Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest people on the planet, but he is also known for his thrifty lifestyle. The billionaire investor initially resisted the idea of owning a private jet but eventually embraced it.
In 1986 the net worth of the company grew by over $600 million. He asked Walter Scott how he could justify buying a plane for himself.
Scott said that Warren didn't justify it and he rationalized it. The author of "The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life" said that he spent $850,000 on a used Falcon 20 jet.
The purchase clashed with his upbringing and self- image. When The Washington Post's publisher asked him for a dime to make a phone call at the airport, he pulled out a quarter and ran to get change. She convinced him to let her take the money.
According to her biography of the investor, it was like leaping in one bound over Mount Kilimanjaro to go from justifying 25 cents for a phone call to rationalizing two pilots and an entire airplane.
The man embraced the high life quickly. He admitted in his yearly letter to shareholders that he bought a different used jet after selling the first one. He joked that if the cost of upgrading the plane kept going up, they would panic as it would take a long time for the net worth to be wrapped up in a single aircraft.
"Charlie doesn't like it when I equate the jet withbacteria, he feels it's degrading to thebacteria," he said, referring to his business partner, Charlie Munger.
In 1992 he poked fun at his hypocrisy by framing his purchase as a display of uncharacteristic flexibility.
He argued against corporate jets for a long time. My karma ran over my beliefs.
Munger doesn't like luxury travel because it's frivolous.
" His idea of traveling in style is an air-conditioned bus, a luxury he steps up to only when bargain fares are in effect," said Buffett.
The investor stated in his 1990 letter that if Munger sold the company plane, the earnings would jump by $1 million annually.
When Munger was asked at the 1994 meeting if a new cross-country service would spur him to cut back on private flights, he joked that he was hired by the audience member to shame him.
He said that the question was planted by Charlie and that he liked the plane a lot.
He said he takes it to the drugstore. I don't know when I'll start sleeping in it.
The plane was renamed "The Indispensable" after Buffet overcame his qualms.
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