Long before becoming the “Oracle of Omaha” and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, Warren Buffett was just a boy with an unusual fascination for numbers and business. His journey to financial stardom didn’t begin with massive investments or corporate takeovers but with simple ventures and a voracious appetite for knowledge that set him apart from his peers.
This is the story of the young Warren Buffett—and the formative years that shaped the investment philosophy of a future billionaire.
1. The Literary Foundation: Business Books That Shaped a Future Billionaire
Warren Buffett’s path to financial wisdom began unusually early. By age 7, he was already borrowing his father Howard Buffett’s investment books and reading every financial book from his local Omaha library. “By the age of 10,” Buffett once said, “I’d read every book in the Omaha Public Library with the word finance in the title — some twice.” While other children read adventure stories, young Warren learned about stocks, bonds, and business principles.
At age 11, the book “One Thousand Ways to Make $1,000” by F.C. Minaker captivated his imagination. This book, which outlined various business opportunities and money-making strategies, profoundly impacted Buffett. He later credited this text with inspiring his early entrepreneurial pursuits and setting him on his life’s path.
Buffett discovered what would become his investment bible in his teenage years: Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. Buffett has called it “by far the best book on investing ever written.” Graham’s value investing principles—focusing on companies with intrinsic value rather than market trends—became the cornerstone of Buffett’s investment strategy.
His education continued with “Security Analysis,” another Graham classic co-authored with David Dodd, which he studied intensively while attending Columbia University. These texts didn’t just inform his investment strategy; they fundamentally shaped his worldview about business, value, and financial decision-making.
2. From Coca-Cola to Paperboy: First Steps into Entrepreneurship
Warren Buffett’s business career began at the tender age of six. In a move that foreshadowed his eye for profitable opportunities, he purchased six packs of Coca-Cola for 25 cents. He resold the individual bottles for 5 cents each, pocketing a 5-cent profit on each six-pack. This early venture with Coca-Cola is particularly notable, given that Coca-Cola would become one of Berkshire Hathaway’s most significant investments decades later.
By age 13, Buffett had secured a job as a paperboy, delivering The Washington Post and several other newspapers on his daily route. He approached this job with remarkable diligence, optimizing his route for efficiency and providing reliable service to build customer loyalty. This experience gave him firsthand insights into the newspaper business—knowledge that would later inform his substantial investment in The Washington Post Company in the 1970s.
These initial forays into entrepreneurship taught young Warren fundamental business principles: customer service, profit margins, and the value of reliable income streams. They also demonstrated his early understanding that money could work for him if invested wisely.
3. The Pinball Wizard’s Business Model
One of Buffett’s most ingenious early ventures came when he and a friend purchased a used pinball machine for $25 and installed it in a local barbershop. The arrangement was simple: they would split the profits with the shop owner. When the machine proved successful, they reinvested their earnings to purchase additional machines, eventually expanding to several barber shops.
This pinball business embodied principles that would later become hallmarks of Buffett’s investment philosophy: identifying undervalued assets, generating passive income, and scaling successful models. The company produced steady cash flow with minimal ongoing work—once the machines were placed, they required only occasional maintenance and coin collection.
The venture taught teenage Warren about the power of capital allocation and reinvestment of profits. Perhaps most importantly, it demonstrated the concept of a business that could generate income. At the same time, he focused on other pursuits—a principle that would later guide his preference for businesses that could run themselves.
4. Teenage Hustle: Golf Balls, Horse Racing Tips, and a Rolls-Royce
Buffett’s entrepreneurial spirit continued to flourish throughout his high school years with increasingly diverse business ventures. He established a used golf ball business, collecting and reselling lost golf balls found on courses. While the profit margins were modest, the company required minimal capital investment and tapped into a reliable market of golfers who always needed more balls.
In another creative venture, he and a friend created a horse racing tip sheet called “Stable-Boy Selections” while he was in high school. This business leveraged information about horses and races to provide recommendations to gamblers. It was particularly notable for its emphasis on information asymmetry—providing valuable insights that customers couldn’t easily obtain.
