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| The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Warren E. Buffett
Creator: Lawrence A. Cunningham
Publisher: The Cunningham Group
Category: Book
List Price: $32.50
Buy New: $23.40
You Save: $9.10 (28%)
New (3) Used (1) from $21.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 296
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 10 x 6.7 x 0.7
ISBN: 0966446127
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
EAN: 9780966446128
Publication Date: April 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The definitive work concerning Warren Buffett and intelligent investment philosophy, this is a collection of Buffett's letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway written over the past few decades that together furnish an enormously valuable informal education. The letters distill in plain words all the basic principles of sound business practices. They are arranged and introduced by a leading apostle of the 'value' school and noted scholar, Lawrence Cunningham.
What's new in the second edition? This new edition has extensive additional content that highlights topics of vital national or international significance, including:
- the proliferation of stock option compensation and excessive CEO pay;
- Berkshire s shareholder-designated contribution program and the controversy over the abortion issue that led to its termination;
- the explosion of derivative financial instruments and related perils and how Berkshire dealt with managing a sizable portfolio of them after buying Gen Re;
- the dramatic increase in foreign currency trading in the past five years along with the astonishing growth in the US trade deficit;
- management succession at Berkshire Hathaway as Mr. Buffett ages;
- commentary on his philanthropic thinking in giving his entire fortune to charities; and
- the fairness and other matters concerning taxation of corporations.
Here in one place are the priceless pearls of business and investment wisdom, woven into a delightful narrative on the major topics concerning both managers and investors. These timeless lessons are useful to members of a wide range of professions, including law, accounting, finance and management, and provide rich teaching materials for courses in those fields.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Not a fan of Buffett but a great compilation of his "wisdom" January 3, 2009
Though I'm not a fan of Buffett, and I usually feel that his "wisdom" goes unchallenged in the media, in business circles and in academia because of his stature as an investor, this compilation is a great way to get a distilled collage of his annual report dissertations about many interesting subjects.
Of course one could just go to the website and read the reports, but the selection and organization makes it worth the price. It is very interesting to read some analysis of market turmoil times and think that you are reading about the present, to then at the footnote see that it was written 10 or 20 years ago. It puts today's economic crisis in perspective, and certainly makes the 2008 recession look like one of those opportunities that comes once every 20 years, and not like the apocalyptic event it is perceived to be in some quarters.
The fact that the book is the best compilation of one of the highest-regarded modern business philosophers earns the book 5 stars. The main ideas (and to me the most endearing) are that a corporation is a partnership and stock-holders, boards and managers should run companies with this "family-owned-for-the-long-term" attitude; that investing is about finding good businesses, with good and honest management, to be held for the long term, bought at discounted prices (with margin of safety), and that this should deliver wonderful results no matter what the vagaries of the market, political or social environment are.
But if Buffett was not a muti-deca-billionaire, some of his ideas would (and certainly should) be challenged with more vehemence, because his stature and his influence in an Obama administration could permeate the regulatory environment and infect the intellectual drinking well of policy-makers and rule-writers.
Buffett's analyses, metaphores, fables, simils, allegories and rants about subjects such as derivatives, low-grade bonds, financial advisory, all-stock mergers, etc could be serioursly challenged by an intellectually courageous business thinker that wouldn't mind going against a luminary (and investing the time and risking the reputation of challenging an Oracle.) Some of these challenges are not that difficult, and the internal logic that Buffett uses in some instances is flawed (and simply demonstrably so.) This is not the place to expound on it, but one of the pleasures of reading this compilation, is the excercise of mentally challenging Buffett.
On the matter of style, one can say that part of what makes Buffett's business reports memorable is his hokey style where he parenthetically inserts (often times bad or crude) jokes and aphorisms. But I was surprised by the predominance of mating references (quite often so irrelevant and unnecessary that they seemed forced into the essay). If this phenomenon is not simply the selection preference of the editor, but Buffett's actual thought frequency, it would be interesting to see a psychological profile of the man in light of his personal biography (he as much says in one of the essays that to a guy sitting on $130 million, an older woman should hold no attraction.)
As a last thought on the matter of style, just like I distrust a politician that tells me he is just a regular Joe, I distrust a highly sophisticated investor, that operates complex businesses and manages intricate transactions, and speaks of it all in home-spun, dumbed-down, folksy speech. For all his diatribes against derivatives, he uses them frequently (and profitably), for his disdain of junk-bonds, he "invests" in them, for his "aversion" to speculation he has made a lot of money speculating in silver, in foreign currency, in default swaps, etc. And for all his high-horse-ridding about accounting transparency and operational honesty, he is rather silent on his essays about the alledged improper insurance transactions his company was involved with in his dealings with AIG, but more troublesome is his "throwing under the bus" of his insurance executives (several of them convicted), by claiming himself too far removed from the operations to know about those transactions: Either a lie, or a deriliction of duty (to use his own phrase).
