Guy Spier: Warren Buffett Would Rather Read 10-Ks Than Marcel Proust

In this interview with The Compound, Guy Spier discusses Warren Buffett’s dedication to investing, and his ability to focus on financial matters while having little interest in other activities like leisure or reading literature. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Spier: So I don’t know him well enough. I mean at the end of the day like this, I’ve spent I’ve been like once sitting and a few times standing.

So, but what I believe, and this is really just speculation, is that he’s of course extremely intelligent, and loves being really on his own.

But figured out to have the best possible life that he had to learn to engage with people. And in a certain way some people are natural at engaging with and getting people to like them and vice versa. And for him it didn’t come naturally but he learned it anyway.

But here was something that was really astounding for me.

So after that lunch, I remember a friend of mine, we were at the value investing congress in California.

And I don’t know, I say I’m going to do something, go wind surfing or something, and the friend says no, no, you should be here talking stocks with us.

And I’m like no, I’m going to go wind surfing, that’s the right thing for me to do.

But for Warren, Warren would never go wind surfing, he really doesn’t notice what color the walls are.

So he’s this extremely unusual personality that if you tell him that he could spend the next three years reading through the works of Marcel Proust, and he’d still have the same returns, and he would have made the same amount of money for his investors, or he can spend the next three years reading 10-Ks.

He has no interest in reading Marcel Proust.

Now that might not be entirely accurate. He’s a guy who genuinely enjoys the process of studying companies and investing to make money.

You can watch the entire discussion here: