In this startlingly frank account of Buffett's life, Schroeder, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley—and hand picked by Buffett to be his biographer—strips away the mystery that has long cloaked the word's richest man to reveal a life and fortune erected around lucid and inspired business vision and unimaginable personal complexity. In a book that is dominated by unstinting descriptions of Buffett's appetites—for profit, women (particularly nurturing maternal types), food (Buffett maintained his and his family's weight by "dangling money")—it is refreshing that Schroeder keeps her tone free of judgment or awe; Buffett's plain-speaking suffuses the book and renders his public and private successes and failures wonderfully human and universal. Schroeder's sections detailing the genesis of Buffett's investment strategy, his early mentoring by Benjamin Graham (who imparted the memorable "cigar butt" scheme: purchasing discarded stocks and taking a final puff). Inspiring managerial advice abounds and competes with gossipy tidbits (the married Buffett's very public relationship with Washington Post editor Katherine Graham) in this rich, surprisingly affecting biography.

艾丽斯·施罗德，曾任摩根士丹利的董事总经理，因撰写伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的研究报告而与巴菲特结识，而巴菲特也因为赏识她的洞察力、和掌握主题的能力，授权施罗德撰写他的人生故事。生于德州，在得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校获得学士及MBA学位。拥有会计师执照，目前与丈夫居住在康涅狄格州。