[wickedsight]

> - He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old.

Really makes me wonder what drives him. For many people it's the money, but with him it doesn't seem that way. But I haven't read too much about him, so if anyone has insight I'd love to hear about it.

[TheAlchemist]

Read his biography - "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life". It's quite long but pretty accurate picture of the man and what drives him. His answer was always that he just loves what he does and he does it with people he loves (Charlie). One can hardly ask for more in life.

[Loughla]

Yeah, from the outside it seems like he has lived exactly the life he wanted to. I only know one person like that, and have always tried to learn from him.

[TheAlchemist]

From the outside yes - money and career wise, he accomplished everything he wanted.

His personal life is much more complicated though - impossible to know if he was happy or not, but for sure it was not usual.

[iancmceachern]

Loosing him has had to be hard for Warren.

[chihuahua]

For some people, money is not for buying things, but just for keeping score. That can make it rewarding and addictive to accumulate money, even if you don't buy anything (like a giant house) with it.

The score keeping aspect makes it interesting, just like playing tennis while keeping score is more interesting than just hitting a ball back and forth across the net without counting.

[JKCalhoun]

Yeah, I kind of agree. I read Andrew Tobias's (did I get the apostrophe right?) book on investing and he made a point very early on: the people who are rich like money. No, not like you and I like money, they like money the way you and I like fishing, or reading, or hiking or whatever. It's their hobby, their love, the thing they like to learn about, read about…

Warren Buffett wouldn't be where he was if he wasn't obsessed with money. But to your point, that doesn't have to translate to material goods: the bigger house, yachts, etc.

[creato]

Maybe he just likes building things that others find useful.

When I was younger I rented furniture from a company called CORT. I happened to notice on the contract or receipt or something, that it was a Berkshire company (I didn't know that before then).

If I were Warren Buffet, I would have been happy to know that someone was a satisfied customer of one of his companies. I got some decent furniture for a few months at a reasonable price.

Just like I'm happy when someone is a satisfied user of my software.

[wahnfrieden]

What has he built

[tosapple]

That's not entirely fair, he may have been profit chasing or he may have actually believed in the companies he was investing in.

If he believed in them as an investor he helped build the companies.

[andsoitis]

> What has he built

He took Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile company, and transformed it into one of the largest and most successful conglomerates in history.

[userbinator]

For some people, money is not for buying things, but just for keeping score.

You can see this behaviour in online multiplayer games that have a currency aspect --- some people will spend almost as quickly as they earn, while others will save some and buy items as they can afford, and then there are those who will just keep saving and saving, rarely buying.

[bdunks]

I can recommend the Acquired (podcast) 3 part series on Berkshire.

There was a cool fact in there that he sees every price tag as the opportunity cost with compounding interest.

[JuniperMesos]

Homes and physical community are a pretty personal thing.

Also, given that he is a billionaire, I do kind of assume that he has paid money to upgrade his home at some point, probably also owns additional homes elsewhere, maybe has done other things with his vast amount of money that normal people don't do, that are still consistent with living at the same address as when he was 28.