Buffett Beyond Value: Why Warren Buffett Looks to Growth and Management When Investing

Acknowledgments

When I initially narrated Warren Buffett's success story, my father, always a philosopher, reminded me what I frequently asked him when I was a child: "Why?" The answer is that I am grateful. I am grateful to my students at Wharton, Tulane, and Georgetown over the past 25 years who asked innumerable questions and helped me focus my thoughts. My colleagues, ever skeptical as professors are, gave me the benefit of their explanations and understanding of differences between how academics think and how businessmen and money managers think. I am sincerely grateful to my longtime friend Larry Weiss, who read an early version of the entire book and went through several chapters over and over again as I developed my ideas. My special thanks go to my friends Valentin Dimitrov, a careful reader and a trusted co-author, for his discussions with me for many years about Buffett's principles and for his ongoing comments on the manuscript at different stages, and Nancy Pitts, who read every word with a critical eye, asked many questions, and helped improve the manuscript. I thank Elisa Diehl and Cindy Leitner for carefully copyediting the entire manuscript at different stages.

I have benefited from my colleagues' and friends' knowledge about investing and Buffett. They listened patiently, sometimes argued and discussed, gave detailed comments, and contributed to the book in many ways. For this, I thank Reena Aggarwal, Bill Baber, Dale Bailey, Gary Blemaster, Jennifer Boettcher, ...