Man Who Paid $650K To Eat With Warren Buffett Reveals What He Learned

The $650K Guy Spier paid to have lunch with Sage of Omaha investor Warren Buffett was worth every penny, Spier says. Writing for The Observer, Spier admirably cops to arrogance and ignorance in his youth (those two characteristics always find each other) — before he recognized that there was an honest, respectful, conscientious way of doing business. How was that? Warren Buffett’s way. Spier gives credit for this epiphany to Roger Lowenstein’s biography of Warren Buffett, who embraced high standards and made high profits, dual pursuits that many — including the young Spier — thought to be at odds.

After reading Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Spier chose to emulate Buffett — and you can tell how that went by how much he paid for the lunch. What did he learn at lunch that he didn’t already know? That Buffett is as unpretentious as he is intelligent, as gracious as he is rich. We all want to believe you can do both well and good in the world, a notion that is continually put to the test. Spier left lunch knowing that Warren Buffett accomplished this because he lived by his own “inner scorecard.” And he left knowing that so could –so must — he.