What I learned from reading The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham.
The original edition of the essays of Warren Buffet was the centerpiece of a 1996 symposium that I organized.
This gathering brought together hundreds of students for a two day dissection of all of the ideas in the letters, featuring a series of vibrant debates among some 30 distinguished scholars, investors, and managers, with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger participating throughout from their seats in the front row.
In the decades since its initial publication, I have often taught this book in my classes and at seminars at four different universities.
The book is adopted by scores of professors at other schools for classes such as investment finance and accounting.
Investment firms have distributed copies to their professional employees and clients as part of training programs.
All the letters are woven together into a fabric that reads as a complete and coherent narrative of a sound business and investment philosophy.
Experienced readers of Warren Buffett's letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway have gained an enormously valuable informal education.
The letters distill, in plain words, all the basic principles of sound business practices.
The writings are broad in scope and long on wisdom.
And that is an excerpt from the book that we talked about today, which is the essays of Warren Buffet lessons for corporate America, and it was put together by Lawrence Cunningham.
And this is another recommendation that came from a listener.
If you have more book recommendations you'd like to see me cover on the podcast, please send them to me.
The best way to, or probably the easiest way to do that is just email me davidounderspodcast.com dot I have a ton of highlights for this book.
Before I jump into it, I want to tell you what it is.
So back, all the way back on Founders number 88, I read every single Warren Buffett shareholder letter, in order by year, and it's by far the largest book that I've ever read.
For the podcast, the longest episode, it's like the size of a textbook.
And so I just worked my way through that book in order, in chronological order, starting at the very first shareholder letter.
I think in like 1965, all the way up.
I think it ends in 2020.
This book is an edited version of Warren Buffett's shareholder letters.