 Hope for improved re-arrangement December 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This collection of essays did a great service for understanding Buffett's investment phylosophy. As we get familiar with Buffett's approach, however, we would expect an improved re-arrangement of his ideas in a more logical fashion. Of course, this book is still much better than those with simply quotations or simple categorization.
The Best from Buffett -- Yet Sadly Overlooked December 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book, a collection of Buffett's annual reports, provides a cheap and pleasant education about corporate finance and investing. These essays show the talent behind Buffett's success.
In a recent 48 Hours interview, Buffett said that of all the many books out there about him, it was this one that best described how he thinks. He was right. Like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and many other significant figures, Buffett writes better than the many people who write about him.
The three Warren Buffett book package December 16, 2008
Great Books, the man is a financial wizzard! I am learning much.
The CEO's of fallen businesses should read this to see just how they went wrong. Other CEO's should read these books as well to keep from failing.
The government should read the books to avoid idiotic gifts to poorly run companies.
An Essential Source for Business Wisdom November 6, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Over the years, I have read several of the essays that Warren Buffett included in Berkshire Hathaway's annual reports. After reading two biographies of him (Alice Schroeder's The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life and Roger Lowenstein's Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist), I purchased a copy of this volume and began to work my way through the contents selected, arranged, and introduced by Lawrence A. Cunningham. I began with Cunningham's Introduction (all by itself, worth much more than the cost of the book) in which he reviews what he considers to be key points about Buffett and his leadership of Berkshire Hathaway.
For example, "The CEOs of Berkshire's various operating companies enjoy a unique position in corporate America. They are given a simple set of commands: to run their business as if (1) they are its sole owner, (2) it is the only asset they hold, and (3) they can never sell or merge it for a hundred years." With regard to investment thinking, "one must guard against what Buffett calls the `institutional imperative.' It is a pervasive force in which institutional dynamics produce resistance to change, absorption of available corporate funds, and reflexive approval of suboptimal CEO strategies by subordinates. Contrary to what is often taught in business and law schools, this powerful force often interferes with rational business decision-making. The ultimate result of the institutional imperative is a follow-the-pack mentality producing industry imitators, rather than industry leaders - what Buffett calls a lemming-like approach to business."
Cunningham organizes the essays within seven sections between Buffett's Prologue (Pages 27-28) and his Epilogue (Pages 273-282):
I Corporate Governance
II Corporate Finance and Investing
III Alternatives to Common Stock
IV Common Stock
V Mergers and Acquisitions
VI Accounting and Valuation
VII Accounting Policy and Tax Matters
As Buffett explains in his Prologue, members of Berkshire Hathaway's shareholder group receive communications directly "from the fellow you are paying to run the business. Your Chairman has a firm belief that owners are entitled to hear directly from the CEO as to what is going on and how he evaluates the business, currently and prospectively. You should demand that in a private company; you should expect no less in a public company. A once-a-year report of stewardship should not be turned over to a staff specialist or public relations consultant who is unlikely to be in a position to talk frankly on a manager-to-owner basis."
Those who share my own keen interest in Warren Buffett's leadership and management principles will learn a great deal from a careful reading of these essays. They are quite literally "from the horse's mouth." The substantial value-added benefits include the fact that Buffett thinks and writes so clearly, duly acknowledges bad decisions and personal regrets (yes, there were several), explains what he learned from them, and meanwhile reveals a playful (albeit dry) sense of humor. He also includes a number of personal observations about America, especially about its culture and economy, at various times throughout the last 25-30 years. The two aforementioned biographies indicate that throughout his life, Buffett thoroughly enjoyed each and every opportunity to increase others' understanding of sound business principles that include but are by no means limited to investments.
Readers who are not among Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders will especially appreciate the fact that, in each of these essays, Buffett establishes and then sustains a direct and personal rapport. The tone is conversational and, better yet, inclusive. He never talks down to his reader. He never "dumbs down" the material. Inevitably and appropriately, he cites Berkshire Hathaway situations when illustrating certain key points but, really, most of the material in this book will have wide and deep general interest to executives as well as to shareholders who otherwise have no association with either Buffett or his company. I highly recommend this book without hesitation or qualification.
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