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Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules Audiobook Summary

Using the letters Warren Buffett wrote to his partners between 1956 and 1970, a veteran financial advisor presents the renowned guru’s “ground rules” for investing–guidelines that remain startlingly relevant today.

In the fourteen years between his time in New York with value-investing guru Benjamin Graham and his start as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett managed Buffett Partnership Limited, his first professional investing partnership. Over the course of that time–a period in which he experienced an unprecedented record of success–Buffett wrote semiannual letters to his small but growing group of partners, sharing his thoughts, approaches, and reflections.

Compiled for the first time and with Buffett’s permission, the letters spotlight his contrarian diversification strategy, his almost religious celebration of compounding interest, his preference for conservative rather than conventional decision making, and his goal and tactics for bettering market results by at least 10% annually. Demonstrating Buffett’s intellectual rigor, they provide a framework to the craft of investing that had not existed before: Buffett built upon the quantitative contributions made by his famous teacher, Benjamin Graham, demonstrating how they could be applied and improved.

Jeremy Miller reveals how these letters offer us a rare look into Buffett’s mind and offer accessible lessons in control and discipline–effective in bull and bear markets alike, and in all types of investing climates–that are the bedrock of his success. Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules paints a portrait of the sage as a young investor during a time when he developed the long-term value-oriented strategy that helped him build the foundation of his wealth–rules for success every investor needs today.

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Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules Audiobook Narrator

Tom Perkins is the narrator of Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules audiobook that was written by Jeremy C. Miller

Tom Perkins is one of Silicon Valley’s pioneers. His venture capital firm has financed many famous companies, including Genentech, Compaq, Amazon, AOL, and Google. Perkins lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a medieval manor house, complete with moat, in East Sussex, England.

About the Author(s) of Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules

Jeremy C. Miller is the author of Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules

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Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules Full Details

Narrator Tom Perkins
Length 10 hours 11 minutes
Author Jeremy C. Miller
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date April 26, 2016
ISBN 9780062456939

Subjects

The publisher of the Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Business & Economics, Finance

Additional info

The publisher of the Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062456939.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Cam

August 18, 2017

Although there is some repetition - the author summarises the key points of each letter before the letter itself is presented - this is a great book. A wonderful way to immerse yourself in the Buffett wisdom.

João

June 05, 2020

Compilation of letters that Warren Buffet sent to partners during his Partnership at the early stage of his career, complemented by summaries and context provided by the author of the book. Brilliant content not only on an investment standpoint but also as a gauge to improve decision-making in several aspects of life. Accessible to non-savy financial readers as rarely dwelves into complex technical language. Chapters do tend to repeat themselves at some points as it analyses the same passages of the letters several times.

InvestingByTheBooks.com

August 20, 2018

I like this book. It’s got a genuine and honest feeling. There are several dozens of books on Warren Buffett. What makes this one special or needed? All other texts on Buffett’s methodology are based on how he has conducted his business at Berkshire Hathaway. However, before this Buffett managed money at Buffett Partnership Limited, with a different methodology and arguably with even better results. Investment analyst Jeremy Miller’s book is unique as it covers this first period by going through the partnership’s investment letters to its investors. The name Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules refers to 7 rules that Buffett presented for the partnership’s original investors and that were meant to facilitate aligned interests between them and him. In asset management having the right investors is a crucial success factor.The book’s structure is simple but well executed. Each chapter is dedicated to a theme. First the author presents the topic and what Buffett’s view was. Then follows a number of quotes from the investment letters on the subject and the chapter ends with a short conclusion by Miller. Each chapter is 15-20 pages and as they are very legible it’s easy to end up reading “just one more”. The only objection is that there is a fair amount of repetition between the discussion and the quotes. The chapters are organized in three parts where the second part is the most interesting. The first part covers a number of introductory and high level topics like compounding, indexing and the partnership structure. The third also includes various topics that although often important and, as always when it comes to Buffett, brilliantly described are on a relatively high abstraction level and a bit dry. The middle part is dedicated to investing. This is where it becomes interesting.It is relatively well known that the early Buffett was a deep value investor walking in the footsteps of his mentor Benjamin Graham. This indeed was the core strategy but Buffett’s implementation was different than Graham’s. Although the perception that Graham only saw to numbers and not to thequalitative aspects of a business is false, most of his focus was still on low valuation multiples in combination with other financial ratios and he diversified broadly. Buffett was from the beginning a focus investor only holding a few of his best ideas in the portfolio and thus had to understand each company in depth.Instead of diversifying over a large number of stocks the partnership diversified over three different and somewhat uncorrelated types of investment cases that they called Generals, Workouts and Controls – each requiring a different investment methodology. In modern terminology we would name the strategies deep value, merger arbitrage and activism. Generals, the bulk of the portfolio, were stocks that were cheap with regards to either their assets or earnings. Due to the much larger size of the Berkshire portfolio and cheered on by Charlie Munger, Buffett moved on from deep value to compounding franchise stocks. Interestingly this change was already underway in the latter part of the partnership years. The complementary merger arbitrage situations are quite traditional but display Buffett’s statistical skills. Activism at its best is value investing with inbuilt triggers. Buffett held large positions in small companies where he saw opportunities for improvements and actively worked to make them happen. However, he didn’t enjoy the human drama of activism and subsequently left the area.Buffett might have been precocious but reading this book you realize that he didn’t start out fully formed, he did his share of trial-and-error. Over the years I have picked up bits and pieces about these years. Here things fall into place and by this puts Buffett into perspective. What Lawrence Cunningham’s bestseller The Essays of Warren Buffett has done for bringing Buffett’s writing during the Berkshire era to the public, Jeremy Miller’s thoughtful book now does for the writing of the partnership era. In combination they give a much fuller understanding of the phenomenon that is Warren Buffett.

