Postcards

Billionaire peer pressure: Behind the Buffett-Gates challenge

by Patricia Sellers

You thought that peer pressure ended in high school?

Not so. This is the method that Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates are using to challenge America's billionaires.

This morning, Fortune broke the story that Buffett and the Gateses (MSFT) are calling on the other wealthiest in the land to give half of their personal net worth to charity. "The biggest fundraising drive in history" is what my colleague, MORE

Buffett and Kraft: Three truths

Rarely does a rebuff from Warren Buffett do so much good. Kraft Foods (KFT) stock rose 4.9% yesterday after the Oracle of Omaha, whose Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) is Kraft's largest shareholder, voted against an issuance of  370 million shares to help finance a Cadbury (CBY) acquisition. Cadbury fell, on the logic that Buffett, by tightening the leash on Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld, is preventing her from sweetening the price for MORE

Buffett's bet to keep jobs in America

"If you buy a railroad, you can't move it to China or to India or anyplace else. You are betting on the United States. I can't think of a surer bet."

- Warren Buffett, explaining Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKB) $44 billion buyout of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI).

Click here to see Buffett talking about his biggest deal ever with CNNMoney anchor Poppy Harlow.

While the size was a surprise, the bet on America MORE

How Warren Buffett manages his managers

Warren Buffett calls the CEOs who run his companies "All-Stars."

The world's most renowned investor picks his managers practically as well as his stocks. But branding the bosses of businesses owned by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) "All-Stars" may also be a clever people-management ploy on his part--to inject so much confidence in his people that they feel they must be the best...and duly pressured, they are.

At the recent Fortune Most MORE

10 surprising stats from the Summit

Last week's Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit was teeming with experts. They offered points and opinions on so many topics, with data to back it all up. Here, some of our favorite stats:

1. The No. 1 quality that successful business leaders have in common is that they started a business at a young age. --Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) (Click for video of Summit interview with Buffett.)

2. MORE

Power Point: Buffett says economy is out of the E.R.

"The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery."

--Warren Buffett, today in a New York Times op-ed. The Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) CEO writes that while mistakes were made in the recovery effort, a "gusher of federal money" prevented a meltdown. He goes on to caution that "enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, MORE

Power Point: Keep it simple

"His ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics... It's a special form of genius."

-- Bill Gates on what he's learned from mentor Warren Buffett, as told to Fortune in this week's Best Advice issue. Of all the great advice the Microsoft (MSFT) founder has gotten from Buffett -- his greatest mentor besides his dad -- "one of the MORE

Amex CEO Ken Chenault: Define reality and give hope

by Jessica Shambora

It's a given that when corporations suffer, so do the charitable groups that rely on them for support.

Amidst the financial crisis, many strapped non-profits face funding losses as the need for their services rises. And unlike their counterparts at for-profit corporations, not-for-profit execs haven't had the proper leadership training do what's needed -- restructuring, staff cuts, even mergers with other organizations. A recent study by Bridgespan Group shows MORE

Power Point: Simple doesn't mean easy

"If you are in the investment business and you have a high IQ, sell 30 points to the next person. You do not have to be a genius at all. But you do have to have emotional stability, and you have to have some peace about your decisions. I don't know how much is innate and how much can be taught. If you have that quality you will do very MORE

Power Point: Go your own way

"They've never felt compelled to do anything because other banks were doing it, and that's how banks get in trouble, when they say, 'Everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't I?'"

--Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) CEO Warren Buffett in an interview with Fortune's Adam Lashinsky about Wells Fargo (WFC). As the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo through Berkshire, Buffett knows the San Francisco bank well. "Those guys have gone their own way," MORE