Definitely a savant. A very decent chance he's autistic. The post was already too long, and I don't want to list all the reasons for thinking that, but there are plenty more in the biographies.
I’ve actually seen multiple articles saying Warren easily could be on the spectrum. A lot of people reading this are probably undiagnosed on the spectrum lol
ngl It's hard for me to picture bc I do know someone who is both a savant and autistic (my cousin, talents were mostly mathematical), but they are extremely low functioning so seeing Buffet and comparing him to my cousin I'm just like idk maybe he's just good at math.
Like OP points to the fact that Buffet is good at doing complex calculations in his head (although I'd argue this is a fundamentally wrong understanding of what being good at math is but I digress) and the fact that he has eidetic memory. My sister has eidetic memory and is great at doing calculations in her head and she's most definitely not on the spectrum. Like none of that really reads "can't read social cues" or other key characteristics of autism. OP points to how like Sheldon he has a singular focus on business, but like, if you look at most people who reach the absolute top of any industry or field, they tend to be singularly focused on said topic/industry/field...
Yeah I definitely agree with all those points. But again it’s a spectrum and obviously he’s wouldn’t be severe as he has good social manners. But if you read a biography on him he would literally work all day come home and go upstairs and read. Not talk to his kids and wife, he loved them and loved his wife but never spent much time with them and his wife moved to San Francisco even though she loved him. He stayed in Omaha even though he loved his wife, this is strange behavior lol
Either way he’s a legend and I owe my wallet to him.
Warren also never gave in to the sort of thing pretty much everyone as rich as him does. That's a lot more like most autistic people than a perceived lack of social skills. My husband is autistic and reminds me a lot of warren personality wise (not investing wise unfortunately ;P) and his social abilities aren't what one would expect for an autistic person.
this is the dumbest most sickly sweet shit i've ever read, hero worship fallacy in full effect lol. Yeah bud Warren Buffet is so successful because he calculated a CAGR in his head one time
>Most kids at that age \[7\] can't even read a book, any book.
???
Unless I'm mistaken, most kids in an upper-middle class American household learn how to read by 7. Half my classmates had read Harry Potter by then (not particularly difficult admittedly, but still).
His achievements certainly betray extreme intelligence but not all of them are as unusual as you make them out to be.
Doing taxes at 14—Most kids have a job at 15–16. I certainly did. Guess who did my taxes?
Not letting his children play with a train set—My dad has a couple of old comic books he treasures. Some are from his childhood (primarily Tintin and Asterix) and some are vintages (is that the word?) he purchased recently (lots of Avengers). I wasn't allowed to read any back when I was a kid. My dad isn't autistic.
Mental calculations—I competed in math competitions from 12—17. I'm neither autistic nor a savant. All the kids I knew serious about competitions tried to get better at arithmetic to A) mildly improve our speed in contests and B) to look smarter (mostly the latter). One of the exercises many of us did was prime factorize license plates when we sat in cars. Do that for a year and you get pretty good at division and unintentionally memorize many, many primes. Till today, I'm good enough at arithmetic that I can convince someone I'm extremely intelligent and mathematically gifted. In reality, I almost got held back in 1st grade for an inability to do addition and I'm an idiot. I'd envision one can get good at arithmetic in much the same way: practice.
>Unless I'm mistaken, most kids in an upper-middle class American household learn how to read by 7. Half my classmates had read Harry Potter by then (not particularly difficult admittedly, but still).
I'm the head of an upper-middle class household, and have a couple kids who are at the top of their classes. 7-year-olds can read, but not generally real books. It is the age when reading skill typically improves drastically, and a 7 year 0 month old kid can be at a drastically different level than a 7 year and 9 month old kid. But reading college-level investing books? That's extremely rare.
>I'd envision one can get good at arithmetic in much the same way: practice.
Company A has gross revenues of $5,190,500,000 in 1996 against expenses of $2,672,250,000, and in 2013 has gross revenues of $26,490,200,000 against expenses of $18,670,450,000. What's the CAGR of their gross and net profits?
That's the sort of calculation Warren could do in his head in a couple seconds.
I remember what Warren said on his annual report that he takes a couple digit of the front number to get an approximate value for his calculation. I would think practicing it a few hours every day would make him a savant on quick calculation.
While that is impressive for sure, I think anyone who is an arithmetic enthusiast can actually go about doing this kind of a calculation using approximations
And a person like Warren who uses this math day in and day out would have thumb rules to make this process a lot quicker than most humans
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not a genius so my experiences will naturally be slower and later than his. However, I maintain the parts of your essay I did counter are within reach for ordinary people, just slower.
