Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2013 and discusses a Bloomberg TV interview with Warren Buffett, his son and his grandson from that month; the views and circumstances described were current then.
Warren Buffett, together with his son and grandson, was interviewed by Bloomberg about charity and succession, although the most interesting part of the interview is where Buffett talks about the importance of luck in life (once again).
Warren Buffett says he was very lucky to have been born at the right time. In essence, this is what he said:
I was born in the United States. The odds were 30 or 40 to 1. I had some lucky genes and I was born at the right time. If I had been born thousands of years ago, I would probably have ended up as some animal’s lunch, because I’m not very fast and I’m not good at climbing trees.
There’s a lot of chance in the way we come into this world, but once you’re out of the womb, you decide what kind of person you’re going to be, although you can’t decide whether you’ll have to fight uphill all the way or work harder than everyone else.
In my view, we’re all created equal, although we don’t all have the same opportunities to begin with.
Luck plays an important role in life, but we can also choose how we use that luck and try to make more of our own luck.
The truth is that Warren Buffett is sticking to his usual line here: on other occasions he has told Americans (and by extension Europeans) that if you were born in the United States and you have two arms and two legs, you have the same opportunities as everyone else, although some will have to work harder than others.
Further reading
Featured image: US Department of State, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
