Warren Buffett's Three Simple Rules for Entrepreneurs || Q&A Transcript (2018)
"The test isn’t whether you get the greatest business idea in the world the first time out," said Buffett. "The test is whether you keep learning as you go along."
Back in 2018, Warren Buffett delivered a memorable closing address at the Goldman Sachs “10,000 Small Businesses”1 Summit in Washington, D.C.
More than 2,000 graduates of the program had convened there to celebrate a successful decade of empowering entrepreneurs. Buffett shared many pearls of wisdom that day — with a particular emphasis on lessons for business builders. He brought to life the stories of two entrepreneurs: the indomitable Rose Blumkin (of Nebraska Furniture Mart fame) and another bold founder who rejected Buffett’s offer to buy his company. This is one of the Oracle’s most inspirational speeches. Enjoy!
Warren Buffett: I appreciate that [applause]!
When you get to be 87, people stand and applaud at the start because they’re not sure whether you’re going to be around at the end. (Laughs)
It’s great to be with this group. It was eight years ago — I had just turned 80 — I had never really talked to any graduation groups or anything of the sort. It was not on my bucket list, particularly. And, then, I got invited to go to LaGuardia Community College and I met a truly remarkable group.2
Whether it was male, female, Hispanic, African-American — whatever it might be — these people had one thing in common: They knew they had it in themselves [to be successful]. They knew they could be something beyond where they were. They were willing to put their time, their energies, to better themselves. Behind them, as I saw when I got to the graduation on September 22, frequently they had parents who were crying as their children received their degrees. They had spouses, they had siblings [there]. It was one of the great experiences of my life. And, at that point, I was hooked.
So I went to New Orleans, I went to Chicago, I went to Detroit, I went to Cleveland3, I went to Baltimore — and I met the most remarkable group of people. If you had told me that 2,200 or 2,300 out of those people would be here just eight years later, having proven to yourself what you really could do with more skills, it’s just remarkable.
I would like to just tell you a couple of short stories and we’ll draw a couple of lessons from them. As I came in, Mike Bloomberg was talking and he talked about immigrants and I echo his remarks. I would like to tell you of two women who each sold a business to Berkshire Hathaway — to me, actually — for many, many, many millions of dollars. Both of them started with $2,500. By a coincidence, it was the exact same amount. It was everything they had in the world.
One of them was a woman who landed in Seattle in 1917, couldn’t speak a word of English, [and] had a tag around her neck.4 The tag said “Fort Dodge, Iowa”. The Red Cross got her to Fort Dodge where she was reunited with her husband, who had come to the country a couple of years earlier, and she lived in Fort Dodge for two years. And, as she put it, she felt like a dummy. She couldn’t pick up the language — she couldn’t learn a word — so she and her husband decided to move to Omaha.
They came to Omaha in 1919 and there she found a small colony of Russian Jews, so she started feeling more at home. Then, as her oldest daughter went to school, she would come home — this daughter, Frances — and she would teach her mother the words she had learned in school that day.
This woman, Rose Blumkin, spent twenty years saving money, bringing first her siblings over [and then] her mother and father — $50 at a time. She sold used clothing to do it. She had four children during this period. And, by 1937, after twenty years, she had saved $2,500.5 She went to Chicago and she bought what she could of furniture. Her dream had always been to open a furniture store.