enormous wealth.
But that attitude appears to be becoming increasingly unpopular, especially among Silicon Valley’s elite. Instead, its representatives seem to think that they can contribute more to society through their world-saving technologies than they have received or hope to receive.
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen summed up this philosophy best, stating in his 2023 blog post, The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, that “a technological innovation in a market system is inherently philanthropic, by a ratio of 50 to 1. Who gets more value from a new technology—the company that makes it or the millions or billions of people who use it to improve their lives?”
This attitude is also creeping into the way companies are run, with boards approving ever-larger pay packages for CEOs who — far from acknowledging the role that luck has played in their success — insist they’ve earned every cent. Buffett points out that instead of shaming these lavishly compensated executives, the rules on public disclosure of the amount of compensation only incites envy and further inflates the amounts given. “What often worries very rich CEOs,” he writes, “is that other CEOs become even richer.”
Buffett doesn’t want such leaders in charge of Berkshire. Twice he states in his letter that while the company’s managers are expected to become quite wealthy, they should not ask for “dynastic” or ostentatious riches.
Cultivating leaders who recognize that their destiny has had a significant effect on their fortunes can help address hubris and the mistakes it can lead to. Accepting that not everything is in your control means you can move on more quickly after making a mistake.
This is something Buffett gives his readers permission to do. Even if you haven’t lived a life of kindness and generosity, you still have time. “I wish everyone reading this a very happy Thanksgiving,” he wrote, adding, “Yes, even the bad guys. It’s never too late to change.”
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