The son of billionaire
Warren Buffett has a lesson for parents everywhere: Don't spoil your kids rotten.
Peter Buffett is a musician and also the author of the new book 'Life is What You Make It: Finding Your Own Path to Fulfillment.'
His father heads
Berkshire Hathaway, consistently ranks on the
Forbes List of the world's richest people and is an investing legend known as the "Oracle of Omaha."
In the book, the younger Buffett talks about the perils of giving your children too much stuff, and making life too easy for them. Such materialism leads to a sense of entitlement, and the kids having what the older Buffett calls "a silver dagger in your back" -- as opposed to a silver spoon in one's mouth.
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Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Vanisha Mittal Bhatia
Age: 27
Billionaire Father: Lakshmi Mitall
Vanisha sits on the board of directors of dad's $40 billion (market cap) steel company, ArcelorMittal. Vanisha has a degree in business administration from the European Business School and a master's in South Asian studies from London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. She later interned at ArcelorMittal before getting her seat in the boardroom. Vanisha is perhaps best known for her $60 million five-day wedding spectacle in Paris in 2005.
· More on the Mittal Family
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Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Destined for the Corner Office?
The following billionaire heiresses could probably live glamorous, privileged lives without ever having to work a single day. Yet despite their families' fortunes, these women have followed their billionaire parents into the family business -- and often its boardroom. A few seem destined to inherit the corner office.
Continue clicking through our gallery of Forbes' picks for the most notable ones to watch.
· Read the Article From Forbes
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Kathrine and Cecilie Fredriksen
Age: 25
Billionaire Father: John Fredriksen
These twin sisters each have a seat on the board of directors of dad's companies. Kathrine became a board member of oil trading company Arcadia Petroleum last February. Cecilie has been on the board of Aktiv Kapital, a collection agency, since 2006. The twins, based in London, have worked on various parts of their dad's oil and shipping empire for several years.
· More on the Fredriksen Family
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Marta Ortega Perez
Age: 25
Billionaire Father: Amancio Ortega
Perez is the youngest child of Spain's richest man, Amancio Ortega, owner of $12.3 billion (sales) apparel manufacturer Inditex, which also operates Zara stores. As low profile as her discreet father, the Zarina, as she is sometimes called, has been learning Inditex's business, fueling speculation that she is being groomed to take over from her father, 73, whenever he retires. She graduated with a bachelor's in international business from the European Business School in London in 2006 and apparently speaks four languages.
· More on the Ortega Family
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Holly Branson
Age: 27
Billionaire Father: Richard Branson
Sir Richard's only daughter seemed destined to carve her own path and was studying to become a doctor. But her father convinced her to join his Virgin empire last year. She has spent a year working in its various groups, including Virgin's health, fitness and airline businesses. Still, her medical skills do come in handy: The heiress, who is reportedly friends with Prince William, made news after she apparently helped save a passenger who was having a heart attack during a Virgin flight to Antigua.
· More on the Branson Family
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Ivanka Trump
Age: 27
Billionaire Father: Donald Trump
The Donald's high-profile daughter wears several bejeweled hats: executive vice president of the Trump Organization's Development & Acquisition, fashion model, star of Celebrity Apprentice and face of Ivanka Trump Jewelry, her luxury diamond line boasting a store on Madison Avenue. Ivanka graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.
· More on the Trump Family
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Vanisha Mittal Bhatia
Age: 27
Billionaire Father: Lakshmi Mitall
Vanisha sits on the board of directors of dad's $40 billion (market cap) steel company, ArcelorMittal. Vanisha has a degree in business administration from the European Business School and a master's in South Asian studies from London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. She later interned at ArcelorMittal before getting her seat in the boardroom. Vanisha is perhaps best known for her $60 million five-day wedding spectacle in Paris in 2005.
· More on the Mittal Family
· See More Heiresses to Watch
Like this? Continue clicking to see more hot galleries from Forbes.
Billionaire Heiresses to Watch
Instead, Peter Buffett urges people to have self-respect, to remember that financial wealth doesn't make you better than anyone else, and to disregard society's emphasis on always having more material possessions. He also relates how he's a better person because his father often exposed him to people who were less fortunate than his family.
"Economic prosperity may come and go; that's just how it is," he writes in the book. "But values are the steady currency that earn us the all-important rewards."
It's inspiring to see the son of a very wealthy man talk about ethics, the importance of values and how true wealth isn't based on how much money is in your bank account, but rather enduring personal qualities and attributes, such as generosity and hard work.
It would have been very easy for Peter Buffett to sponge off his father wealth, or to even follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a career in the financial world. But that's not where his heart and his passions lay. Instead, he chose to become a musician, a path he's still following at the age of 52.
Hats off also to the wise Warren Buffett for not being the type of parent to just hand everything to his son on a silver platter, and for always encouraging his son to follow his dreams.
I wonder how many of us -- wealthy, poor and everything in between -- would be comfortable telling our children to "do whatever makes you happy," and really meaning it, regardless of what size paycheck it would bring our children?
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has also been featured in top newspapers including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller
'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'
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Comments: (7)
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By: ooozzzzz on 5/10/2010 5:23PM
Good advice.
Peter Buffett can take this position as the son of multi-billionaire Warren Buffett since his children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth.
Don’t look for Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett’s names on the Forbes list of richest Americans any time soon. Sure, they’ve got more money than the average millionaire. After all, their dad is Warren Buffett. But he’s not drawing up a mega inheritance for them. Buffett has indicated his opposition to the transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next
A past comment that Warren Buffett once made stated, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing". So in essence, billionaire Warren Buffett only gave his children just enough in order to not suffer financially but they will have to work hard and earn a living without that inherited generational billionaire parachute to keep them afloat.
Plus, Warren Buffett who's net worth is about $44 billion, give away 85% of his Berkshire Hathaway fortune in July 2006; most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He had said for decades that his wealth would go to philanthropy and charity foundations.
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By: ARNEADER on 5/10/2010 6:25PM
This is so TRUE my kid is sweet and SPOILED.
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By: MrHuey.com on 5/11/2010 9:09PM
This guy is doing a good thing because he's going everywhere telling this same story and more and more of us need to hear these types of things, considering the path our nation is taking on the subject of Wealth.
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By: Andy on 5/11/2010 7:56PM
I too was initially quite skeptical about a billionaire's son preaching about the value of money, but after reading some reviews and skimming through the book it does in fact provide some good ol' common sense advice for a large cross section of our society today. As reviewed here, http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2010/05/financial-habits-and-values-from-warren.html , I am sure this book will be read my many, only if to get more insight into what makes the Buffet family and their offspring tick.
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By: K from atlanta on 5/11/2010 1:00PM
I am glad that Mr Buffett learned this simple lesson. Our nation is full of people with the idea that they are owed something. Its an easy lesson to learn when you are trying to find yourself and you sumble and make some wrong choices and your daddy has billions. Try living in the real world where every desision you make could put you on the street with nothing and no one to help. Having worked from age 12 till now and I can't find a job and the company I worked for can't buy a job and all I have worked for in my life is held in the balances and may lose all. My father is retired preacher and I have always made more than him.
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By: meanvee on 5/12/2010 10:19AM
This is a good article and should be shown to more millionaire kids who look down on people who are not as fortunate as them, what the parents don't realize is that when they spoil these kids by giving them everything they want is depriving them of crucial survival skills, if the hiltons suddenly lost their fortune what would paris do to survive?
http://www.CoinandBillCounters.com
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By: saveIT on 5/12/2010 3:10PM
if he ain't giving away money...damn his tip!
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