Warren Buffett

There’s only one Warren Buffett. The Oracle of Omaha has amassed generations of imitators and adoring shareholders with his golden gut for building companies and picking stocks. His bets on Apple, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola have become the stuff of legend, as has his timeless advice that one should “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

Under Buffett’s watch, Berkshire Hathaway outperformed the S&P 500 from 1965 through 2023, returning 19.8% annually versus 10.2% for the index. As Fortune eloquently wrote back in 2003, his “remarkable stature gives him a power of moral suasion that’s been made all the stronger by his sparing use of it. It’s the ability to shape the behavior of people far beyond his direct reach merely through his words, and it’s added to Buffett’s image as American capitalism’s unofficial Lord Protector.”