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If it is a good business at a good price, Warren takes action.

      It's easy to imagine the young Warren recognizing the truth of that. From the time he started selling candy and soda pop at age six, Warren was his own boss. He was steadfastly confident and loved his independence. By the time he graduated high school he was already the richest 16‐year‐old in Omaha. He may very well have been the world's richest self‐made teenager. But he was not yet the millionaire he had once bragged about becoming. That required him to stay in school.

      In 1947, Warren enrolled at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite his father urging him toward higher education, Warren was not easily motivated. He figured he was already doing well and that college would be a waste of time. Anyway, he had already read over a hundred books on business and investing. What could college teach him?

      Sometime in that summer of 1950 he found a copy of a newly published book by Benjamin Graham—The Intelligent Investor. More than any of the hundreds of books he had read, he regards this one as the book that changed his life.

      When the spring semester began in 1951, Warren could hardly contain himself. His next class was taught by Benjamin Graham, a seminar that combined the teachings in Security Analysis and the lessons from The Intelligent Investor linked to actual stocks that were then trading in the market.

      In the beginning, Graham's method was simple: Add up the company's current assets (account receivables, cash and securities), then subtract all its liabilities. That gives you the company's net worth. Then, and only then, look at the stock price. If the price was below the net assets, it was a worthwhile and potentially profitable purchase. But if the stock price was higher than the company's net worth, it wasn't worth investing. This approach fit comfortably into Warren's sense of numbers. Ben Graham had given him what he had been seeking for years—a systematic approach for investing: buy a dollar's worth of securities for 50 cents.

      When school was over, Warren asked Graham about working at Graham‐Newman, the investment partnership Graham managed while teaching at Columbia. Graham turned him down. Warren offered to work for free. Again, a polite no thank you. So Warren returned to Omaha, determined to see what he could do on his own.

      He was just turning 21 years old.

      Warren threw his heart and soul into Buffett‐Falk & Company. He enrolled in the Dale Carnegie course for public speaking and was soon teaching “Investment Principles” at the University of Omaha; the lectures were based on Graham's book The Intelligent Investor. He wrote a column for The Commercial and Financial Chronicle under the headline “The Security I Like Best.” In it he touted one of Graham's favorite investments, a little‐known insurance company called Government Employees Insurance Co. (GEICO). Throughout this period, Warren maintained his relationship with Ben Graham and sent him stock ideas from time to time.

      Then one day, in 1954, Graham called his former student with a job offer. Warren was on the next plane back to New York.

      The two years Warren spent at Graham‐Newman were exhilarating but also frustrating. One of six employees, Warren shared an office with the legendary investors Walter Schloss and Tom Knapp. They spent their days pouring over the Standard & Poor's Stock Guide and pitching ideas for the Graham‐Newman mutual fund.

      Graham and his partner Jerry Newman batted down most of their recommendations. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 420 in 1955, the Graham Mutual Fund was sitting on $4 million in cash. No matter how compelling were Warren's stock picks, the door for investing at Graham‐Newman was closed. The only place for Warren's ideas was his own portfolio. The following year, 1956, Graham had enough. He retired and moved to Beverly Hills, California, where he continued to write and teach, this time at UCLA, until his death at the age of 82.

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