The Real Warren Buffett: Managing Capital, Leading People (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Investors around the globe worship Warren Buffett, the "Oracle of Omaha," and British businessman O'Loughlin is no different. Buffett, after all, jostles with Bill Gates for the title of richest man in America and has built Berkshire Hathaway from a small textile concern into a multi-billion-dollar corporate mammoth. So how does he do it? O'Loughlin tackles the question enthusiastically, laying out Buffett's investing strategies, his management techniques and his unconventional wisdom. Much of it is already well known, of course, from Buffett's love of the cash-generating insurance business, to his hands-off managerial style, to his early passion for the ideas of value-investing guru Benjamin Graham. But the book is a useful distillation of everything business buffs know about the inscrutable Buffett. After the dot-com years, during which his plodding investing style went out of favor, it was he who emerged from the bust relatively unscathed. As O'Loughlin fawns, "We may never see the like of Warren E. Buffett again."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A timely new book about the Sage of Omaha's management practices...an interesting and worthwhile approach." -- Salon.com

"Fresh and rewarding insight into stock market guru Buffett .... an important and inspiring book." -- The Good Book Guide, February 2003

"How does [Buffett] do it? O'Loughlin tackles the question enthusiastically, laying out Buffett's investing strategies, management techniques and unconventional wisdom." -- Publishers Weekly

"Must reading for students of management. Highly recommended." -- Choice

"Pacey, highly readable ... this book deserves praise for its broad scope." -- The Daily Telegraph, Your Money, February 2003

"Your insights mixed with Buffett's very quotable quotes is great stuff." -- Arnold S. Wood, founding partner, president and CEO of Martingdale Asset Management

Buy and hold! -- Director Magazine

One of the Thirty Best Business Books of 2003! -- SOUNDVIEW EXECUTIVE BOOK SUMMARIES

Timely and insightful....intelligently written. -- Accounting Business --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (April 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857883322
• ISBN-13: 978-1857883329
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #165,142 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A return on investment that even Buffett would value, March 7, 2003

By	1nnovator (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Warren Buffett: Managing Capital, Leading People (Hardcover)

I'm sure that like me your time is scarce and you are reading this review to determine which book to read next to improve your investment returns. Well I can save you some time and recommend that you read this one.
O'Loughlin's book won't make you smarter. What it will do is help you to cut out the mistakes that prove so costly to capial accumulation.
I've read most of the popular books about Buffett. All are interesting, because his tale is compelling, but unlike the others, this book is valuable too.
Why does Tiger win all the majors rather than Phil Mickelson? Both can hit amazing shots, but Tiger has developed a series of mental processes that enables him to employ superior course management to the rest of us and so reduce the chance of dropping shots.
So it is with Buffett. This book describes how Buffett has employed a series of mental models to circumvent the ways that our brains delude us into thinking we are making sound decisions when we are making poor ones.
The take-away messages are clear and I have found it relatively straight-forward to employ them in my investment decision making process. I am making fewer decisions, but feeling much more comfortable with each one.
There's much more to the book than this, but to be honest your time would be better spent learning from O'Loughlin and Buffett than from me.
It took Buffett 40 years and billions of dollars to learn these processes. You can learn them in a couple of hours for under 20 bucks. Now, that really is a Buffett-esque bargain!

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Another Warren Worshipper trying to get rich off the man., July 3, 2003

By	Sean (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Warren Buffett: Managing Capital, Leading People (Hardcover)

This book is simply a summary of all the other books about Warren Buffett. It is interesting & tries to distil the concepts, but doesn't really add to our investment knowledge, unless you haven't read anything about Warren before. The continual references to Jack Welsh also seem redundant. You would be much better off reading "Making of an American Capitalist" by Roger Lowenstein which is the definitive Warren text. However, it is easy to read & gives a good overall view of the Buffett approach, but a lot of it is assumption or extrapolation based on other writers, shareholder letters & a bit of psychology thrown in for good measure. No important players were actually interviewed & given that the writer is based in the UK it appears he just pulled out his collection of Warren books, a psych. text & Jack Welsh's biography then started writing. The Warren worship is getting a bit tired.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed with Knowledge!, April 10, 2003

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Real Warren Buffett: Managing Capital, Leading People (Hardcover)

A sentence crafter happily at work, James O'Laughlin imparts clarity with literacy. On the rare occasion that his industrious research does not find just the right quote from Buffett or Munger (chapters average 90 footnotes), he uses their favorite metaphors from sports and life. This is excellent writing that falls short only on prophesy and damnation. Buffett must pass Berkshire on to an heir in the next decade, but exactly who might follow him is given short shrift. How this unknown magician might cope with Munger (too old to be an heir) is avoided carefully. The manuscript was begun before September 11, 2001, created insurance chaos, but O'Laughlin doesn't elaborate upon it, beyond suggesting that chaos benefits Buffett - whose main float derives from super catastrophic insurance and reinsurance. We from getAbstract recommend this volume highly - along with getting to know the Real Buffett, you will learn a tidy amount about economics.