LESSON 14

Don’t Fight, But When You Do …

WARREN is a lover, not a fighter. He loves his work, and he chooses to make deals with people he loves to work with. However, there are exceptions.

Naturally, not all of Warren’s deals have gone smoothly (nobody is perfect). Back in 1987, Berkshire purchased a 12 percent stake in Salomon Brothers, making it the largest shareholder and Warren a director of the investment banking firm. In 1990, a scandal involving John Gutfreund, the CEO of Salomon Brothers at the time, surfaced.

“Buffett always did fall in love with people, and observers said he was noticeably in love with Gutfreund—at first,” wrote Warren’s biographer, Alice Schroeder.9

While the dealings at Salomon have filled many books, here was the ...

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