Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Warren Buffett has a reputation for being a voracious reader.

  • He reportedly spends as much as six hours a day soaking up knowledge by reading books.

  • If you're looking to broaden your horizons and increase your chances of success, Buffett suggests to try what worked for him.

  • Here's advice he gave to a group of grad students at Columbia Business School.

  • "Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works."

  • "It builds up, like compound interest."

  • To kick off your reading, here are five notable books that Warren Buffett personally recommends.

  • Number one. "Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government"

  • Buffett speaks highly about the late Paul Volcker's 2018 book. Volcker served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

  • "I've always had Paul Volcker up on a special place, special pedestal in terms of Federal Reserve chairmen over the years."

  • "We've had a lot of very good federal chairmen, but Paul Volcker, I've had him at the top of the list."

  • Number two. "The Intelligent Investor"

  • Only Buffett's words will do "The Intelligent Investor" justice.

  • In the preface to the fourth edition, Buffett writes, "I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was 19."

  • "I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written."

  • "I still think it is."

  • Number three. "The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success"

  • In "The Outsiders", author William Thorndike documents the remarkable success of eight CEOs, including one of Buffett's own execs at Berkshire Hathaway, all who had a counterintuitive approach to the corporate strategy.

  • In his 2012 annual letter, Buffett praised "The Outsiders" by calling it "... an outstanding book about CEOs who excelled at capital allocation."

  • "It has an insightful chapter on our director, Tom Murphy, overall the best business manager I've ever met."

  • Number four. "The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor"

  • Howard Marks, the co-founder and chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, is renowned for his insightful assessments of market opportunity and risk.

  • After four decades spent ascending to the top of the investment management profession, Mark's distilled the investing insight of his celebrated client memos into this book.

  • And number five. "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns"

  • Buffett recommended this book by John C. Bogle in his 2014 annual letter. It's an especially important book for first-time investors.

  • "Rather than listening to their siren songs, investorslarge and smallshould instead read 'The Little Book of Common Sense Investing'."

Warren Buffett has a reputation for being a voracious reader.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it