Warren Buffett
By: Alex
Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930, Omaha, Nebraska), often called the "Sage of Omaha" or the "Oracle of Omaha", is an American investor, businessperson and philanthropist.
Buffett has amassed an enormous fortune from astute investments managed through the holding company Berkshire Hathaway, of which he is the largest shareholder and CEO.
With an estimated current net worth of around US$52 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the third-richest person in the world as of September 2007, behind Carlos Slim and Bill Gates.
In June 2006, he made a commitment to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The donation amounts to approximately $30 billion.
Buffett's donation is said to be the largest in U.S. history. At the time of the announcement the donation was enough to more than double the size of the foundation.
Despite his immense wealth, Buffett is renowned for his unpretentious and frugal lifestyle.
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When he spent $9.7 million of Berkshire's funds on a corporate jet in 1989, he jokingly named it "The Indefensible" because of his past criticisms of such purchases by other CEOs. He continues to live in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska that he bought in 1958 for $31,500 (although he also owned a more expensive home in Laguna Beach, California which he sold in 2004). The current estimated value for his Omaha house is around $700,000.
His 2006 annual salary of about $100,000 is tiny by the standards of senior executive remuneration in other comparable companies. CEOs in S&P 500 constituent companies averaged about $9 million compensation in 2003. In 2007, Buffett was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.