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by lotsofpulp 1908 days ago
Buffet’s dad was a federal congressman with his own investment firm, and grandparents were owners of a grocery store. Not saying he didn’t work for any of it or didn’t deserve it, but you’re not going to be Buffett by socking away 20% of your pay in a retirement account (you might be nominally if US gov keeps printing money, but not in real terms).

He certainly is an outlier in terms of intelligence and work ethic, but I would assume connections from his dad helped, as well as the family being able to afford sending their kid to good schools and NYC for further networking and education, all the way from Nebraska in the 1950s.
1 comments
misiti3780 1908 days ago
he is certainly and outlier, and probably a bad example, but i read his biography and if i remember correctly he started investing money he made on is paper route in stocks early on.

It's true your probably not going to make 188M, but even a lot less than that is still rich.

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lotsofpulp 1908 days ago
>if i remember correctly he started investing money he made on is paper route in stocks early on.

Yes, and he should be credited with taking that initiative. But note that this was the 1940s. I would posit a high probability that Buffet got advice from his educated father, who had is own investment firm, that 99% of children would never get because they didn't have someone as capable as Buffett's father. And/or the other paperboys had to chip in and help feed their family unlike Buffett who could afford to lose his paper route money and not sacrifice anything essential (again, presumably, but I think it's a good guess).

Even nowadays, with the ease of the internet, I would say that simply having parents who know what a low cost broad market index fund is puts you a standard deviation above the median average in terms of how good of a start you have in life.

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misiti3780 1908 days ago
I do not think most (sane) people would disagree that

1. life is not fair

2. there is no such thing as self-made men/women. luck play plays a role in everything, from the country you were born in to the genes you contain.

I was just making an observation about how great and effective compound interest is.

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