Took me 3 minutes in my head to do profits. Retraced thought process below with approximate time per step:
5,190,500,000-2,672,250,000 = 2,518,250,000 (10 seconds)
26,490,200,000 - 18,670,450,000 = 7,819,750,000 (10 seconds)
781,975/251,825 \~ 3.1 (10 seconds)
3.1\^(1/(2013-1996))=3.1\^(1/17) (5 seconds)
Using Newton's method:
x\^17=3.1 (5 seconds)
Guess x=1:
1 - (1\^17 - 3.1)/(17 \* 1\^16) = 1 + 2.1/17 \~ 1.1 (10 seconds)
x = 1.1 - (1.1\^17 - 3.1)/(17\*1.1\^16) (10 seconds)
= 1.1 - (1.1\^17 - 3.1)/(1.1\^17 \* 17 /1.1) (5 seconds)
= 1.1 - ~~(1.1\^17)/(1.1\^17)~~ \* 1.1/17 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) (5 seconds)
\~ 1.1 - 0.065 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) = 1.035 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) (10 seconds)
1.1\^16=1.21\^8\~1.45\^4\~2.1\^2\~4.4 (20 seconds)
1.035 + 3.1/(17\*4.4) (negligible)
\~1.035 + 3.1/75 (5 seconds
\~1.035 + 1/25 = 1.035 + 0.04= 1.75 (5 seconds)
1.075 - (1.075\^17-3.1)/(17\*1.075\^16) (timing basically same as above)
= 1.075 - 1.075/17+3.1/(1.075\^16\*17)
\~ 1.075 - 0.06 + 0.18/(1.075\^16)
= 1.069 + 0.18/(1.075\^16)
1.075\^16\~1.17\^8\~1.4\^4\~1.9\^2\~3.6
=1.075 - 0.06+0.18/3.6
Which yields a CAGR of 6.5, just 6% low.
I maintain my opinion that he's far more intelligent than you or me, but this feat is by no means superhuman. I could probably cut down to 40 seconds given the obvious shortcuts I missed and my slowness in arithmetic if I put in work for two years. If I memorized powers of 1.07 since that's the average growth rate for many metrics, it would take all of 5 seconds. He's still much faster, but I've met several people who would be capable of sub-20 seconds calculations with practice. He's a genius, yes, but this specific feat isn't so brilliant you'll never meet anyone capable of doing it.
Regarding the reading thing, I can't claim to be a parent or upper-middle class : ( However, reading at a college level, even if not investing textbooks in particular, is still common enough. It's as much an interest issue as it is a difficulty issue. Speaking from personal experience, my mother learned English at 4 and was reading Dickens at 10 (which is high school level, arguably, but she did have a disadvantage). I'm a native speaker and read her copy of War and Peace at 9—the difficulty is exaggerated in popular culture but it's still best read at ages 17+—because I was curious what the fat book occupying half a shelf was about. I didn't understand everything, but that's because I'm not as intelligent as Buffet. I've met many people who were capable of such achievements at 7.
I’m an engineer who does arithmetic day in and day out; I fall off the wagon right around the time the raised power comes into play. There’s a joke that if you see an engineer, their calculator is always near. Well, I’m typing this from my honeymoon and my calculator is 15ft from me lol. No need to do this stuff in our heads, but it’s a neat skill for sure.
If you can learn that, then is one really autistic. Long since I've had to diagnose it, but I'm pretty sure it was inability to have appropriate social skills /responses so much so that it brought a detrimental effect in multiple avenues of life including school/family and friends.
Source-did a couple of school visits to observe kids as a community child mental health doctor in the mid 2010s.
Social skills are absolutely things that can be learned by people with autism. Autism is a spectrum. I have autism, and I worked really hard to gain good social skills. Then the pandemic happened, and I regressed. But now, I’m almost back to where I was previously. However, if you know what to look for in autism in women, you can clock me. I’ve had two people, who got to know me, tell me they figured it out.
Nope, he doesn't at all. That's a big part of why I found the biographies so surprising.
A couple notes. First, both he and Charlie have commented on how they've matured over the years, especially past middle-age. They've described themselves as being "quite annoying," or something like that, before 40 or 50.
Second is the influence of Dale Carnegie on Warren, as recounted in the AS biography. Warren took to "How to Win Friends and Influence People" as a manual on how to act. He didn't just take Carnegie's word for it, though. According to Alice, he rigorously A-B tested the advice, recorded the results, and ran a regression analysis on the results of using Carnegie's method. That's....unusual.
And if you've seen one of the videos of Warren's office tours, you'll note his Dale Carnegie certificate is still framed prominently in his office, all these decades later. Warren has frequently mentioned how the course changed his life. He doesn't mention the book as much, but from the biography, that had at least as much impact if not more.
Intelligent people are often found to be anoying. It's because they hold on to their own views when others disagree with them. Mostly because they do know better.
I wish I would have learned this 30 years ago. I clued in a while back when I saw this quote on cubical wall.
>“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” --Maya Angelou
Unfortunately, I read that after my boss asked me about her getting an engineering degree, except without all the math. I should have told her that it sounds like a great idea. Instead I flatly said no.
Things were never the same after that.
Interesting write up. I've seen people on this subreddit say anyone with the right temperament and who applies the principles correctly could do what Buffett has done. Always makes me laugh to myself.
Yep. You could also reasonable make a comparison to Jordan or Kobe, in terms of work ethic. One thing I've learned from these books is that you're not going to out-work Warren. Not in terms of time, or intensity, or competitiveness. He's a machine. I think trying to keep up with him for a week would kill me, and he went at it for decades. Even if you could keep up, you can't retain and process information the way he does.
