Investor and philanthropist; chairman and former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
1930–present · Omaha, Nebraska
Install Warren's frameworks in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add adamtpang/summon.guide
/plugin install warren-buffettInstalls 6 skills from Warren, plus the rest of summon.guide. Source on GitHub.
Warren Edward Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on August 30, 1930, the second of three children of Leila Stahl Buffett and Howard Buffett, a stockbroker who later served in Congress. Fascinated by numbers and business, he sold chewing gum and Coca-Cola door to door, delivered newspapers, bought his first shares at eleven, and filed his first tax return at thirteen. He attended the Wharton School before transferring to the University of Nebraska, then earned a master's degree in economics at Columbia, where Benjamin Graham and David Dodd taught him to treat a share as ownership in a business and to demand a margin of safety. After Columbia, Buffett studied public speaking with Dale Carnegie and taught an investment class in Omaha. Graham initially declined to hire him, but Buffett joined Graham-Newman in New York in 1954. When Graham retired two years later, Buffett returned to Omaha and formed Buffett Partnership Ltd. with capital from family and friends. His partnership letters already emphasized alignment, measured performance, independent judgment, and avoiding permanent loss rather than predicting markets.
Buffett took control of the struggling textile manufacturer Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 after a dispute over a tender offer. He later called the purchase a major mistake, but used the corporate shell to build a radically different enterprise. The acquisition of National Indemnity in 1967 gave Berkshire insurance float that could be invested until claims came due. Subsequent purchases, including See's Candies, GEICO, Nebraska Furniture Mart, BNSF, and a collection of large public-company holdings, turned Berkshire into a decentralized conglomerate with capital allocation and manager selection concentrated at its tiny Omaha headquarters. Charlie Munger, whom Buffett met in 1959, persuaded him to move beyond Benjamin Graham's bargain-priced cigar butts and pay sensible prices for exceptional businesses. Buffett described See's as the decisive lesson: a company with pricing power, low incremental capital needs, loyal customers, and managers who could operate autonomously. The Berkshire partnership combined Buffett's capital allocation and communication with Munger's insistence on business quality, opportunity cost, incentives, and avoiding obvious folly. Buffett served as Berkshire's chief executive from 1970 through 2025. Greg Abel became CEO on January 1, 2026, while Buffett remained chairman. From 1977 through 2024 Buffett's annual letters explained Berkshire's results and operating principles to shareholders in unusually plain language, including owner earnings, the retained-earnings test, economic moats, the institutional imperative, acquisition discipline, liquidity, reputation, and the prompt correction of mistakes.
Buffett is among the most influential investors and business writers of the modern era. His distinctive contribution was not merely buying underpriced securities, but joining disciplined valuation to a permanent-capital company designed around trust, decentralized authority, conservative financing, and patient ownership. The shareholder letters became a practical course in accounting, capital allocation, management, psychology, and stewardship because they exposed errors as well as successes and addressed shareholders as partners. He has pledged to give away more than 99 percent of his wealth and, with Bill and Melinda Gates, created the Giving Pledge to encourage other wealthy people to commit most of their fortunes to philanthropy. His most durable lesson is temperamental: stay inside what you can understand, wait for a favorable opportunity, avoid risks that can end the game, choose trustworthy partners, and let sound economics compound for a very long time.
Frameworks distilled from Warren’s life, packaged as Claude Code skills. Each skill is invoked with a slash command and grounded in the primary biographies listed under References.
/warren-buffett:warren-buffettTurn a business or capital decision into owner economics, opportunity cost, downside protection, and a clear action.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters, 1977-2024, by Warren E. Buffett, Full official archive, especially 1977, 1986, 1989, 1996, 2014, and 2024
/warren-buffett:owner-earningsConvert reported accounting results into the cash an owner can take out without weakening the business.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway 1986 shareholder letter by Warren E. Buffett, 1986 letter, purchase-price accounting and owner earnings discussion
/warren-buffett:circle-of-competenceDraw the boundary between what can be evaluated, what must be learned, and what should simply be passed.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway 1996 shareholder letter by Warren E. Buffett, 1996 letter, common stock investments section
/warren-buffett:retained-earnings-testMake every retained dollar compete against distribution and the best alternative use of capital.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters by Warren E. Buffett, 1980, 1982, and 1984 letters, retained earnings and capital allocation
/warren-buffett:financial-fortressStress obligations, counterparties, and liquidity so no ordinary shock can force a permanent loss.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters by Warren E. Buffett, 1989, 2001, 2002, 2018, and 2023 letters
/warren-buffett:acquisition-filterScreen an acquisition for understandable economics, durable advantage, trustworthy management, price, financing, and fit before deal momentum takes over.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters by Warren E. Buffett, 1989 acquisition criteria and 2014 fiftieth-anniversary letter
Install in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add adamtpang/summon.guide
/plugin install warren-buffettBring Warren’s frameworks into your terminal. One install registers every guide’s skills.
Each Claude Code skill above is grounded in a specific passage of a specific book. These are the primary sources we drew from for Warren.
“It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
“Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.”
“Our favorite holding period is forever.”
“Mr. Market is there to serve you, not to guide you.”
“The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.”
“A small chance of distress or disgrace cannot, in our view, be offset by a large chance of extra returns.”
Their voice on summon.guide is grounded in:
Further reading: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett
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