Our October selection for the Indigo MBA program is The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.
To say that there have been a few books written about Warren Buffett is an understatement. According to a USA Today article a few years back, they stated that they found at least 47 books with his name in the title, and those are just the ones with his name in the title. But when you start looking into the majority of the books about him you start to notice that they are mostly about his approach to business, his investment strategies. Everyone knows the basics, he's one of the richest men in the world, and a renowned philanthropist. But did you know he's lived in the same house for over 50 years? Or that he plays bridge 12 hours a week? While I admit those are pretty mundane facts, there's more. What I'm getting at is that The Snowball isn’t just another biography on Warren Buffett; it is the biography on Warren Buffett.
The author Alice Schroeder is a journalist and Wall Street analyst. While there are many people that fit the description, Alice Schroeder was the only Wall Street analyst that Buffett would talk to. It's a bit murky about whether he approached her to write the book or vice versa, but for years he had turned down all requests to co-operate in writing a book about him. With Alice Schroeder, he not only found a writer whose worked he like but someone he trusted. Starting in 2003, over the course of several years, Warren Buffett gave Alice Schroeder an amazing amount of access to his life. She had access to his personal files, his family, friends, associates, and just about everyone who he had dealt with. The Snowball is a personal and intimate portrait of one of America’s greatest business leaders.
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November's title for the IndigoMBA program will be Double Double