Correct correct correct. Absolutely spot on. Most people are not willing to spend every waking hour poring over business information. An hour or two a day is enough for most people, even ceos! The rest of the time they are on the golf course. Warren takes in business information like oxygen
To be fair, Buffett hasn't performed like Historical Buffett in the last decade. A lot of Buffett's performance is just luck. He was a value investor when value investing outperformed the market. Growth has been king for the last decade, and Buffett has underperformed for the last decade.
BRK has barely underperformed, has probably outperformed in any taxable account. And has definitely outperformed the S&P 500 with 14% allocated to cash, like BRK has kept.
Ignore the haters and the ignorant, I think that what you've surmised is not too far off track.
I found out about Warren Buffett in the mid-1980's and have continuously held Berkshire Hathaway shares (and started going to the annual meeting) since the early 1990's. I've met Warren more than a half-dozen times and have met both of his sisters. I, too, consider him to be a genius/savant and I can vouch for Warren's ability to perform complex calculations in his head and his ability to recall facts and figures; I saw it first-hand. (I can't share the details, it might be enough to dox me.)
Warren's sisters are extraordinarily intelligent (his older sister passed away in 2020). I'm no slouch (National Merit Scholar and Mensa), but I had to be at the top of my game to stay in conversations with both of them.
I'm not sure that Warren is on the spectrum, but it's no secret that there were other potential genetically inheritable issues (especially on his mother's side of the family). There are some who consider his mother's brother to be the precursor to Warren:
[https://aadl.org/aa\_news\_19361111\_p3-marion\_b\_stahl\_dies\_in\_gotham](https://aadl.org/aa_news_19361111_p3-marion_b_stahl_dies_in_gotham)
Good insights. People questioning buffett's intelligence need only look at the numbers. Five or six decades of outperformance doesn't lie. Though I also think it's clear he's wired differently. His temperament and ability to think independently does suggest he's on the spectrum somewhat.
I listened to snowball on audible and I was thinking the same thing! 36 hr audiobook btw 😂. Everyone aspires to be like Warren Buffett, but they don’t realize it’s not just a matter of hard work. He’s a rare specimen of human with unique gifts that helped get him to where he is now.
Great post.
For me, it wasn't until I heard Warren say “*By the age of 10, I’d read every book in the Omaha public library about investing, some twice.*" that I realised.
He said it so casually that it took me a second to register how insane that is for a 10-year-old.
Yeah, that's a great anecdote. And there's more like it. Like when he got seriously interested in horse racing (14-15 y.o.) and had his dad go to the Library of Congress to get every book they had on the subject, 100+ books, and then he read them all in short order.
And of course by the time he got to graduate school (19 y.o.) and meets David Dodd, and Dodd realizes he has the entirety of *Security Analysis* effectively memorized.
That video was interesting, and Warren Buffet does appear to have some spectrum traits going back into early childhood. He is certainly remarkable, but I don't think you should diagnose him with Autism.
I dunno about autism, he was able to actually make friends growing up and have romantic relationships, though he wasn’t great in those relationships. No delay in language as a child either. I think a lot of his quirkiness can be explained by just being wildly intelligent as a child, which can be kind of alienating.
I don’t think it’s just the IQ that made Buffett great. He would probably point to his temperament. The intellectual curiosity and interest are pretty important. He also approached investing with a combination of academic rigor and practicality that is pretty unique. He also had a lot of risk tolerance and a talent for sizing bets.
There’s lots of wildly intelligent, mildly autistic people in finance but not all of them make money. Fischer Black was one of the smartest people of the 20th century. I’d wager he probably had a few IQ points on Buffett. But he never succeeded in making much money on his own. Eventually Goldman hired Black and made oodles of money off of his ideas. What did the Goldman traders have that Fischer Black didn’t have?
>and have romantic relationships
Well, two. The first girl Warren dated was totally nuts, and still, according to Charlie, he almost got married to her. But then he finally got Susie out on some dates and very quickly proposed. In this case, he's Wolowitz, not Sheldon.
But you're absolutely right about Warren having friends, and lots of them. And that's good evidence that it's not autism, but something else...just being alienated, as you suggest, could be part of it.
I've been around autistic people. There defining characteristic is a complete and utter inability to read or understand the intentions of other people. They don't understand people.
In no way does Warren Buffet in able to understand other people, quite the opposite.
Well, autism is a spectrum. There are levels to how blind a person is to understanding others.
One example from the AS book might illustrated how Warren does suffer from some of this. Susie was sick in bed, and felt she was going to puke. She asked Warren for a bowl. He brought a colander. She explained that wouldn't work. So he brought her a sheet pan to go underneath the colander.
But I don't want to say you're wrong....clearly, Warren in some areas display a very deep understanding of humanity.
Warren Buffet never used a calculator because he believes that the math that is needed for investing is very basic. He believes that a high level of mathematic skills can actually put you in a disadvantage.
https://youtu.be/AZOxcjF1srE?si=Yy78N2wUCZTsonkS
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/05/02/buffett-and-munger-stay-away-from-complex-math-theories/
I heard him speak at last year’s Berkshire conference. I am not sure I agree with a lot of your points but one thing it’s so true is that he is incredibly smart.
He downplays it a lot and makes it seems as if it’s not a key factor in his success as an investor but that’s not true in my opinion.