Seavmeng

December 30, 2017

A good starting point for those who are interested in finding out more about Buffett. This book refers to a lot of the BPL letter and groups them together for readers to easily digest the content. A lot of key takeaway for those who are new into the investment field, and a good reminders for those who are familiar with the topic.

Utkarsh

March 11, 2018

Book # 15: Warren Buffet's Ground Rules is a collection of semi annual letters by Buffet to his partners at BPL between 1956 to 1970 summarising the past performance, reiterating the firm's values, his interpretation and almost seminal understanding of the market behaviour keeping it very simple in what are famously referred to as Buffet's 7 Ground Rules on investing. Miller further analyses and provides context for each of these letters and how Buffet still managed to outdo the market be it in the bulls or bears. This book is a dedication to Buffet's control, discipline, steadfastness (with no knee jerk reactions at all) and a firm belief in his understanding of the market which is heavily influenced by Benjamin Graham (his teacher (Intelligent Investor)). My favourite parts of the book are when Buffet jokes about fiscal frugality and other subjects comparing some historical scenarios to drive home his points (What if instead of buying Mona Lisa, the investor would have kept his money at 6% - he would have more wealth than 3000 times the national debt! - He is quick to point out though that one of his ground rules is to also live a long life to reap in the benefits of his investments :P) The book is not just a read for investors but also a treatise on how to engage with your firm and partners. A good read. #52BooksIn2018 #37ToGo

