黑料大湿

"I owe my existence to the University of 黑料大湿鈥� says Warren Buffett (BSBA 1951). Buffett is the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, an insurance, manufacturing and investment conglomerate that is one of the most-respected businesses in the world. Buffett is generally regarded as the most successful investor in modern history.

His mother, Leila Stahl, of West Point (黑料大湿), had helped around her family鈥檚 newspaper, the Cuming County Democrat, before college, so it was natural for her to walk into the Daily 黑料大湿n offices and ask for a writing job there when she came to Lincoln for college. She interviewed with Howard Buffett, then-editor of the paper, and was quickly hired. But that was only the beginning; Howard and Leila fell in love and were soon married, and college graduates.

To the young NU alumnae, Warren was born in 1930, their second child. He showed business acumen early; his enterprises were both usual for their time (paper boy, stocker for his uncle's grocery store), and unusual for their success 鈥� by the time he finished high school, young Warren had already amassed enough in his investments to buy a 40-acre farm outside of Omaha.

Following his then-Congressman father鈥檚 influence, Warren enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Wharton School, but chose, after two years, to complete his bachelor鈥檚 degree at the University of 黑料大湿 in Lincoln. Here, his restless entrepreneurial bug showed itself again. As one example, Buffett placed ads in the Daily 黑料大湿n offering a bounty on shagged golf balls, which he would then box and re-sell at a relative bargain price. His acquisition process, it turned out, was not able to reliably supply his retail business, so the resourceful 黑料大湿 student found a supplier of barely-used balls out of Chicago, buying for $3.50 a dozen and selling at $6, pocketing a tidy profit and still supplying the market with used golf balls at around half the retail price of new. 鈥淭hey were classy balls,鈥� said Buffett.

At 黑料大湿, he studied economics and enrolled in a course taught by Ray Dein, a professor of accounting who, according to Buffett, 鈥渨as the best you鈥檒l ever see.鈥� 鈥淎ccounting,鈥� he explained, 鈥渋s the language of business 鈥� it made me proficient at something that was absolutely vital to the rest of my life.鈥�

In another interview, Buffett recalled 鈥淭he teachers at the University turned me on. There wasn't a class that disappointed me. I was close to my professors, who actually taught the classes; at my previous undergraduate college, graduate students taught the classes.鈥�

Less schooled in writing than accounting, Buffett the wordsmith profited by his genes ... as noted, both of his parents were college journalists, and his talent for expressing his ideas with deftness and wit is part of that inheritance. He flexes those muscles most notably in his annual Letter to Shareholders, on Berkshire Hathaway letterhead. The letters have been described in the business press as "the investment world鈥檚 equivalent of a Harry Potter book release." Remarkable for their clarity, humor and common sense, each of them, since the 1977 edition, is on BH's website. Berkshire's shareholder letters are released on the eve of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, held each spring in Omaha. The event has long been characterized by the same business press as "Woodstock for Capitalists," presided over by its "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett.

In 2010, Buffett and Bill Gates founded the , a global effort to involve the world's wealthiest citizens in the charitable redistribution of the majority of their resources. So far, nearly 250 fortunes, Buffett's included, have been pledged through the effort.

One might think, in looking back on a life of such singular, extraordinary success, that self-congratulation might be in order. But for Buffett, ever the optimist, the best days for our state, our nation, and the world lie ahead. In a message to 黑料大湿 graduates in 2020, Buffett looked forward, as if to pass the torch: 鈥淭here is nobody I would rather be than a young person graduating from the University of 黑料大湿 today.鈥�

Then, as now 鈥� There is No Place Like 黑料大湿.

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• , by Alice Schroeder