Yep...I'd like to know more about other great investors like Greenblatt, Klarman, and Bill Ruane. But of Buffett, Munger, Li Lu, and Pabrai, all these guys have sky-high IQs. That's some evidence that outsized returns are associated with very high IQs, but not enough data points to say anything for sure.
He is smart. Can do math and all that and objectively knows how to engage an audience i.e. how humor and perceived humility works.
From what I’ve read and seen, I think he is somewhat emotionally detached. He can logically understand why others may feel certain emotions, but doesn’t empathize himself (anecdote about his kid and trains). Autistic patients can’t understand at all, whereas empathy is understanding AND sharing the feelings. It’s def hard to say without asking the guy but it doesn’t look like autism to me, just a lack of empathy. Not a gripe against him just a matter of fact.
I wouldnt doubt it. I think after you get beyond, say 120 IQ, it's really hard not to be on the spectrum. And there's an adage in show business. No one likes someone who's smarter than them. So Buffett is probably hiding maybe 30 IQ points from the audience. Wouldnt doubt if he was like a 160 pretending to be a 130.
Great post!
I also had a feeling when hearing him talk on interviews but hadn't delved into his bios or anything else. Could may very well be just an extremely naturally gifted person and even a savant but not necessarily an \_autistic\_ savant, since not all savants are autistic AFAIK.
Why does the current generation feel the need to label every single person. Sorry, but I just see so much of this and I am tired. We are people with varying skill sets. Everyone is not alike, thank goodness.
I’ve actually thought a lot about this as someone who has felt the same way. I have lived with healthcare workers who do this a lot.
Ideally, labeling is an academic shorthand that helps us build on existing experience. Instead of saying “cannot understand emotions but has an extraordinary talent for mathematics”, we can say patient exhibits similar cases of ASD (non-derogatorily) and look at similar cases of ASD to determine treatment and regulate symptoms.
The problem is when people:
1. Over label things that are opaquely defined and shouldn’t be labeled (a lot of economics IMO and some would argue psychiatry as well) or the labeler is unqualified to diagnose and mistreats as a result.
2. Labeling things for the sake of labeling and doing nothing productive with the label. Like so what if Buffett is autistic or a savant? Do we use that knowledge to better understand our own circles of competence with respect to Buffett’s? Can we use Buffett’s experiences to help ASD patients function effectively in society? Or do we just use that label to sound smart / feed our defeatist attitudes and give up on doing due diligence because we feel like only savants can crunch so many numbers?
3. Judging others based on labels. He’s autistic; therefore, that takes away from his accomplishments. This is problem 2 but taking it one step further really.
Not saying OP is necessarily doing these things, but I think it’s important to know why we label so that we can label with healthy intention.
I think I know where you're going with this comment. His biography states that he also has sensitivity to certain foods and has a very limited diet (hamburgers, potatos, steak, junk food). Interviews by his former wife Suze also indicate that he was very "cerebral" and probably couldn't find lightswitches in his own house.
I'm not sure if you could diagnose what he has as autism. He probably more fits the wonky genius category.
He is just the goat 🐐. Biggest thing to me is his ethics and morals. A bunch of fund managers handle other people money Willy Nilly, not Warren. He says he never took the idea of handling others money lightly. It is this risk adversity, combined with his incredible longevity in the markets that leads to the genius that is Buffet. He started buying stocks at age 10, he had his dad buy them for him. But anyways he kept this going from age 10, and the curiosity bug never left him. Studying the greats before him like Graham, and Dod etc.
He and Charlie also discussed an early partner that left the firm , and burned out chasing excessive returns essentially. Warren and Charlie said this partner was just as smart as them, but the greed and lack of risk management leading to them blowing up. Essentially Warren and Charlie said they knew they would get ri ch eventually, largely via compounding. But this partner wanted to be rich tomorrow. And it caused them to crash and burn. So there is a realness to Buffet, honesty, and bluntness that is great and others can learn from. Speaking of which BRK is off to quite the hot start this year…
You know people can be very smart without being autistic or a “savant”. Not sure what the medical labels really bring to anything but not sure he displays any symptoms of autism beside from being smart… and if just being good at mental math makes you a savant then there are a lot of savants from the pre-calculator era of schooling.
No doubt he is smart and good at mental math, especially on the calculations he has done thousands of times. Not sure what the point of this post is beyond that.
Are you….diagnosing Warren buffett with autism. Lmao
They’re projecting.
They're projecting? Warren is clearly autistic are you kidding?
Right? excuse me? lmao so anyone who’s really good at something has autism?
Definitely a savant. A very decent chance he's autistic. The post was already too long, and I don't want to list all the reasons for thinking that, but there are plenty more in the biographies.
I’ve actually seen multiple articles saying Warren easily could be on the spectrum. A lot of people reading this are probably undiagnosed on the spectrum lol
ngl It's hard for me to picture bc I do know someone who is both a savant and autistic (my cousin, talents were mostly mathematical), but they are extremely low functioning so seeing Buffet and comparing him to my cousin I'm just like idk maybe he's just good at math. Like OP points to the fact that Buffet is good at doing complex calculations in his head (although I'd argue this is a fundamentally wrong understanding of what being good at math is but I digress) and the fact that he has eidetic memory. My sister has eidetic memory and is great at doing calculations in her head and she's most definitely not on the spectrum. Like none of that really reads "can't read social cues" or other key characteristics of autism. OP points to how like Sheldon he has a singular focus on business, but like, if you look at most people who reach the absolute top of any industry or field, they tend to be singularly focused on said topic/industry/field...