Library of

January 20, 2021

In this book, financial analyst Jeremy Miller summarizes Warren Buffett’s letters to his partners in Buffett Partnership Ltd. (BPL). The letters were written during the 1950s and 1960s and were before the Berkshire Hathaway era. It was the time in Buffett’s career when he managed the least amount of capital and was able to use all the tools he learned from Benjamin Graham.CRUSHED THE MARKET DURING 13 YEARS. Buffett started BPL in 1956 with $105k from family and friends. He was then 25 years old and the company was managed from a room in the house on Farnam Street in Omaha. The portfolio consisted of three types of investments; Generals (mainly “cigar butts” – low-value companies that often-had problems with profitability), Work-outs (arbitrage) and Control situations (activist positions in “cigar buts”). For 13 years, BPL’s annual return was 25% after fees, compared to the Dow’s (index) 9%. When Buffett shut down BPL in 1969, assets under management amounted to $100m and Buffett was good for $26m.IF YOU ARE SMALL, STAY FULLY INVESTED. Large funds cannot invest in micro-companies no matter how attractive the valuations are – there are simply not enough stocks on the market. Managers with little capital can invest in almost any company, regardless of size, and should take advantage of it. When Buffett invested in Dempster Mill and Sanborn Maps, they had market capitalization of $ 13m and $ 38m, respectively, in 2014 money value – small enough to be classified as microcaps today.”If I was running $1m, or $10m for that matter, I’d be fully invested. The highest rates of return I’ve ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts back then. It’s a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money.”CAPITAL MANAGEMENT IS A RELATIVE GAME. Buffett saw Dow as his opponent and his main task was to deliver a higher return to his partners. Absolute return was irrelevant to him. If the index was up 30% and the partnership up 25%, he was dissatisfied. If the index was down 20% and the partnership down 10%, he was satisfied. “The Dow as an investment competitor is no pushover and the great bulk of investment funds in the country are going to have difficulty in bettering, or perhaps even matching, its performance.”AT LEAST THREE BUT PREFERABLE FIVE YEARS. If you want to overperform over time, you must be prepared to underperform in the short term. But if you have underperformed for five years or more, you should consider whether it might be time to change strategy or simply invest in an index fund. However, the later stages of a “bull market” are an exception, then value investors should expect to underperform the market.FOCUS ON WHAT CAN HAPPEN, NOT WHEN. The market will inevitably crash from time to time and when it does, it will take all the shares with it in the case – growth shares as value shares. Buffett never had a view on whether the market was overvalued or undervalued. He invested in individual companies and focused on their values, future and potential. The accuracy of the analysis determined whether he was right. The market’s longer ups and downs cycles decided when he got it right.EVERYONE IS A CAPITAL ALLOCATOR. There is no difference between a fund manager and a CEO – both are capital allocators. The manager controls the fund’s capital and the CEO the business’s assets. When Buffett took control of “Generals”, he often converted capital previously used in a low-yielding business (inventories and receivables) into capital that could be used in a high-yielding business (securities). A CEO should see all investment capital as variable and place it where the return potential is greatest.FIVE WAYS TO INCREASE THE VALUE OF A COMPANY. Operationally, a company’s value can be increased by (1) increasing sales, (2) reducing costs as a share of sales and (3) reducing the asset base as a share of sales. In addition, (4) increased borrowing and / or (5) lower taxation may increase a company’s value.NEVER COUNT ON A GOOD SALE. By buying assets at a discounted price, we do not have to rely on a strong stock market to get a good return. The cornerstone of value investing is to make the purchase price so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives a good result.READY TO BUY THE LAST SHARE. “Generals” often became “Control situations” if the low valuation remained for a long time. If the price was attractive, Buffett continued to buy as long as there were sellers. Since he was then one of the major shareholders, he took an active role in the company. Through this, the partnership could get a revaluation either by the market buying the share or by Buffett being given the opportunity to buy a large enough position to be a “catalyst” and realize the values.This post can also be read here: https://libraryof.xyz/portfolio/warre...

Ivo

September 22, 2018

This masterpiece depicts the genius of Warren Buffett, how he came from someone just interested in stock market, and willing to work to Benjamin Graham with no salary, just for the knowledge sake, to become the founder of one of the biggest companies on the stock market and even becoming one of the richest billionaires in the world.I think everything comes down to the evaluation of performance, Buffett likes to compare himself with the "do nothing approach" that consists in just following the Dow Jones Index, so each decision, each stock, each investment idea, and each asset manager of his company, should do better than the Dow in some long term timeframe sometimes referred as 3 to 5 years. So he have been able the detach himself from all the conventional "wisdom" on market and approach it in a very practical an measurable way, instead of "you should have 20% stocks, 20% funds, 60% bonds, bla bla bla" approach. And now he is not only one of the richest mans in the world as he created a company that is following a great formula that has everything to outlive him for many decades.Then you need to have a stable foundation, to be able to invest in the stock market 3 to 5 years before evaluate yourself, everybody should start slow, investing and compounding slowly, Warren learnt value investing from Benjamin Graham "Intelligent investor" book and used net margins, and return on assets/equity to invest in businesses with big barriers to entry, the so called "moats", the moats strategy beaten the value investing because can be more passive, you just buy to hold really long term, ideally forever, and pay no taxes until you sell. The idea of being conservative on evaluation instead of just conventional is amazing. Is like being very humble against data, but not too humble against humans, all humans can fail and teachers, analysts, brokers and all the "lords of the truth" of the stock market are no exception. To overperform the stock market more than 10% above the SP500 index each year on average and doing 20% a year on average since 1960, proving to be a master by results and not theory, the master Warren Buffet needed the courage to be himself, and sometimes underperform on crazy times when everybody else is bragging about how easy is to getting rich, to then have the capital to do great buys and overperform the market on crashes and corrections.Like the Intelligent investor this book is a great piece of wisdom, not the perfectly written, not incredibly pleasant to follow, but great content, is full of great ideas. Full of great ideas, also loved the topic of the bonds, the idea that the yeld curve inverts because the biggest investment market, the bond market, have smart money that is buying long term bonds because expect the yelds to go down in the future is amazing, and an example of how Warren Buffett can get the big picture in investments

