Peter, now 67, said in a 2013 interview with the U.S. magazine that he had a talk with his mother about Buffett’s appearance on the list.
“Well, that would be about the time that we found out how much money we had as a family,” he recalled. “And we laughed about it, because we said, ‘Well, isn’t it funny? You know, we know who we are, but everybody’s treating us differently now.’”
He described the moment as a “fascinating,” albeit subtle, shift as that wealth had never been a defining part of his upbringing.
“We didn’t live in that world or a cultural framework where there was a lot of wealth being shown,” he said. “Our friends were as surprised as I was.”
Sharing more about his upbringing in another interview, Peter said he and his siblings knew little about their father’s job. “It was quite mysterious,” he said on a 2011 Freakonomics podcast, as quoted by Business Insider.
He recalled when his sister filled out a school form in fourth or fifth grade asking about their parents’ occupations, she wrote Buffett’s job as “security analysis.”
“It was assumed that what he did was check alarm systems,” he said. “To a kid, it was like, ‘What do all the numbers on the page mean? And what exactly is the New York Stock Exchange, and buying and selling and all that?’ So we really didn’t know.”
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Businessman Warren Buffett (center) with his children Peter Buffett and Susie Buffett at the world premiere of the HBO film ‘Becoming Warren Buffett’ held at the Museum of Modern Art, Jan. 19, 2017. Photo by ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters |
Buffett, now 95, is widely regarded as one of the greatest investors in history. Known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” the former Berkshire Hathaway CEO once reigned as the world’s richest man for a while after overtaking Bill Gates in 2008 with a net worth of about US$62 billion.
Though he is no longer the world’s richest, he remains in the top 10 with a fortune of $146.1 billion.
Money, however, has never been something he flaunts or uses to define success. Buffett is known for his frugal lifestyle, including dining at McDonald’s, driving an old car and living in the same modest home he bought for $31,500 in 1958, according to Fortune.
He has donated billions to causes spanning health, education and poverty relief, yet he draws a firm boundary when it comes to his children, insisting on teaching them to be self-reliant.
Buffett himself noted that by the time his children fully understood the extent of the family’s wealth, they had already developed their own identities and paths.
“The kids were formed by that time, and they knew who their friends were, and their friends were their friends because they liked ’em, and not because they were the rich kid on the block or anything of the sort,” he told Forbes.
His daughter, Susan Buffett, once shared a famous anecdote in which he declined her request for a $41,000 loan to remodel her kitchen, telling her to go to the bank, according to Benzinga.
Buffett elaborated that just as a quarterback should not automatically start for Nebraska just because his father did, children should not be given advantages they have not earned.
Susan said her father had long instilled that principle in his children, but he is far more generous than many assume.
“I actually agree with his philosophy of not dumping a bunch of money on your kids,” she said in a 2017 interview. “I feel extremely grateful to have the parents I had and for what they’ve given us. But certainly, he’s not going to leave us $50 billion and shouldn’t. It would be crazy to do anything like that.”
Peter is currently a musician, composer and author. He has won a regional Emmy Award and been named a New York Times best-selling author. He is also a philanthropist who has served as co-chair of the NoVo Foundation.
He has said that when people questioned whether Buffett was disappointed he chose music over business, he would reply that he was simply following what he loved, something his parents had always encouraged him to do. “So it couldn’t have been easier, really, to be his son,” Peter said.
