He is called “the Sage of Omaha” and the “Oracle of Omaha” thanks to his investment prowess, but Warren Buffett is also known as “the Billionaire Next Door.” Buffett is the world’s richest billionaire investor (worth upwards of $62 billion), yet he is legendary for his modest, frugal lifestyle.
He still resides in the same house in Omaha, Nebraska, that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. A man of simple tastes, he likes McDonald’s hamburgers, cherry Coke, and Dairy Queen. Although he could have chosen any venue in the world for his second marriage in 2006, he had a simple 15 minute private ceremony at his daughter’s house. Buffett’s idea of a great night? Watching sports on television and eating junk food. He sounds like my kind of guy.
Of course, Buffett does take advantage of some of the perks of a man in his position. He has been a caddie for Tiger Woods, he has advised Le Bron James, and he has stepped into the batter’s box against Bob Gibson. A fan of Creighton and Nebraska, Buffett did a few quick calculations and came up with an NCAA bracket challenge: Correctly pick the winner of all of the men’s tournament games and win a billion dollars.
Sounds great, but remember Buffett’s first two rules of investing: “Rule one – never lose money. Rule two – never forget rule one.” The odds that someone will create the perfect bracket are – ready for this? – 9.2 quintillion-to-1. Jeffrey Bergen, a math professor at DePaul University, told USA Today that the odds improve to “one in 128 billion if you know something about college basketball.”
Although this kind of joke seems to really tickle Buffett’s fancy (read more about the challenge here), it’s not all for his amusement. Buffett and Quicken Loans, co-sponsors of the contest, will award $100,000 for each of the 20 most accurate brackets. I wonder how well “The Oracle of Omaha” will do in creating his bracket? Is he an oracle for basketball too, or are his talents confined to the world of investing? Does he maintain the same emotional detachment when picking his brackets as he does when picking stocks? Or, like me, does he allow sentiment to decide his allegiance? I’m picking my Alma Mater, 11-seed Providence College to shock the basketball world! Actually, I would be happy if the PC can upset the North Carolina Tar Heels (Mary’s favorite team) tonight! You can bet the smack talking is in full force this week!
Until the game, enjoy the wisdom of the Oracle of Omaha, whose plain and simple investing advice is pretty good advice for life too:
•”Success is really doing what you love and doing it well. It’s as simple as that. Getting to do what you love to do everyday – that’s really the ultimate luxury.”
•”If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes, you don’t know who the patsy is, then you are the patsy.”
•”It is only when the tide goes out that you can see who is swimming naked.”
•”It takes 20 years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently.”
•”In the business world, the rear view is always clearer than the wind shield.”
•”Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”
•”Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
•”One’s objective should be to get it right, get it quick, get it out and get it over. Your problem won’t improve with age.”
•”The important thing is to keep playing, to play against weak opponents and to play for big stakes.”
Play “big” this weekend,
~Bob
