Warren Edward Buffett (/ˈbʌfɪt/ BUF-it; born August 30, 1930)[2] is an American investor and philanthropist who currently serves as the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

[4][5] Since 1970, Buffett has presided as the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, one of America's foremost holding companies and world's leading corporate conglomerates.

He has been referred to as the "Oracle" or "Sage" of Omaha by global media as a result of having accumulated a massive fortune derived from his business and investment success.

[12] After finishing high school and finding success with his side entrepreneurial and investment ventures, Buffett wanted to skip college to go directly into business but was overruled by his father.

His father took interest in cultivating and educating the young Warren's curiosity surrounding the subject of business and investing, even at one point taking him to visit the New York Stock Exchange when he was 10.

At this time Buffett, who had amassed personal savings over $174,000 (about $1.95 million today)[23], decided to return to Omaha, where he would quickly start a series of investment partnerships.

[47] In 1998 Buffett acquired General Re (Gen Re) as a subsidiary in a deal that presented difficulties — according to the Rational Walk investment website, "underwriting standards proved to be inadequate", while a "problematic derivatives book" was resolved after numerous years and a significant loss.

Gen Re also made a commitment to implement "corporate governance concessions", which required Berkshire Hathaway's chief financial officer to attend General Re's audit committee meetings and mandated the appointment of an independent director.

[53] Buffett ran into criticism during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 and 2008, part of the Great Recession starting in 2007, that he had allocated capital too early resulting in suboptimal deals.

He thus became the single largest shareholder in the enlarged group with his Berkshire Hathaway, which provided $3 billion, underlining his instrumental role during the crisis in debt and equity markets.

[81]In November 2011, it was announced that over the course of the previous eight months, Buffett had bought 64 million shares of International Business Machine Corp (IBM) stock, worth around $11 billion.

[84] Interim publisher James W. Hopson announced on July 18, 2013, that the Press of Atlantic City would be sold to Buffett's BH Media Group by ABARTA, a private holding company based in Pittsburgh, U.S. At the Berkshire shareholders meeting in May 2013, Buffett explained that he did not expect to "move the needle" at Berkshire with newspaper acquisitions, but he anticipates an annual return of 10 percent.

The Press of Atlantic City became Berkshire's 30th daily newspaper, following other purchases such as Virginia, U.S.' Roanoke Times and The Tulsa World in Oklahoma, U.S.[85] During a presentation to Georgetown University students in Washington, D.C., in late September 2013, Buffett compared the U.S. Federal Reserve to a hedge fund and stated that the bank is generating "$80 billion or $90 billion a year probably" in revenue for the U.S. government.

[106] Susan briefly discussed this relationship in an interview on the Charlie Rose Show shortly before her death, in a rare glimpse into Buffett's personal life.

[107] Buffett disowned his son Peter's adopted daughter, Nicole, in 2006 after she participated in the Jamie Johnson documentary The One Percent about the growing economic inequality between the wealthy and the average citizen in the United States.

[130] Buffett worked with Christopher Webber on an animated series called "Secret Millionaires Club" with chief Andy Heyward of DiC Entertainment.

Each year, Buffett presides over Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting in the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska, an event drawing over 20,000 visitors from both the United States and abroad, giving it the nickname "Woodstock of Capitalism".

Buffett's writings are known for containing quotations from sources as varied as the Bible and Mae West,[139] as well as advice in a folksy, Midwestern style and numerous jokes.

In April 2017, Buffett (an avid Coca-Cola drinker and shareholder in the company) agreed to have his likeness placed on Cherry Coke products in China.

[150] In 1999, Buffett was named the Top Money Manager of the Twentieth Century in a survey by the Carson Group, ahead of Peter Lynch and John Templeton.

[157] He pledged about the equivalent of 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (worth approximately $30.7 billion as of June 23, 2006),[158] making it the largest charitable donation in history, and Buffett one of the leaders of philanthrocapitalism.

[172] In 2009, Ralph Nader wrote the book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us, a novel about "a movement of billionaires led by Warren Buffett and featuring, among others, Ted Turner, George Soros and Barry Diller, who use their fortunes to clean up America".

[198] Buffett faults the incentives in the United States medical industry, that payers reimburse doctors for procedures (fee-for-service) leading to unnecessary care (overutilization), instead of paying for results.

Called "The Good Club" by an insider, the billionaires had given away $45 billion to philanthropic causes and included Oprah Winfrey, Michael Bloomberg and David Rockefeller, Jr.[202] The meeting has drawn criticism from some right-wing blogs, with some believing the group to be a part of a secret sterilization society.

He sold this stake soon afterwards, sparing him the billions of dollars he would have lost had he held on to the company in the midst of the steep drop in oil prices beginning in the summer of 2008.

And there's fantastic brand loyalty.Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s 1994 annual meeting, Buffett said investments in tobacco are:[217] fraught with questions that relate to societal attitudes and those of the present administration.

The economy of the business may be fine, but that doesn't mean it has a bright future.In 2007, Buffett's PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of his MidAmerican Energy Company, canceled six proposed coal-fired power plants.

[218] Native American tribes and salmon fishermen sought to win support from Buffett for a proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River owned by PacifiCorp which is a Berkshire Hathaway company.

[222]In May 2012, Buffett said he had avoided buying stock in high-technology companies such as Facebook and Google due to them being complex and difficult to understand on top of their concomitant complications from being hard to confidently estimate their future value.

[227] He has been a guest 10 times on Charlie Rose, and was the subject of the HBO documentary feature Becoming Warren Buffett (2017) and the BBC production The World's Greatest Money Maker (2009).