The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [508]
Also in 2008, Berkshire had acquired Marmon, a small industrial conglomerate that made electrical components, railroad tank cars and containers, truck flatbeds, industrial equipment and materials, and the like, with revenues of $7 billion. The seller was the Pritzker family, which had decided to break up its conglomerate to settle family squabbling that had broken out after the death of Buffett’s old coattailing hero Jay Pritzker in 1999.
Buffett had seen many examples of family squabbles among the rich when the patriarch died; he was comfortable that his own arrangements would prevent that. Little squabbling was going on within the Buffett family in the wake of Susie’s will and the gift to the Gates Foundation. Howie and Susie Jr. were doing what they loved: farming and giving money away. Peter was in discussions with Robert Redford to bring Spirit: The Seventh Fire to Redford’s Sundance resort as an annual summer event. He was also in talks with sponsors in Germany and in China about overseas tours of the show, and was about to release his latest CD, Imaginary Kingdom.
The one exception to the harmony was Buffett’s adopted granddaughter Nicole Buffett. In 2006 Nicole had participated in Jamie Johnson and Nick Kurzon’s documentary The One Percent, a story about the children of the rich. In the documentary, Nicole unwisely positioned herself as a spokesman for the unspoiled Buffett way of life. The documentary, which appeared shortly before Buffett’s donation to the Gates Foundation, resulted in follow-up appearances on CNN, National Public Radio, and an invitation to appear on an Oprah episode about social class in America. Buffett’s reaction was harsh; he had sent word to Nicole that he didn’t consider her his granddaughter, and if asked, would say so. Nicole told Oprah, “It’s a weird thing to be working for a very wealthy family considering I do come from one of the wealthiest families in America.” She said she was “at peace with” not having inherited wealth—apparently a reference to the small amounts that Susie had left her grandchildren—but added, “I do feel that it would be nice to be involved with creating things for others with that money and to be involved in it. I feel completely excluded from it.” The “poor little me” aspect of her interview was her second mistake.
Afterward, she sent Buffett a letter asking why he had disavowed her. In August 2006, he wrote back3 offering her good wishes, told her that she had reason to be proud of her accomplishments, and gave her some worthwhile advice. Positioning herself with people as a member of the Buffett family was a mistake, he wrote. “If you do so, it will become your primary identity with them. People will react to you based on that ‘fact’ rather than to who you are or what you have accomplished.” He also wrote, “I have not legally or emotionally adopted you as a grandchild, nor have the rest of my family adopted you as a niece or cousin…. It is simply a fact that just as [your mother] is in no respect my daughter-in-law, her children are not my grandchildren.”
Despite the controlled tone of the letter, Nicole had wounded him in his most tender spot—his identity and that of his family. Otherwise, he might have thought twice about sending the letter, which backfired badly on him. Nicole may have been wrong, but she seemed sincere. Instead of reining her in, the rejection letter set her off on another round of interviews that made Buffett look like Ebenezer Scrooge; one result was a Page Six story in the New York Post (“Buffett to Kin: You’re Fired!”)4 portraying him as taking vengeance on her for participating in the documentary. To the man who had worked so hard for a lifetime never to alienate anyone, it was a painful irony—but perhaps the story would have a happier ending someday. Buffett had been able to make up with Mrs. B;