Buffett’s view of his own lucky draw is reflected in this key section from Professor Kass’ notes:
“Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, ‘You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. [You’re] going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you — determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish — you can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion, and I guarantee you that when you emerge, this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren. What’s the catch? One catch — just before you emerge, you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get …”
Lawrence A. Cunningham, Henry St. George Tucker III Research Professor of Law at George Washington University and author of several books about Buffett, including “Berkshire Beyond Buffett,” said Buffett borrowed this idea from Harvard philosopher John Rawls and his canonical work, “A Theory of Justice.”
A just society is based on principles everyone would agree to if impartial and if starting from an original position behind a “veil of ignorance” — not knowing who they would be or which side of an argument they would be on.
Rawls’ philosophical treatise on how to create a just society includes a much simpler message for those who want to build businesses and wealth: “Treat everyone on your team — whether employee, customer, supplier, financier — the way you would want to be treated if you were them. … The golden rule, in a nutshell,” Cunningham said.
For entrepreneurs who hope to have as much luck for as long as Buffett has had it, Kass said the lesson is to be humble about your own contributions and the contributions from others upon which you depend. “Appreciating the contributions of the teachers we have had and the people before us who have assisted us is a critical attribute of luck and lasting business success,” he said.
That’s a practical philosophy wrapped in an overlooked birthday gift worth practicing every day of the year for those seeking success in either of Buffett’s sweet spots — running businesses or making stock investments.
You can read Buffett’s full quote on the nature of luck at Professor Kass’ blog.
This story, originally published on August 30, 2016, has been updated to reflect Warren Buffett’s 88th birthday and Berkshire Hathaway’s investments and performance over the past year.
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