Ford Library Blog

Schroeder, Alice. The snowball : Warren Buffett and the business of life. Bantam Books, 2008.

Alice Schroeder’s published research on Berkshire Hathaway so impressed Warren Buffett that he offered her unprecedented access to his files and himself. The resulting biography is a detailed chronology of not just his business strategies but also his personal life. Frugal to a fault, Buffett lives modestly and takes a mere six-figure salary from Berkshire Hathaway. His disciplined habit of investing for the long term has garnered him a sizable fortune.

While his investing strategies are well known, his ideas on philanthropy have not been as widely disseminated. Criticized for not giving away more of his enormous personal fortune, Buffett’s multiple reasons for not doing so are explained in one of the more interesting sections of the book. Responding to critics aghast that he wasn’t leaving the bulk of his money to his children, he responded that trust funds were “a lifetime supply of food stamps” and doing so was a “harmful and antisocial act”. Buffett didn’t give much money to charity until very recently because he wanted to allow what money he had to grow more quickly by compounding over time.

Schroeder writes clearly and Buffett fans will enjoy the book’s level of detail, but this biography is overlong at nearly one thousand pages.

© Reviewer: Paula Robinson & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins by Tom Perkins. Gotham Book, 2007.

Tom Perkins was a self described electrical engineering nerd at MIT. He later found his calling at Harvard B-School when he discovered his instinct for business and also spent more time with wine glasses than transistors. Although Perkins became an extremely successful venture capitalist, don’t look to Perkins for a formula, rules, and secrets to success.

Rather, he takes you on a personal journey to his success through chapters of his life. Although Perkins has a passion for toys owning a submarine, the largest privately owned sailboat, and fast and vintage cars, it’s his passions for life and learning that he credits to his outside the box success.

In this selective autobiography, he shares his experiences as a biotech executive, a board member of Hewlett-Packard and the ousting of Carly Fiorina, his trial for manslaughter in France, and forming the Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner & Perkins that pioneered genetically engineered drugs and ultimately the biotech industry.

Perhaps his most surprising teacher was Danielle Steel with whom he had a brief marriage. Subsequently, he also wrote a novel based on his life. For the real story, he could have easily chosen a more businessy title such as “What I didn’t Learn at Harvard B-School.” She has also influenced Valley Boy, as his style for sharing life’s lessons and creating your own opportunities makes this book read more like an entertaining novel than an autobiography.

Guest reviewer Randy Mayes is a Duke Alumni, author, science writer, and science policy analyst.

© Randall Mayes and Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

Cohen, William A. A Class with Drucker: The lost lessons of the world’s greatest management teacher. AMACOM, 2007.

Edersheim, Elizabeth Haas. The Definitive Drucker. McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Peter Drucker is widely respected as one of the great thinkers on management. Throughout his career as teacher, writer, and philosopher he inspired students and business leaders alike with countless books and articles, lectures in the classroom, and informal conversations with friends and colleagues. Since his death in November 2005, several new books have been published, highlighting his wisdom, creativity and humor.

In A Class with Drucker, William Cohen shares stories and insights into Peter Drucker’s teaching methods, his inspiring ideas and his life experiences. He also relates personal anecdotes about Drucker and his life. As a PhD student at Claremont University, Cohen studied under Drucker, who was a gifted and passionate teacher. Cohen maintained a lifelong friendship with his mentor and created a personal tribute to the man who changed his life.

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