Chris

January 09, 2019

Insightful book into Buffett's thinking prior to his partnership with Munger in Berkshire Hathaway. During this time Buffett ran the Buffett Partnership Limited, as it's principal, and earned an average of 20-30% per annum on his fund, which was a spectacular performance, even during what came to be known as the "30 Glorious Years".The structure of the book is to provide a preface to each of Buffett's letters to his shareholders during this time, breaking down the notes into snippets, and extending the quoted snips with historical context and deeper analysis/explanations. This is accomplished mostly through a gentle introduction to Ben Graham's (Buffett's mentor) concepts of investing.What makes this book a nice bridge for those who are interested in the history of ideas in applied finance, is that it charts Buffett's evolution in thinking from the Graham "cigar butt" philosophy of investing in penny stocks, taking the last "free puff" as Graham called it, to his more nuanced strategy of searching for "deep value" from securities through discovery of superior management staff of those firms. The book outlines Graham/Buffett asset accounting decision-criterions for investment, which I think is the current market price of stock multiplied by total shares over the total recoverable capital from liquidation. Buffett and his partners were trailblazers in this sort of accounting, utilizing these ratios and metrics many years before P/E was a common column in any analyst's sheets.This book is probably best read after reading something like Snowball, the biography on Buffett and/or Graham's "Security Analysis". Although I have yet to read the later. Conditional recommend depending on where one is at in their investing training.

FlyingBulgarian

August 14, 2019

Disclaimer: as a rookie in this field, I didn’t know that the partnership years were only until 1969. Even though the author draws inspiration from letters written by Buffett to his partners, and has tried to make them accessible and relevant with his commentary, none the less the latest letters are dated from almost 50 years ago. This makes me wonder if the relevance isn’t quite the same anymore... the moment something is written it becomes dated I know, but none the less I did expect to see letters by Buffett which were more recent. Oh well, my bad.The book itself is an easy read and provides beginner investors with insights into Warren Buffett’s mind - from not following the “diversification is key” advice which is dominant today, to how many stocks you should own and how to pick them; reasons why compound interest is great; and why starting now with less is better than not starting to invest at all.Thank you Jeremy Miller for the lovely book!

Bryon

June 02, 2019

Principles and Methods – While Principles will not change over time, Methods might.Million Dollar Ideas Are of No Great Benefit to Thousand Dollar Bank Accounts.Are you within your Circle of Competence?Mathematically elegant but not very helpful tools.These were not good businesses. They were Mean Reversion Trades.Habit Patterns Continuing, Long After They Made Sense.Without Character, you want someone to be Dumb, and Lazy.Financial Analysts over 40 know too many things that are No Longer True.Ben Graham said: In the Long Term the Stock Market is a Weighing Machine. In the Short Term the Stock Market is a Voting Machine, I have always found it easier to evaluate Weights dictated by Fundamentals, than Votes dictated by Psychology. – Warren Buffett

Gracia

December 05, 2018

Miller adds context, clarity and improved our understanding of Warren Buffet's remarkable character and mastery of investing. Warren Buffet's insights into investing go beyond "how to" and are on the level.of wisdom. More importantly in the moment of Trump, Buffet's wisdom and insights are grounded in character and the best in American business. Reading this can make us richer in many levels.

Reid

December 28, 2018

A great resource for the workings of a young Warren Buffett. The book shows how vast the knowledge was that Warren Buffett had in the investment field at such a young age. Amazing how leading edge he was when he was running his partnership. He must have been one of only a few people running a partnership using the practices that Ben Graham taught him. Practices that Ben Graham learned over a lifetime. This book shows the brilliance of both men.

Rippen

February 06, 2023

Great read. This book focuses specifically on sharing Warren Buffett’s earlier letters during the 1956 - 1970 periods, when he was running the Buffett Partners since he was 25. The fact that the author is also knowledgeable in investing and masterful at writing makes this book an enjoyable read alongside Buffett’s own letters. Almost 70 years later, the wisdom is as true and insightful as ever.

Kerry

January 24, 2020

I have consumed 17 investing books in the last year, attended workshops, taken classes, done much of my own investing and studying, most of it targeted around Buffett-style (or Graham-Dodd) investing. No where have I seen his thoughts so cleanly articulated, and given with context of when they are written. A must-read for any Buffett-acolyte.

Alex

May 05, 2018

What we learn about Warren Buffett's letter to his early partners -from the partnerships before he bought Berkshire.Most books I hear them in audio formats, so I can exercise or commute at the same time. Very rarely, a book is so great that it worth to buy in a physical form, this is one of these books.

Howard

May 04, 2021

Wow, I never heard about the Partnership Letters in this book, before - What a great masterclass in investing! I particularly like the last letter about bonds, It was just stuff I've never heard of, After being a victim of a "callable" bond in the past, this explains it clearly! Great listen (and read) for anyone interested in long-term investing! I have both the Audible and Kindle versions.

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