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Public's perception of Warren Buffet is really puzzling to me. He seems to largely escape the scorn for billionaires, even looked at as a 'good guy'. Whats his

Public's perception of Warren Buffet is really puzzling to me. He seems to largely escape the scorn for billionaires, even looked at as a 'good guy'. Whats his secret? We seem to hold CEO of coke more culpable for filling oceans with plastic than coke's shareholders like buffet who profit more from it than the CEO. Really bizarre phenomenon.

DrScientist 7y ago
Well one thing - as an just an investor rather than a company owner, he doesn't get flack for the stuff 'his' companies do. Perhaps he should - he owns a large stake in Coca cola - one of the largest plastic polluters in the world. He also is a 'good investor' - ie an actual investor, helping to build conpanies over a long time, rather than a speculator. Personality - being soft spoken and all that - has probably a big part to play as well.
dhosek 7y ago
I think some of it is that he doesn't really live like a billionaire in a lot of respects, takes anti-wealth political positions (he's an opponent of California's Prop 13, for example pointing out that he pays less in property taxes for his Malibu estate than people with much more modest properties in California), is explicitly not forming a money-based dynasty in his family (he has given his kids "just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing") and intends to give away his fortune to charity. There's a pretty good summary of his views and actions in the Wikipedia article on him.
- dominotw 7y ago
  Not sure any of that offsets funding and profiting off of obesity epidemic and filling oceans with plastic. Coke is killing ppl with coronavirus by causing massive obesity crisis in america.
asdff 7y ago
He's always been a friendly looking man, stays out of the limelight for the most part although his reputation precedes him, and gets off scott free for the simple fact that most of the public has no idea what berkshire hathaway invests in, or is really.

DrScientist 7y ago

Well one thing - as an just an investor rather than a company owner, he doesn't get flack for the stuff 'his' companies do. Perhaps he should - he owns a large stake in Coca cola - one of the largest plastic polluters in the world. He also is a 'good investor' - ie an actual investor, helping to build conpanies over a long time, rather than a speculator. Personality - being soft spoken and all that - has probably a big part to play as well.

dhosek 7y ago

I think some of it is that he doesn't really live like a billionaire in a lot of respects, takes anti-wealth political positions (he's an opponent of California's Prop 13, for example pointing out that he pays less in property taxes for his Malibu estate than people with much more modest properties in California), is explicitly not forming a money-based dynasty in his family (he has given his kids "just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing") and intends to give away his fortune to charity. There's a pretty good summary of his views and actions in the Wikipedia article on him.

dominotw 7y ago
Not sure any of that offsets funding and profiting off of obesity epidemic and filling oceans with plastic. Coke is killing ppl with coronavirus by causing massive obesity crisis in america.

asdff 7y ago

He's always been a friendly looking man, stays out of the limelight for the most part although his reputation precedes him, and gets off scott free for the simple fact that most of the public has no idea what berkshire hathaway invests in, or is really.