[MarkMc]

To my mind Warren Buffett is the classic case of good-guy-finishing-first. Think of all the 'alpha' males in finance; investment bankers, traders, hedge fund managers and private equity partners. He's beaten them all, simply by doing what he loves and being a nice guy.

For example, from Buffett's 1985 letter to shareholders [1]: "I won’t close down businesses of sub-normal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate rate of return."

I recommend reading the complete section in that letter headed 'Shutdown of Textile Business' - it shows just how painful it was for him to liquidate that business.

[1] http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1985.html

[Drbble]

Warren Buffet made his first significant money through research and basically anonymous buying and selling. He was an original quant. He isn't an executive of the sort that signs deals and negotiates and clawed his way to the top socially. By the time he was personally dealing with executives, he was already the richest most powerful one in the room.