In his youth, Warren Buffett embarked on an unusual entrepreneurial venture with a friend when they purchased a non-working, used Rolls-Royce for around $350. After investing time and effort to repair the car, they launched a rental business, charging approximately $35 per day.
This creative endeavor demonstrated Buffett’s early business acumen and showcased his ability to identify and capitalize on unique opportunities, turning a neglected vehicle into a profitable asset. This venture demonstrated his understanding of luxury goods and status symbols as business opportunities and the concept of converting a capital asset into an income-producing investment.
These diverse enterprises all shared common threads: they required creativity, addressed specific market needs, and generated income with relatively low overhead costs. They also showed Buffett’s willingness to explore different business models rather than limiting himself to a single industry or approach.
5. Farmland at Fifteen: Buffett’s Early Land Investment
Buffett purchased a 40-acre farm in Nebraska at just 15 years old in one of his most ambitious early investments. Using savings from his various business ventures, he invested and immediately hired a tenant farmer to work the land. This arrangement allowed him to earn income from the property without managing the day-to-day farming operations himself.
This investment revealed Buffett’s early understanding of a crucial investment principle: the value of income-producing assets. Rather than spending his money on typical teenage indulgences, he invested in land that would generate ongoing returns. It also demonstrated his grasp of delegation and partnering with those with specialized expertise—in this case, an experienced farmer.
The farm purchase exemplified what would later become known as Buffett’s long-term investment horizon. While other teenagers focused on immediate gratification, Warren already considered building wealth over years and decades.
6. The $1,200 Investment That Foreshadowed an Empire
At age 17, Warren Buffett and a friend made their most significant investment: $1,200 for a Wilson coin-operated machine business. This venture represented a substantial escalation in scale and complexity compared to his previous enterprises. The business included pinball machines, peanut vending machines, and other coin-operated devices in various establishments.
The Wilson business required more sophisticated management skills, including maintaining relationships with multiple venue owners, servicing different machines, and managing a more complex cash flow. For teenage Warren, it provided valuable experience running a diversified business operation with numerous moving parts.
This $1,200 investment—a substantial sum for a teenager in the 1940s—demonstrated Buffett’s willingness to make significant commitments when he identified promising opportunities. It also showed his increasing comfort with larger-scale operations, foreshadowing his future as a business acquirer and conglomerate builder.
7. College Years: Building a $9,800 Portfolio While Studying
Buffett’s business acumen continued to develop during his college years. While attending the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and later transferring to the University of Nebraska, he focused on building wealth and financial knowledge alongside his academic studies.
Buffett continued operating various side businesses during this period while expanding his stock investments. By age 19, his savings had grown to approximately $9,800—equivalent to about $116,000 in today’s dollars. This remarkable achievement for a college student reflected his business income and his growing stock selection and investment skills.
A dual education marked his time at college: formal studies in business and economics complemented by practical application through his investment activities. While many of his peers were focused solely on their studies or social lives, Buffett was already building a substantial financial foundation that would launch his investment career.
Conclusion: Lessons from Young Warren
Warren Buffett’s early financial story offers aspiring entrepreneurs and investors invaluable insights. His journey demonstrates that greatness often stems from humble beginnings cultivated through curiosity, discipline, and a willingness to learn from experience.
Several key principles emerge from examining Buffett’s youth: the importance of financial education from an early age, the value of reinvesting profits rather than consuming them, the power of identifying undervalued opportunities, and the benefits of developing diverse business experiences while still young.
Perhaps most striking is Buffett’s consistent approach throughout his lifetime. The fundamental principles that guided his teenage businesses—seeking value, focusing on cash flow, thinking long-term, and continuously expanding his knowledge—remained central to his philosophy as he built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the world’s most successful companies.
The young boy who sold Coca-Cola bottles and collected golf balls grew into an investor who transformed the financial world not through radical innovation but through the patient application of timeless principles he began learning before he was a teenager.
His story reminds us that extraordinary success often comes from the remarkable application of ordinary wisdom, consistently applied over a lifetime of disciplined decision-making.