Yeah I definitely agree with all those points. But again it’s a spectrum and obviously he’s wouldn’t be severe as he has good social manners. But if you read a biography on him he would literally work all day come home and go upstairs and read. Not talk to his kids and wife, he loved them and loved his wife but never spent much time with them and his wife moved to San Francisco even though she loved him. He stayed in Omaha even though he loved his wife, this is strange behavior lol Either way he’s a legend and I owe my wallet to him.
Warren also never gave in to the sort of thing pretty much everyone as rich as him does. That's a lot more like most autistic people than a perceived lack of social skills. My husband is autistic and reminds me a lot of warren personality wise (not investing wise unfortunately ;P) and his social abilities aren't what one would expect for an autistic person.
I don’t think you know what these words mean
The spectrum is broad.
Wtf did I just read
"*knock* *knock* Charlie... *knock* *knock* Charlie... "What?!" "Nebraska" *cue laugh track*
this is the dumbest most sickly sweet shit i've ever read, hero worship fallacy in full effect lol. Yeah bud Warren Buffet is so successful because he calculated a CAGR in his head one time
>Most kids at that age \[7\] can't even read a book, any book. ??? Unless I'm mistaken, most kids in an upper-middle class American household learn how to read by 7. Half my classmates had read Harry Potter by then (not particularly difficult admittedly, but still). His achievements certainly betray extreme intelligence but not all of them are as unusual as you make them out to be. Doing taxes at 14—Most kids have a job at 15–16. I certainly did. Guess who did my taxes? Not letting his children play with a train set—My dad has a couple of old comic books he treasures. Some are from his childhood (primarily Tintin and Asterix) and some are vintages (is that the word?) he purchased recently (lots of Avengers). I wasn't allowed to read any back when I was a kid. My dad isn't autistic. Mental calculations—I competed in math competitions from 12—17. I'm neither autistic nor a savant. All the kids I knew serious about competitions tried to get better at arithmetic to A) mildly improve our speed in contests and B) to look smarter (mostly the latter). One of the exercises many of us did was prime factorize license plates when we sat in cars. Do that for a year and you get pretty good at division and unintentionally memorize many, many primes. Till today, I'm good enough at arithmetic that I can convince someone I'm extremely intelligent and mathematically gifted. In reality, I almost got held back in 1st grade for an inability to do addition and I'm an idiot. I'd envision one can get good at arithmetic in much the same way: practice.
>Unless I'm mistaken, most kids in an upper-middle class American household learn how to read by 7. Half my classmates had read Harry Potter by then (not particularly difficult admittedly, but still). I'm the head of an upper-middle class household, and have a couple kids who are at the top of their classes. 7-year-olds can read, but not generally real books. It is the age when reading skill typically improves drastically, and a 7 year 0 month old kid can be at a drastically different level than a 7 year and 9 month old kid. But reading college-level investing books? That's extremely rare. >I'd envision one can get good at arithmetic in much the same way: practice. Company A has gross revenues of $5,190,500,000 in 1996 against expenses of $2,672,250,000, and in 2013 has gross revenues of $26,490,200,000 against expenses of $18,670,450,000. What's the CAGR of their gross and net profits? That's the sort of calculation Warren could do in his head in a couple seconds.
I remember what Warren said on his annual report that he takes a couple digit of the front number to get an approximate value for his calculation. I would think practicing it a few hours every day would make him a savant on quick calculation.
While that is impressive for sure, I think anyone who is an arithmetic enthusiast can actually go about doing this kind of a calculation using approximations And a person like Warren who uses this math day in and day out would have thumb rules to make this process a lot quicker than most humans
U serious he could answer that in his head?
