Warren Buffett at 95: A Lifetime of Luck, Lessons, and the Long Game

A Narrow Escape and a Childhood in Omaha

Buffett begins with a memory from 1938, when a sharp stomach pain nearly ended his life. At the time, Omaha residents casually categorised hospitals as “Catholic” or “Protestant,” and the family doctor — Harley Hotz, a Catholic who made house calls with a black bag — misjudged the young Buffett’s symptoms. After dinner and a round of bridge, the doctor’s instincts told him something was wrong. Buffett was rushed to St. Catherine’s Hospital, where an emergency appendectomy saved him.

He spent three weeks recovering among nuns, who welcomed his talkative nature and indulged his imagination. The highlight came when his Aunt Edie visited with a fingerprinting kit, leading Buffett to catalogue every attending nun — convinced the FBI, and J. Edgar Hoover himself, would one day need his help solving a rogue-nun case. Years later, Buffett mused that he should have fingerprinted Hoover instead.

Buffett calls this early experience one of many strokes of luck that shaped his life. Omaha, he says, gave him the perfect environment to grow up, build a business, and stay grounded.

Parallel Lives with Charlie Munger

Buffett then reflects on his bond with Charlie Munger — his closest friend and partner for 64 years. The two lived a block apart during childhood but never met. In 1940, Munger worked at Buffett’s grandfather’s grocery store for $2 a day; a year later, Buffett worked there too, unknowingly following in Charlie’s footsteps.

They finally met in 1959, when Buffett was 28 and Munger 35. Despite differences, they never once argued. “I told you so” was not part of Munger’s vocabulary. Buffett writes that Munger was the best teacher, guardian, and “big brother” he could have asked for. His influence stretched far beyond Berkshire’s boardroom.

Leaving New York, Finding Home

Although Buffett spent time in Washington when his father served in Congress, and later moved to Manhattan in 1954 for what he assumed would be a permanent job, New York never felt like home. In 1956 he returned to Omaha, this time for good.

Two years later he bought the only home he has ever owned — mere minutes from the grocery store where he and Charlie once worked, within walking distance of his in-laws, and a short drive from the building that has served as his office for 64 years.

Buffett notes that his children and several grandchildren were raised in Omaha, attending the same public high school that educated his father, his first wife Susan, and even Charlie Munger. To Buffett, Nebraska was not simply a place to live — it was a foundation.

On Luck, Life, and the Unfair Distribution of Opportunity

Buffett acknowledges again and again that luck played a larger role in his life than many people are willing to admit about their own.
He writes that dynastic wealth creates a kind of “financial independence from the womb,” while others are born into circumstances so harsh that success is nearly impossible. Had he been born in another part of the world, he believes his life — and especially his sisters’ — would have been far worse.

“Lady Luck,” he writes, “is wildly unfair.”

Still, he has learned to be grateful for the unlikely sequence of events that placed him in the right place, at the right time, around the right people.

Age, Decline, and the Advance of Father Time

Buffett is blunt about aging. His vision, memory, balance, and hearing are slipping. Father Time, he says, is undefeated, and “everyone ends up on his scorecard.” Yet he still works five days a week, surrounded by colleagues he admires, occasionally struck by new investment ideas — fewer than before, but never zero.

His children, now aged 67, 70, and 72, are older than most retirees. To ensure that they can responsibly manage and distribute the wealth he will leave behind, Buffett says he must accelerate lifetime gifts to their philanthropic foundations. They are, in his view, at their prime in terms of judgment, experience, and wisdom — but not yet on the downward slope of age.

Buffett stresses that he does not expect them to perform miracles. Mistakes are inevitable, as he made his own. They simply need to do better than the average outcomes of government or traditional philanthropic systems.

What Makes a Life Well Lived

Over the decades, Buffett has seen political manipulation, misguided charitable schemes, dynastic excess, and the failure of grand plans. His own thinking evolved: he abandoned earlier ideas for large philanthropic structures and instead emphasised practical, incremental giving — guided by humility and realism.

Buffett writes that he feels better about the second half of his life than the first. His advice is straightforward: don’t obsess over past errors; learn something, however small, and move forward. Choose good heroes and emulate them.

He cites Alfred Nobel, who reportedly changed his behaviour after accidentally reading his own obituary — published when a newspaper confused him with his deceased brother. Buffett suggests we write the obituary we want and live toward it.

Kindness Above Wealth

Buffett ends with a message that stands in stark contrast to the billions he controls: greatness does not come from wealth, power, or publicity. It comes from helping others, in any of the thousands of small ways we are capable of. “Kindness,” he writes, “is costless but priceless.”

He reminds readers that he has made countless mistakes and been thoughtless more times than he can count. The only reason he improved, he admits, is because he was lucky enough to have good people around him.

And he offers one last lesson:
“The cleaning lady is every bit as much a human being as the chairman.”

With that, Buffett wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving — and urges Americans to appreciate their opportunities, while recognising that the system distributing those opportunities is often capricious and unfair. Choose heroes carefully, he says. Follow their example. Perfection is impossible, but improvement is always possible.