1. From $89 million at the end of 1978 to $197 million in August 1980.
2. Interview with Charlotte Danly Jackson.
3. Interview with Verne McKenzie.
4. Affiliated Publications—bought for $3.5 million, jumped to $17 million after nine years. The Washington Post—bought for $10.6 million, now worth $103 million. GEICO—bought for $47.1 million, now worth almost seven times that, $310 million. Berkshire’s total common stock portfolio was worth double its cost.
5. Buffett and Munger took out a loan of $40 million from Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association for Blue Chip to protect against a rush of redemptions, according to Munger’s testimony in the Blue Chip case.
6. In 1976, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles had said that Blue Chip no longer had to dispose of one third of its business, recognizing that it was impractical after management contacted more than eighty potential buyers and had no serious bids. Sales shrank from $124 million to $9.2 million. The woes of the Buffalo News, which Blue Chip owned, made valuing Blue Chip problematic until 1983, given Buffett’s proportional interests in the different companies versus other shareholders, principally Munger.
7. Berkshire Hathaway 1983 annual report.
8. In 1984, during a period of relatively high inflation, the union agreed to a wage freeze.
9. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 placed restrictions on bank holding companies (those owning more than 25% of two or more banks, i.e., the J. P. Morgans) owning nonbanking interests, in order to avoid monopolistic control in the banking industry. It was amended in 1966 and again in 1970 to further restrict the nonbanking activities of one-bank holding companies (such as Berkshire). In 1982, it was amended to further forbid banks from engaging in insurance underwriting or agency activities. In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed parts of these acts.
10. Interview with Verne McKenzie. According to him and Buffett, Associated was never able to recover from the disintegration of urban centers after the 1960s and adapt to the new culture required to sell discount dresses in shopping malls.
11. Interview with Charlie Munger.
12. Interviews with Dan Grossman, Peter Buffett.
13. Interview with Peter Buffett.
14. Interviews with Marvin Laird, Joel Paley.
15. Interview with Howie Buffett.
16. Ibid. As Susie Jr. says, “When Howie dies, it will be no ordinary death. It will probably be by falling out of a helicopter into a polar bear’s mouth.”
17. For a four-hundred-acre farm.
18. Interviews with Howie Buffett, Peter Buffett.
19. Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc. was founded by the original Peter Kiewit, a bricklayer of Dutch descent, in 1884. Dave Mack, “Colossus of Roads,” Omaha magazine, July 1977; Harold B. Meyers, “The Biggest Invisible Builder in the World,” Fortune, April 1966.
20. When Kiewit died, Buffett got the chance to take an apartment in Kiewit Plaza. He would have loved to do it, but Astrid didn’t want to leave her garden. So they stayed on Farnam Street.
21. “Peter Kiewit: ‘Time Is Common Denominator,’ ” Omaha World-Herald, undated, approximately November 2, 1979; Robert Dorr, “Kiewit Legacy Remains Significant,” Omaha World-Herald, November 1, 1999; Harold B. Meyers, “The Biggest Invisible Builder in the World”; interview with Walter Scott Jr., Peter Kiewit’s successor, who also had an apartment at Kiewit Plaza.
22. Peter Kiewit died on November 3, 1979. Warren Buffett, “Kiewit Legacy as Unusual as His Life,” Omaha World-Herald, January 20, 1980.
23. Buffett read Flexner’s autobiography three or four times and gave copies to his friends.
24. $38,453 for the year ended June 1980, of which $33,000 went toward colleges, the rest toward local organizations. Five years earlier, in June 1975, the foundation had assets of $400,000, with gifts of $28,498 to similar organizations.
25. Rick Guerin letter to Joe Rosenfield, October 1, 1985.
26. Warren Buffett letter to Shirley Anderson, Bill Ruane, and Katherine (Katie) Buffett, trustees of the Buffett Foundation, May 14, 1969.
27. Richard I. Kirkland Jr., “Should You Leave It All to the Children?” Fortune, September 29, 1986.
28. Larry Tisch as quoted by Roger Lowenstein, Buffett.: The Making of an American Capitalist. New York Doubleday, 1996. Tisch is deceased.
29. Kirkland, “Should You Leave It All to the Children?”