A professor who teaches a course on Warren Buffett sees him more as a ‘guide toward how to live a successful life’ than how to invest

Even in the age of algorithms, short attention spans and TikTok teases, Warren Buffett continued to profit with his patient bargain-hunting approach while offering folksy advice on investing and life.

As chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway , Buffett became famous for his unwavering and methodical investing style: Buy good businesses when their prices are low, stay on the sidelines when prices are too high and be patient with well-chosen picks.

He rode that to decades of beating the rest of the U.S. stock market before he retired as Berkshire’s chairman on Friday, less than a year after giving up his role as CEO .

The formula of buying good things at low prices sounds simple, and it’s the foundation of a style of investing called “value” hunting.

But it periodically comes under criticism when the hot new thing is enthralling Wall Street, whether it’s dot-com stocks in the late 1990s or gold when its price was setting records early this year. (Buffett is famously skeptical of gold as an investment, saying it “has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative.”) The investing world has had other celebrities.

J.P.

Morgan built his reputation by investing in railroads during the 19th century.

Andrew Carnegie helped build the U.S. steel industry and became famous for his philanthropy.

Jim Cramer and Kevin O’Leary are on TV shows.

But few ever cracked into the national consciousness like Buffett, and none did so from near the geographic center of the country in Omaha, Nebraska.

Buffett offers enduring lessons on life and investing Many professional investors also adhere to Buffett’s style of bargain-hunting.

But none have had the kind of folksy humor and candor that can draw hordes of investors each year, like those attending Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting .

More than 40,000 people would pack an Omaha arena on the first Saturday in May to hear from Buffett and his longtime investing partner, Charlie Munger , who died in 2023 and espoused a similar take-it-slow and make-it-right approach to investing.

Besides talking about how they hunted for well-run businesses and the news of the day, they would also regularly confess to their own mistakes and crack wise.