Everyone knows they are friends. But this is the first time Gates has penned down the ways Buffett has clearly influenced him. Lessons all of us could do with.

1. What Bill Gates learnt from Warren Buffett
Everyone knows they are friends. But this is the first time Gates has penned down the ways Buffett
has clearly influenced him. Lessons all of us could do with.
Author : iFast Content Team
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett have been
buddies for over two decades. And Gates makes no bones about the fact that Buffett has
influenced him tremendously.
Buffett even honed his bridge skills. Though Gates learned the game from his parents, he got
addicted to bridge through Warren Buffett in the late 1990s.
Last week Gates put up his first post on LinkedIn tilted 'Three things I’ve learned from Warren
Buffett'.
1. It’s not just about investing
Gates admits that it is only natural that the first thing people will learn from Buffett is how to
think about investing. But what he finds amazingly powerful is his framework for business
thinking.
Gates first met Buffett at a dinner his mother put together. Gates was not too enthusiastic about
meeting this stock picker. But when Buffett threw him questions such as “Why can’t IBM do
what Microsoft does?” and “Why has Microsoft been so profitable?” it opened Gates eyes to
realize that Buffett thought about business in a much more profound way than he gave him
credit for.
Gates lists down some classic Buffett parameters when analyzing a business:
 The company’s moat—its competitive advantage—and whether the moat is shrinking or
growing
 The shareholder has to act as if he owns the entire business, looking at the future profit
stream and deciding what it’s worth
 Investors must be willing to ignore the market rather than follow it, because you want to
take advantage of the market’s mistakes—the companies that have been underpriced
2. Use your platform
A lot of business leaders write letters to their shareholders, but Buffett is justly famous for his.
Gates was inspired to write his own annual letter about the foundation’s work after seeing
Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, known for its mix of financial data,
wisdom and humour.
Gates openly admires the fact that Buffett’s frankness shines through in his criticism of stock
options and derivatives. Neither is he afraid to take positions, like his stand on raising taxes on
the rich, that run counter to his self-interest.
Apparently, Buffett was of tremendous help when setting up the foundation. Gates and Buffett
discussed in detail the idea that philanthropy could be just as impactful in its own way as

2. software had been. Gates came away with the impression that Buffett's brilliant way of looking
at the world is just as useful in attacking poverty and disease as it is in building a business.
To see the annual letters from Bill Gates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, click here.
3. Know how valuable your time is
No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time. There are only 24 hours in
everyone’s day. Buffett has a keen sense of this. He doesn’t let his calendar get filled up with
useless meetings. On the other hand, he’s very generous with his time for the people he trusts.
He gives his close advisers at Berkshire his phone number and is always accessible on his
phone.
Gates is now part of the LinkedIn influencers program which debuted in the last quarter
of 2012 as a way for the public to read insightful posts from people like Bill Gates,
Richard Branson, Tony Robbins and Barack Obama.
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