1/ "If the price of a painting goes from $250 to $50 million in one hundred years, what's the annual rate of return? Buffett's answer was instantaneous: '13.0 percent.' The astonished Stavrou asked, "How did you do that?"
Robert Hagstrom writes in
"The Warren Buffett Portfolio"
Robert Hagstrom writes in
"The Warren Buffett Portfolio"
2/ Buffett pointed out a compound interest table revealed the answer. (He's a walking interest table? Maybe.) Another way to approach the problem was "to go by the number of times it doubles ($250 doubles about 17.6 times to get to $50M, a double every 5.7 years, or about 13%."
3/ "I asked him whether he ever used a calculator." Buffett replied, "I never owned one and wouldn't know how to use one."
"But how do you do more complicated calculations?" Stavrou pressed. "Are you gifted?"
"No, no," Buffett said.
"But how do you do more complicated calculations?" Stavrou pressed. "Are you gifted?"
"No, no," Buffett said.
4/ Buffett said. "It's just that I've been working with numbers for a long time. It's number sense."
"Can you give me an example? Like what's 99 times 99?"
Without missing a beat, Buffett replied, "9,801."
Stavrou asked Buffett how he knew that. "I read Feynman's autobiography."
"Can you give me an example? Like what's 99 times 99?"
Without missing a beat, Buffett replied, "9,801."
Stavrou asked Buffett how he knew that. "I read Feynman's autobiography."
5/ A story I was told: A drives up to a group of people including Buffett. Buffett asks A what he paid for the car. A replies: "127,500." Buffett immediately: "You could have bought X instead for $45,250. At 12% in Z years that difference would be worth [insert correct answer].
