The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
, subject: Edited, topic-organized Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters and corporate/investing principles, 1997
A record of business judgment built around a hard balance: concentrate on rare quality while keeping enough liquidity and independence to survive mistakes.
About the book
The collection draws on Warren Buffett's annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. The third edition, published by Carolina Academic Press in 2013, takes up the 2008 financial crisis and derivatives and expands the sections on valuation, accounting and owner-related business principles.
Why read it
Best if you are building or evaluating a business and want to examine concentration, team quality, customer differentiation, liquidity, and when a structurally weak business should be left rather than patched.
Key themes
- Concentrate where quality is real
- Judge quality in businesses and people
- Refuse the self-deception that erodes survival
Evidence and original sources
Sources: official Founders episodes — #227, #246, #286, #288, #342, #348, #380
This record is supported by 25 public evidence rows linked to original Founders episodes.
- The Essays of Warren Buffett — David states this is the book discussed throughout the episode.
- Mark Leonard's Shareholder Letters — David reads a passage from The Essays of Warren Buffett on conglomerate capital allocation and cites his prior episode 227.
- Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger — David says he discussed the work on episode 227.
- Ralph Lauren — David identifies The Essays of Warren Buffett as episode 227.
- The Lessons of History (Will & Ariel Durant) — David identifies this discussion as episode 227.
- The Financial Genius Behind A Century of Wall Street Scandals: Ivar Kreuger — David uses Buffett’s advice on debt and survival from The Essays of Warren Buffett to examine Ivar Kreuger’s risk-taking.