I just started The Snowball, but I wanted to share some first impressions in case anyone out there is interested in the book.

• It’s BIG: It’s over 1,000 pages and even though a lot of it is endnotes, it’s still a huge book. Not very portable and very heavy.
• Detailed: I read and loved Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, thinking that was the definitive version. But this goes into his past more, his family, his childhood, etc. It goes a lot deeper than that book. Which you may or may not like, but all these Tom Sawyer-ish stories, I think, are excellent.
• His father was a huge influence on him. The whole “inner scorecard” thing gives you a glimpse into the inner workings of all things Warren.
• A book: There was a book that had a HUGE influence on the young, socially inept Warren, and that was How to Win Friends and Influence People. He took to that book like a personal Bible in order to get himself socially respectable, at least. Which kind of worked.
• Innate Talent: Warren Buffett has a photographic memory, and that’s one of the things that makes him so great. That, along with his passion for numbers and figuring out the odds of something, are what turned him into a great investor.
• He was an entrepreneur from day one: He was creating businesses since he was a little kid, always on the lookout of ways to make money. From pinball machines to selling gum, he dabbled in everything.

This is all within the first 120 pages, so I have a LONG way to go, but it’s very interesting to see what he was like as a young kid and all the tendencies that he had then and have developed as he matured. You could see even then that this was going to be someone incredibly special.

Other Posts You May Like:

• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
• Investing in Real Estate and Raking in Dividends Without Taking a Tax Hit
• Warren Buffet’s Greatest Deals
• Can Warren Buffett Save the Newspapers?
• Warren Buffett and the Death Tax