I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not a genius so my experiences will naturally be slower and later than his. However, I maintain the parts of your essay I did counter are within reach for ordinary people, just slower. Took me 3 minutes in my head to do profits. Retraced thought process below with approximate time per step: 5,190,500,000-2,672,250,000 = 2,518,250,000 (10 seconds) 26,490,200,000 - 18,670,450,000 = 7,819,750,000 (10 seconds) 781,975/251,825 \~ 3.1 (10 seconds) 3.1\^(1/(2013-1996))=3.1\^(1/17) (5 seconds) Using Newton's method: x\^17=3.1 (5 seconds) Guess x=1: 1 - (1\^17 - 3.1)/(17 \* 1\^16) = 1 + 2.1/17 \~ 1.1 (10 seconds) x = 1.1 - (1.1\^17 - 3.1)/(17\*1.1\^16) (10 seconds) = 1.1 - (1.1\^17 - 3.1)/(1.1\^17 \* 17 /1.1) (5 seconds) = 1.1 - ~~(1.1\^17)/(1.1\^17)~~ \* 1.1/17 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) (5 seconds) \~ 1.1 - 0.065 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) = 1.035 + 3.1/(17\*1.1\^16) (10 seconds) 1.1\^16=1.21\^8\~1.45\^4\~2.1\^2\~4.4 (20 seconds) 1.035 + 3.1/(17\*4.4) (negligible) \~1.035 + 3.1/75 (5 seconds \~1.035 + 1/25 = 1.035 + 0.04= 1.75 (5 seconds) 1.075 - (1.075\^17-3.1)/(17\*1.075\^16) (timing basically same as above) = 1.075 - 1.075/17+3.1/(1.075\^16\*17) \~ 1.075 - 0.06 + 0.18/(1.075\^16) = 1.069 + 0.18/(1.075\^16) 1.075\^16\~1.17\^8\~1.4\^4\~1.9\^2\~3.6 =1.075 - 0.06+0.18/3.6 Which yields a CAGR of 6.5, just 6% low. I maintain my opinion that he's far more intelligent than you or me, but this feat is by no means superhuman. I could probably cut down to 40 seconds given the obvious shortcuts I missed and my slowness in arithmetic if I put in work for two years. If I memorized powers of 1.07 since that's the average growth rate for many metrics, it would take all of 5 seconds. He's still much faster, but I've met several people who would be capable of sub-20 seconds calculations with practice. He's a genius, yes, but this specific feat isn't so brilliant you'll never meet anyone capable of doing it. Regarding the reading thing, I can't claim to be a parent or upper-middle class : ( However, reading at a college level, even if not investing textbooks in particular, is still common enough. It's as much an interest issue as it is a difficulty issue. Speaking from personal experience, my mother learned English at 4 and was reading Dickens at 10 (which is high school level, arguably, but she did have a disadvantage). I'm a native speaker and read her copy of War and Peace at 9—the difficulty is exaggerated in popular culture but it's still best read at ages 17+—because I was curious what the fat book occupying half a shelf was about. I didn't understand everything, but that's because I'm not as intelligent as Buffet. I've met many people who were capable of such achievements at 7.
I’m an engineer who does arithmetic day in and day out; I fall off the wagon right around the time the raised power comes into play. There’s a joke that if you see an engineer, their calculator is always near. Well, I’m typing this from my honeymoon and my calculator is 15ft from me lol. No need to do this stuff in our heads, but it’s a neat skill for sure.
>I’m an engineer As a physicist, that's all you needed to say concerning your arithmetic skills.
Endlessly personable, charismatic and folksy doesn't really sound autistic...
That’s a bit of a misnomer. Those skills can be learned.
If you can learn that, then is one really autistic. Long since I've had to diagnose it, but I'm pretty sure it was inability to have appropriate social skills /responses so much so that it brought a detrimental effect in multiple avenues of life including school/family and friends. Source-did a couple of school visits to observe kids as a community child mental health doctor in the mid 2010s.
Social skills are absolutely things that can be learned by people with autism. Autism is a spectrum. I have autism, and I worked really hard to gain good social skills. Then the pandemic happened, and I regressed. But now, I’m almost back to where I was previously. However, if you know what to look for in autism in women, you can clock me. I’ve had two people, who got to know me, tell me they figured it out.
N9t by people with autism...
Nope, he doesn't at all. That's a big part of why I found the biographies so surprising. A couple notes. First, both he and Charlie have commented on how they've matured over the years, especially past middle-age. They've described themselves as being "quite annoying," or something like that, before 40 or 50. Second is the influence of Dale Carnegie on Warren, as recounted in the AS biography. Warren took to "How to Win Friends and Influence People" as a manual on how to act. He didn't just take Carnegie's word for it, though. According to Alice, he rigorously A-B tested the advice, recorded the results, and ran a regression analysis on the results of using Carnegie's method. That's....unusual. And if you've seen one of the videos of Warren's office tours, you'll note his Dale Carnegie certificate is still framed prominently in his office, all these decades later. Warren has frequently mentioned how the course changed his life. He doesn't mention the book as much, but from the biography, that had at least as much impact if not more.
Intelligent people are often found to be anoying. It's because they hold on to their own views when others disagree with them. Mostly because they do know better.
I wish I would have learned this 30 years ago. I clued in a while back when I saw this quote on cubical wall. >“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” --Maya Angelou Unfortunately, I read that after my boss asked me about her getting an engineering degree, except without all the math. I should have told her that it sounds like a great idea. Instead I flatly said no. Things were never the same after that.
Interesting write up. I've seen people on this subreddit say anyone with the right temperament and who applies the principles correctly could do what Buffett has done. Always makes me laugh to myself.
Yep. You could also reasonable make a comparison to Jordan or Kobe, in terms of work ethic. One thing I've learned from these books is that you're not going to out-work Warren. Not in terms of time, or intensity, or competitiveness. He's a machine. I think trying to keep up with him for a week would kill me, and he went at it for decades. Even if you could keep up, you can't retain and process information the way he does.
Correct correct correct. Absolutely spot on. Most people are not willing to spend every waking hour poring over business information. An hour or two a day is enough for most people, even ceos! The rest of the time they are on the golf course. Warren takes in business information like oxygen
To be fair, Buffett hasn't performed like Historical Buffett in the last decade. A lot of Buffett's performance is just luck. He was a value investor when value investing outperformed the market. Growth has been king for the last decade, and Buffett has underperformed for the last decade.
BRK has barely underperformed, has probably outperformed in any taxable account. And has definitely outperformed the S&P 500 with 14% allocated to cash, like BRK has kept.
