The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [173]
“And, sure enough, the vendors were saying there were five hundred sheets per roll in one of these things. And there weren’t. He was getting screwed on toilet paper.”
Buffett knew that he wanted to be in business with the kind of guy who would leave a black-tie party to count sheets of toilet paper; a guy who might screw the guy across the table but never his own partner. He made a deal with Rosner for $6 million. To make sure that Rosner would stay on the job after he bought the business, he flattered Rosner, made certain he got the numbers to evaluate its performance, and otherwise left him alone.16
Buffett felt at one with the Ben Rosners of the world—he saw in their relentlessness the spirit of success. He was sick of problem companies like Hochschild-Kohn and was looking for more Ben Rosners, people who had built excellent businesses that he could buy. He and Rosner shared a mutual obsession. As Buffett liked to put it, “Intensity is the price of excellence.”
30
Jet Jack
Omaha • 1967
As late as 1967, Susie seemed to think that Warren would be more attentive to her and the family if he quit working. In her mind, the two of them had an understanding that they would scale back their lives once he made $8 or $10 million. His 1966 fees of $1.5 million and gains on his capital brought the family’s net worth to over $9 million.1 She badgered him that the time had come. But Warren’s pace never slackened as he shifted his focus from one preoccupation to another: raising money for the partnerships, buying National American, Sanborn Map, Dempster, Berkshire Hathaway, Hochschild-Kohn, American Express, and any number of investments in between. Sometimes his back seized up when he got on a plane, and occasionally Susie had to nurse him for several days while he was bedridden with pain. His doctor couldn’t find any specific cause, suggesting that work or stress might have something to do with it. But Warren was about as likely to stop working for the sake of his back as he was to fork down a big plate of broccoli for the sake of his health.
He was always sitting hunched over something, a book, the phone, a bridge or poker game with friends like Dick Holland and Nick Newman, a prominent businessman who owned Hinky Dinky, the same grocery chain from which Warren had slunk, humiliated, as a boy after his grandfather sent him to buy loaves of bread. Newman and his wife were active in the community and in civil-rights circles, and, like the low-key Hollands, they were typical of the Buffetts’ friends. Warren and Susie stayed away from the Omaha social circuit. Their joint social life was evolving into a series of recurring events that followed the rhythm of Warren’s work and often took place when they were traveling to see Warren’s friends. In town, however, Susie stayed on call; she shuttled between her own friends, family, needy cases, and community work. A sign now hung on the Buffetts’ unlocked back door that read: “The Doctor Is In.” One or another of Susie’s “patients” could often be found wandering around the house. Her clientele came from all different ages and stations in life, and some were more demanding than others. They asked and Susie gave, and when they asked for more, she gave more.
When Susie asked, Warren gave, and when Susie asked for more, Warren complied. Unyielding about how he spent