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Buffett doubted that they could intelligently select so many securities any more than a sheikh could get to “know” a harem of 100 girls.”Anyone owning such numbers of securities… is following what I call the Noah School of Investing – two of everything. Such investors should be piloting arks.”IN MOST YEARS, most money managers do not even match the Dow Jones Industrial Average The Buffett partnerships left it in the dust. After five years, by 1961, the Dow showed a cumulative gain of 74.3 per cent Buffett’s portfolios were up 251 per cent By 1966, Buffett’s record was off the charts.

Over 10 years, the Dow’s cumulative gain had edged up to 122.9 per cent. Buffett’s partnerships were up 1,156 per cent.Word of Buffett’s success spread quickly in his home town. Acquaintances would amble over to him at Ross’s Steak House and ask, with studied casualness, if he had any tips. Buffett, with perfect geniality, would advise them to take a pencil, shut their eyes, and point it to the stock tables.But Buffett scarcely thought about spending his growing wealth on material comforts That wasn’t why he wanted it. The money was a proof: a scorecard for his favourite game.He did ask Susie to upgrade his Volkswagen, explaining that it looked bad when he picked up visitors at the airport.

But he didn’t have the slightest interest in it.”What kind of car?” Susie asked.”Any car. I don’t care what kind.” (She got him a wide-framed Cadillac.)Paradoxically, Susie protected an air of disinterest in having money but was a virtuoso shopper. She dropped $15,000 on a home refurnishing, which “just about killed Warren”, according to Bob Billig, one of his golfing friends. Buffett griped to Billig, “Do you know how much that is if you compound it over 20 years?”Beneath his becoming lack of acquisitiveness, Buffett had a certain obsession. In his mind, every dime had the potential to become a fortune; and, when a nickel today could become so much more tomorrow, spending it drove him mad. He didn’t even buy life insurance, figuring that he could compound the premiums faster than an insurance company.

Buffett said of himself that he was “working [his] way up to cheap”.Buffett was enormously dependent on Susie She paid the bills, took care of the kids, ran their lives. Whatever was outside his range, Susie handled.Susie seemed to have been put together from all the emotional material that Warren did not have. She took an unusual interest in reaching out to other people – a deep interest. Instinctively empathetic, she had a soothing way of drawing people out, especially at a level of feelings. Faith Stewart-Gordon, a sorority sister and later proprietress of New York’s Russian Tea Room, said: “Susie had this otherworldly side We took the same philosophy course After, she sent me this book on Zen Buddhism. She was always trying to get past the mundane and get to the big issues. She’d look into my eyes and say, ‘How are you?’ When Susie said that, she meant: ‘How are you doing in life? How is your soul?’ “The Buffett house was like a storm centre with Warren at its eye.