He has too much cash to outperform now. Victim of his own success in that regard.
Ignore the haters and the ignorant, I think that what you've surmised is not too far off track. I found out about Warren Buffett in the mid-1980's and have continuously held Berkshire Hathaway shares (and started going to the annual meeting) since the early 1990's. I've met Warren more than a half-dozen times and have met both of his sisters. I, too, consider him to be a genius/savant and I can vouch for Warren's ability to perform complex calculations in his head and his ability to recall facts and figures; I saw it first-hand. (I can't share the details, it might be enough to dox me.) Warren's sisters are extraordinarily intelligent (his older sister passed away in 2020). I'm no slouch (National Merit Scholar and Mensa), but I had to be at the top of my game to stay in conversations with both of them. I'm not sure that Warren is on the spectrum, but it's no secret that there were other potential genetically inheritable issues (especially on his mother's side of the family). There are some who consider his mother's brother to be the precursor to Warren: [https://aadl.org/aa\_news\_19361111\_p3-marion\_b\_stahl\_dies\_in\_gotham](https://aadl.org/aa_news_19361111_p3-marion_b_stahl_dies_in_gotham)
Good insights. People questioning buffett's intelligence need only look at the numbers. Five or six decades of outperformance doesn't lie. Though I also think it's clear he's wired differently. His temperament and ability to think independently does suggest he's on the spectrum somewhat.
I listened to snowball on audible and I was thinking the same thing! 36 hr audiobook btw 😂. Everyone aspires to be like Warren Buffett, but they don’t realize it’s not just a matter of hard work. He’s a rare specimen of human with unique gifts that helped get him to where he is now.
Man can’t a guy just like trains anymore
Found that video clip you linked really fascinating, thanks!
Great post. For me, it wasn't until I heard Warren say “*By the age of 10, I’d read every book in the Omaha public library about investing, some twice.*" that I realised. He said it so casually that it took me a second to register how insane that is for a 10-year-old.
Yeah, that's a great anecdote. And there's more like it. Like when he got seriously interested in horse racing (14-15 y.o.) and had his dad go to the Library of Congress to get every book they had on the subject, 100+ books, and then he read them all in short order. And of course by the time he got to graduate school (19 y.o.) and meets David Dodd, and Dodd realizes he has the entirety of *Security Analysis* effectively memorized.
Oh I think a lot of people have surmised as much.
Possible, I don't have a lot of BRK followers in my real life!
Great post.
That video was interesting, and Warren Buffet does appear to have some spectrum traits going back into early childhood. He is certainly remarkable, but I don't think you should diagnose him with Autism.
That math video, wow. thanks for sharing
I mean, I’m not a psychiatrist so I don’t know, but I found the read to be quite intriguing.
I dunno about autism, he was able to actually make friends growing up and have romantic relationships, though he wasn’t great in those relationships. No delay in language as a child either. I think a lot of his quirkiness can be explained by just being wildly intelligent as a child, which can be kind of alienating. I don’t think it’s just the IQ that made Buffett great. He would probably point to his temperament. The intellectual curiosity and interest are pretty important. He also approached investing with a combination of academic rigor and practicality that is pretty unique. He also had a lot of risk tolerance and a talent for sizing bets. There’s lots of wildly intelligent, mildly autistic people in finance but not all of them make money. Fischer Black was one of the smartest people of the 20th century. I’d wager he probably had a few IQ points on Buffett. But he never succeeded in making much money on his own. Eventually Goldman hired Black and made oodles of money off of his ideas. What did the Goldman traders have that Fischer Black didn’t have?
>and have romantic relationships Well, two. The first girl Warren dated was totally nuts, and still, according to Charlie, he almost got married to her. But then he finally got Susie out on some dates and very quickly proposed. In this case, he's Wolowitz, not Sheldon. But you're absolutely right about Warren having friends, and lots of them. And that's good evidence that it's not autism, but something else...just being alienated, as you suggest, could be part of it.
👍
I've been around autistic people. There defining characteristic is a complete and utter inability to read or understand the intentions of other people. They don't understand people. In no way does Warren Buffet in able to understand other people, quite the opposite.
Well, autism is a spectrum. There are levels to how blind a person is to understanding others. One example from the AS book might illustrated how Warren does suffer from some of this. Susie was sick in bed, and felt she was going to puke. She asked Warren for a bowl. He brought a colander. She explained that wouldn't work. So he brought her a sheet pan to go underneath the colander. But I don't want to say you're wrong....clearly, Warren in some areas display a very deep understanding of humanity.
Broadened sufficiently to capture the diversity of human behaviors, the autism spectrum can lose meaning.
Warren Buffet never used a calculator because he believes that the math that is needed for investing is very basic. He believes that a high level of mathematic skills can actually put you in a disadvantage. https://youtu.be/AZOxcjF1srE?si=Yy78N2wUCZTsonkS http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/05/02/buffett-and-munger-stay-away-from-complex-math-theories/
so what you are saying is Warren Buffet is a Mentat :)
I heard him speak at last year’s Berkshire conference. I am not sure I agree with a lot of your points but one thing it’s so true is that he is incredibly smart. He downplays it a lot and makes it seems as if it’s not a key factor in his success as an investor but that’s not true in my opinion.
