The Essays of Warren Buffett
Lessons for Corporate America
Warren Buffett, edited by Lawrence A. Cunningham · 1997 · Money & Investing
12 min · 11 chaptersNarrated in your voice
What it's about
Buffett never wrote a book. What he wrote was a letter to Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders every year for six decades, and in 1996 the law professor Lawrence Cunningham cut those letters loose from their chronology and rearranged them by subject — governance, finance, common stock, mergers, accounting, tax. The result is the closest thing that exists to Buffett's own textbook, and it is not really about picking stocks. It is about how to think about owning a business, and about how much of finance is theatre performed for people who cannot tell.
Reading plan
Pick a finish date and Genius lays out the days — the plan shows today's target and keeps you honest.
Read together
Start a circle and share the code — everyone sees everyone's honest place in the book. Accountability, not leaderboards.
Who it's for
- Anyone who wants Buffett in his own words rather than in a biographer's - Investors tired of tactics and short of principles - Anyone who reads a company's accounts and suspects they are being managed
What’s inside
- 1You own a business, not a ticker1 min
Buffett's whole method follows from treating a share as a fraction of a company.
- 2Mr. Market is a manic-depressive business partner1 min
The market exists to serve you with prices, not to instruct you about value.
- 3Stay inside the circle you can actually draw1 min
The size of your circle of competence matters far less than knowing its edge.
- 4A moat is worth more than a good quarter1 min
The only durable question about a business is what protects its returns from competition.
- 5Accounting is a language, and some speakers are lying1 min
Reported earnings are an opinion; cash a business can take out is a fact.
- 6Governance is about who the board actually works for1 min
Most boards fail not from stupidity but from politeness in the room.
- 7Mergers destroy value when the buyer is having fun1 min
Most acquisitions fail because the acquirer wants the deal more than the asset.
- 8Time, taxes, and the discipline of doing nothing1 min
Compounding is destroyed by activity, and most activity is a tax on impatience.
