“Books are their most profitable Investment”
Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are amongst the most successful men in today’s world. However, money isn’t the only thing that they have in common. They all credit their success to their appreciation for reading.
“I had a lot of dreams as a Kid. I think most of it grew out of the fact that I had the chance to read a lot” stated Bill Gates speaking about his appreciation for books.
From $2 to $20 billion
Two teenage boys found employment at a grocery store in Omaha, Nebraska. The older boy, from a poor family devastated by the Great Depression, bred and sold hamsters for spare change. The younger boy, grandson of the store owner, had been delaying college and working odd jobs, like selling chewing gum and coke bottles door to door. Back then, each boy made about $2 a day. They weren’t extraordinary youth. However, they had some qualities that made them a cut above the rest.
Just a few decades later, they’d be raking in $20 billion in profit per year with their conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway.
The name of these two boys are Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.
Knowledge from Books Compounds like Interest
“Read 500 pages a day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest” Warren Buffet stated.
It has been stated that Buffett spends 80% of his day reading.
The Secret to Success
In 2007, the 84 year-old Charlie Munger, revealed to a crowd of aspiring law students the secrets to their success: “I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”
Supposedly, in the early days of Buffett’s investment career, he would read 600-1000 pages in a single day.
His takeaway for everyone: no matter where you are in life, keep on learning and you will succeed.
The Billionaire Book Club
Elon Reeve Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor.
He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; a co-founder,[16] a Series A investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc.; co-chairman of OpenAI; founder and CEO of Neuralink amongst other companies. He credits his success in SpaceX and in building rockets to the knowledge gained entirely through reading.
He says that he was bullied a lot as a child in South Africa. He found comfort in fantasy and science-fiction books, which inspired him to leave a legacy in the world.
Bill Gates, the richest man in the world and a lifelong bookworm, reads about 50 books a year, but strictly nonfiction ones. Although he gets to visit a lot of places and meet interesting people, he would still rather read books to acquire new knowledge.
Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg invited the whole world to join him on his quest to read a book every two weeks in 2015.
“Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media would allow. I’m looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading book” stated the king of Social Media, Zuckerberg.
So, what are your reading goals?