There were three of them in the early years: Buffett, Charlie Munger, and a man named Rick Guerin. Guerin was sharp. He was, by Buffett's own description, every bit the equal of the other two on raw investment instinct. He had one fatal habit. He used leverage.
Warren Buffett's statistically improbable returns provided from 1965 through 2024 are truly remarkable to consider. Over this time frame, Berkshire Hathaway compounded returns for investors at an incredible 19.9% clip. When compared to the S&P 500, a world-class index of the largest companies in the U.S. (which produced compounded annual returns of 10.4% over this time frame), that's a near-doubling of one's annual return each and every year.