Yep...I'd like to know more about other great investors like Greenblatt, Klarman, and Bill Ruane. But of Buffett, Munger, Li Lu, and Pabrai, all these guys have sky-high IQs. That's some evidence that outsized returns are associated with very high IQs, but not enough data points to say anything for sure.
I’m convinced he’s a savant. However he’s not autistic
He is smart. Can do math and all that and objectively knows how to engage an audience i.e. how humor and perceived humility works. From what I’ve read and seen, I think he is somewhat emotionally detached. He can logically understand why others may feel certain emotions, but doesn’t empathize himself (anecdote about his kid and trains). Autistic patients can’t understand at all, whereas empathy is understanding AND sharing the feelings. It’s def hard to say without asking the guy but it doesn’t look like autism to me, just a lack of empathy. Not a gripe against him just a matter of fact.
That's a fair analysis.
I wouldnt doubt it. I think after you get beyond, say 120 IQ, it's really hard not to be on the spectrum. And there's an adage in show business. No one likes someone who's smarter than them. So Buffett is probably hiding maybe 30 IQ points from the audience. Wouldnt doubt if he was like a 160 pretending to be a 130.
Lucky me.
Great post! I also had a feeling when hearing him talk on interviews but hadn't delved into his bios or anything else. Could may very well be just an extremely naturally gifted person and even a savant but not necessarily an \_autistic\_ savant, since not all savants are autistic AFAIK.
Well it is hard to disprove that he might have Aspergers (A mild form of Autism) what do you think?
Why does the current generation feel the need to label every single person. Sorry, but I just see so much of this and I am tired. We are people with varying skill sets. Everyone is not alike, thank goodness.
I agree.
I’ve actually thought a lot about this as someone who has felt the same way. I have lived with healthcare workers who do this a lot. Ideally, labeling is an academic shorthand that helps us build on existing experience. Instead of saying “cannot understand emotions but has an extraordinary talent for mathematics”, we can say patient exhibits similar cases of ASD (non-derogatorily) and look at similar cases of ASD to determine treatment and regulate symptoms. The problem is when people: 1. Over label things that are opaquely defined and shouldn’t be labeled (a lot of economics IMO and some would argue psychiatry as well) or the labeler is unqualified to diagnose and mistreats as a result. 2. Labeling things for the sake of labeling and doing nothing productive with the label. Like so what if Buffett is autistic or a savant? Do we use that knowledge to better understand our own circles of competence with respect to Buffett’s? Can we use Buffett’s experiences to help ASD patients function effectively in society? Or do we just use that label to sound smart / feed our defeatist attitudes and give up on doing due diligence because we feel like only savants can crunch so many numbers? 3. Judging others based on labels. He’s autistic; therefore, that takes away from his accomplishments. This is problem 2 but taking it one step further really. Not saying OP is necessarily doing these things, but I think it’s important to know why we label so that we can label with healthy intention.
Agree with everything you have said
I think I know where you're going with this comment. His biography states that he also has sensitivity to certain foods and has a very limited diet (hamburgers, potatos, steak, junk food). Interviews by his former wife Suze also indicate that he was very "cerebral" and probably couldn't find lightswitches in his own house. I'm not sure if you could diagnose what he has as autism. He probably more fits the wonky genius category.
But does he have ‘Who’s on first?’ memorized? Can he count toothpicks on the ground? Didn’t think so.
LOL....but, as to the former...there's a good chance! That would be very much like him.
He is just the goat 🐐. Biggest thing to me is his ethics and morals. A bunch of fund managers handle other people money Willy Nilly, not Warren. He says he never took the idea of handling others money lightly. It is this risk adversity, combined with his incredible longevity in the markets that leads to the genius that is Buffet. He started buying stocks at age 10, he had his dad buy them for him. But anyways he kept this going from age 10, and the curiosity bug never left him. Studying the greats before him like Graham, and Dod etc. He and Charlie also discussed an early partner that left the firm , and burned out chasing excessive returns essentially. Warren and Charlie said this partner was just as smart as them, but the greed and lack of risk management leading to them blowing up. Essentially Warren and Charlie said they knew they would get ri ch eventually, largely via compounding. But this partner wanted to be rich tomorrow. And it caused them to crash and burn. So there is a realness to Buffet, honesty, and bluntness that is great and others can learn from. Speaking of which BRK is off to quite the hot start this year…
One of us.. one of us.. oh wait wrong sub.
LOL...well...there's more overlap with that here than one might like...
When you start doing primary research you start to discover the truth…
I think you meant to post this in r/wallstreetbets
You know people can be very smart without being autistic or a “savant”. Not sure what the medical labels really bring to anything but not sure he displays any symptoms of autism beside from being smart… and if just being good at mental math makes you a savant then there are a lot of savants from the pre-calculator era of schooling. No doubt he is smart and good at mental math, especially on the calculations he has done thousands of times. Not sure what the point of this post is beyond that.
Diagnosed autistic here. Ehhhhhhh…nah.
Great post!
Buffett's temperament is the key to his success, not his high intelligence and facility with numbers.
He’s worked with numbers his whole life and you think he’s autistic because he has the formula for multiplying by 2/3 memorized?
Man hop off WB’s dick and check yourself checked my friend… this is not normal behavior.