Investing Legends

Investing Legends

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Investing Legends episodes

  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1969/1970 - Winding down the partnership
    The final chapter of the Buffett Partnership, told through five letters from 1969 and 1970 as Warren Buffett wound the partnership down and returned capital to his partners. He explains why he's retiring — bargains gone, the market too speculative, his own motivation shifted — and personally recommends Bill Ruane as an alternative money manager. He walks partners through their choices: take cash, or keep their proportional stakes in his two controlled companies, Berkshire Hathaway and Diversified Retailing, which he clearly intends to hold for the long term. The episode closes with his candid case for tax-free bonds over stocks at that moment, and a plain-spoken primer on how to buy them.

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    38 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1968 Full Year
    Warren Buffett's 1968 annual letter, capping his best year ever — up 58.8% against the Dow's 7.7%, a result he waves off as "a freak, like picking up thirteen spades in a bridge game." He skewers the era's collapsing "go-go" funds and the mania for minute-by-minute money management, breaks down where the year's gains came from across his four categories, and delivers the line "Price is what you pay; value is what you get" while updating his controlled companies Berkshire Hathaway and Diversified Retailing. He warns that good ideas are now at an all-time low, and closes with a nostalgic look back at the partnership's twelve-year rise from $105,000 to over $104 million.

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    18 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1968 H1
    Warren Buffett's mid-1968 letter to partners. The partnership rose 16% while the Dow was essentially flat. He updates his growing family of controlled businesses — Berkshire Hathaway, National Indemnity, Hochschild Kohn, and Associated Cotton Shops — and their capable operators. But the heart of the letter is his warning about "The Present Environment": a speculative "chain-letter" mania fueled by "bold, imaginative accounting," which he predicts history will look back on as a bubble. He admits his own results have indirectly benefited from the frenzy even as it dries up genuine bargains, and points partners to Adam Smith's The Money Game for a portrait of the era.

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    8 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1967 Full Year
    Warren Buffett's 1967 annual letter. The partnership gained 35.9% against the Dow's 19.0%, yet Buffett is uneasy: in a runaway speculative market where nearly every fund beat the Dow and some doubled, he warns that "we continue to eat oatmeal" rather than chase the frenzy. He breaks down a lopsided year — his worst-ever result in work-outs, a huge 72% gain in undervalued generals driven by his American Express stake (now being sold down), and steady progress in his controlled companies, where he folds in new acquisitions National Indemnity and Associated Cotton Shops. He also addresses the fallout from October's lowered goals, reassuring partners the partnership is "definitely not" winding down.

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    13 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1967 H1

    Warren Buffett's mid-1967 letter to partners. After a rough January, the partnership finished the half up 21% against the Dow's 11.4%. Buffett names Diversified Retailing and Berkshire Hathaway as his controlled companies — and candidly warns that Berkshire's textile business faces real difficulties and won't earn a good return, dragging on relative performance in a rising market. He shares his tax philosophy ("Don't worry about the income; just the outcome") and previews a special October letter that will revise his "Ground Rules" — the coming moment where he lowers his ambitions and redefines success for the partnership.


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    21 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1966 Full Year
    Warren Buffett's tenth-anniversary letter, covering 1966. The partnership gained 20.4% while the Dow fell 15.6% — its widest margin ever, 36 points — capping a decade that turned $105,100 into a $54 million partnership. But Buffett strikes a cautionary note: the flood of bargain ideas that fueled the early years has slowed to a "trickle," and those results won't be repeated. He breaks down where 1966's gains came from across his four categories, defends his heavy concentration in a single dominant holding, and reaffirms that he won't chase "fashion" investing or businesses beyond his understanding.

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    26 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1966 H1
    Warren Buffett's mid-1966 letter to partners. In a falling market — the Dow down 8.7% — the partnership still gained 8.2%, and Buffett shows how the eight largest companies in the world lost 16.6% over the same stretch. He draws a sharp line between true conservatism (losing less when others lose) and mere "conventionalism," announces his first outright purchase of a whole business, the Baltimore department store Hochschild, Kohn, and delivers a pointed defense of ignoring market forecasts — pointing partners to Benjamin Graham's chapter on treating market swings as opportunity rather than instruction.

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    14 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1965 Full Year
    Warren Buffett's landmark 1965 annual letter. After a record year — up 47.2% versus the Dow's 14.2% — Buffett reveals the story behind Berkshire Hathaway, the struggling textile maker he began buying at $7.60 a share in 1962 and took control of in 1965. He lays out his case for concentration over diversification, introducing the rule that lets him put up to 40% of the partnership in a single conviction bet and mocking the "Noah School of Investing" of owning two of everything. He also warns that the partnership's growing size may finally start to weigh on returns, and closes the door to new partners.

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    34 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1965 H1
    Warren Buffett's mid-1965 letter to partners. The partnership gained 10.4% while the Dow was essentially flat, extending its edge — though Buffett candidly notes the gain came during the market's rise, not its fall, the opposite of how he'd prefer to earn it. He revisits his "duck on a pond" point with fresh backing that mutual funds pick stocks no better than random, and explains his logic for borrowing and lending with partners at the same 6% rate. Most significant for the story ahead: he reveals he has quietly acquired a controlling interest in one of his holdings — the beginning of Berkshire Hathaway — with the full account promised for the next annual letter.

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    11 min
  • Warren Buffett Partnership Letter 1964 Full Year
    Warren Buffett's 1964 annual letter, one of his richest. The partnership gained 27.8% against the Dow's 18.7%, but Buffett spends much of the letter on ideas: why nearly all professional money managers fail to beat an unmanaged index, and his now-famous definition of true conservatism — "intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning," not crowd agreement. He expands his method to four categories, adding "generals — relatively undervalued," and lays out his long-term goal of beating the Dow by about ten points a year. He also delivers a memorable case for maximizing after-tax gains rather than dodging taxes, skewering the era's "swap funds" along the way.

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    46 min

About Investing Legends

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Investing Legends is a long-form podcast dedicated to the thinking, principles, and decision-making frameworks of the world’s most respected investors.


Each episode explores the ideas of…