At first glance, Buffett seems like the kind of 93+ year-old that high school students may not have much to learn from.

He was born not only before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but also before the Internet, the smartphone, television, the jet engine—and three decades before air conditioning became common in the United States.

Further, Buffett is a billionaire who lives in the same home he bought in the early 1960s for $31,000. And that home isn’t in a major city like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago. It’s not even in a top 10, top 20, or even top 30 city in America. He resides in the 42nd largest city in the U.S. . . . Omaha, Nebraska.

He’s also out of step with food trends. He’s not gluten-free or low-carb. He doesn’t follow the Paleo diet. He follows the five-year-old diet: McDonald’s for breakfast, hamburgers and french fries for lunch and dinner, and Cherry Cokes to wash it all down.

What could this french-fry loving, self-proclaimed technophobe, who is older than most people’s grandparents, who has never opened Instagram or TikTok, and who wouldn’t know artificial intelligence if it deep-faked him, possibly have to teach you and other young people and working-age adults today?

You might start with that he’s really wealthy.

True.

If he hadn’t already given away half of his stock, he’d be the richest person in the world—with a net worth of around $240 billion. Yes, more than Elon Musk. More than Bill Gates.More than the founders of Google. More than every single human being who has ever lived.

To buttress your argument, you might add that he created this $240 billion fortune by starting with an initial $100 investment in 1956.

True.

And that would be a strong argument for studying Warren Buffett.

Or, you might say that he runs one of the largest companies in the world—Berkshire Hathaway—and thus, he’s worth learning about.

True.

He’s the CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway—a company with a market cap of around $800 billion—employs about 400,000 people and owns brands like Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (the largest Class-1 railroad in the country), GEICO (one of the largest insurance companies), Fruit of the Loom, See’s Candies, and many others, including a nearly 6% stake in Apple.

Or, you might say that he’s widely recognized as one of the smartest investors to ever live.

True.

If you had invested $1,000 with Buffett in 1956, by 2023, Buffett would have turned your $1,000 into the eye-popping $2.6 billion. Yes, billion with a “b.”

Wow. You would be a billionaire, too.

So, yes, Buffett is an extremely wealthy, successful investor and CEO who has built one of the largest and most successful companies in the world and, along the way, made a lot of people rich—some of them billionaires in their own right.

But these are not the most important reasons to study Warren Buffett.

The Most Important Reasons to Study Buffett

We recommend you study Buffett to learn how he has achieved this amazing success. He has made hundreds of billions while being one of the most ethical, fair-minded, and decent capitalists who has a deep understanding for what makes a good business and how markets operate.

Buffett doesn’t get over excited by the latest fashions to sweep Wall Street—the kind of trends that often end up hurting ordinary investors (think; the Great Financial Crisis, Dotcom mania, or Bitcoin).

He’s smart, humble, and deeply committed to never taking advantage of customers or shareholders.

And while he has made more money than almost anyone, he’s pledged to give 99% of it away (he’s halfway through that). Further, he isn’t giving money to promote himself. He has not put his name on hospitals or colleges. Instead, he’s given it to other foundations with no request for credit for what they do with it.

He’s honest to a fault, as you’ll see in the letters you read. He blames himself for mistakes and praises others for successes.

He also doesn’t try to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Many billionaires think that because they have billions they should have a louder voice than other citizens. Not Buffett.

He doesn’t try to sway elections or bankroll referendums.

He’s not a perfect human being. No one is.

But he’s a near-perfect capitalist—the kind of citizen capitalist who follows a principled, fair approach.

And we need more citizen capitalists.

So we hope that by studying Buffett you will learn more about how to operate in a fair-minded and ethical way in your life, whatever career you choose and, at least in this course (see detailed curriculum), you will learn more about the two topics that Buffett thinks every student should study: “What is a good company?” and “How do markets operate?”