Some people try to know everything. Warren Buffett made billions knowing what to ignore.
The HBO documentary “Becoming Warren Buffett” from 2017 shows how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates went from skeptical to fully convinced — not because of what Buffett knew, but because of how he thinks.
Bill Gates Didn’t See The Value In Meeting Warren Buffett
Melinda French Gates, who was married to Bill at the time of the film, said it took persistence to make the meeting happen.
“He’s one of the smartest people we know,” she said in the film. “I was at a couple of the family dinners at the Gates house where Mary, Bill’s mom, was trying to convince him to come out to the family place at Hood Canal to meet Warren Buffett, and he was resisting because he was really busy with Microsoft. Finally he said, ‘Mom, okay, I’ll come for lunch.'”
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Gates said he showed up without much interest.
“So the two of us flew out there somewhat reluctantly,” he said. “Buying and selling stocks, which is how I thought of Warren, wasn’t a particular interest to me and didn’t seem like value added.”
That didn’t last.
“It turned out that was completely wrong,” Gates said. “We knew that day that we’d be very close friends. In fact, we just couldn’t get enough of each other.”
Why “Focus” Showed Up Without Any Discussion
“Shortly after I met Bill Gates, Bill’s dad asked each of us to write down on a piece of paper one word that would best describe what had helped us the most,” Buffett said in the film. “Bill and I, without any collaboration at all, both wrote the word ‘focus.'”
For Buffett, that word drives everything.
“Focus has always been a strong part of my personality,” he said. “If I get interested in something, I get really interested. If I get interested in a new subject, I want to read about it, I want to talk about it, and I want to meet people that are involved in it.”
Gates saw the same pattern.
“We both love to work hard,” he said. “Neither of us like frivolous things.”
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What Buffett Ignores — And Why It Works
Gates didn’t describe Buffett as well-rounded.
“He doesn’t know much about cooking or art or a huge range of things,” he said in the documentary.
Buffett agreed.
“I can’t tell you the color of the walls in my bedroom or my living room,” he said. “I don’t have a mind that relates to the physical universe. But the business universe I think I understand reasonably well.”
That trade-off is where his edge shows up.
“Warren’s ability to size up people and businesses — it’s a pretty magical thing,” Gates said.
Melinda said it plainly.
“He is the best at that of anybody we know,” she said.
Gates added the only benchmark that matters. “We should all try to be 20% as good at that.”
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Why Judging Character Matters More Than Knowing Everything
That “magical” ability isn’t about knowing facts. It’s about judgment.
Buffett focuses on people — how they think, how they decide, and how they behave over time. That’s what drives outcomes, and that’s what he sees quickly.
It’s also why everything else can fall away.
He doesn’t need to know everything. He just needs to know what matters — and read it better than almost anyone else.
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This article Bill Gates Says Warren Buffett ‘Doesn’t Know Much About Cooking Or Art Or A Huge Range Of Things’ — But His Ability to Read People is ‘Magical’ originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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