Welcome to 1971.

The markets are reeling from one of the worst bear markets since the Great Depression. Speculation has collapsed, confidence is shaken, and the financial world is searching for answers.

In this episode of Becoming Berkshire, we turn to an unlikely source: George Goodman, writing under the name Adam Smith, and his book Supermoney. Written in the depths of the 1969–72 bear market, Supermoney captured the unraveling of Wall Street’s excesses—and quietly documented the most extraordinary investment record of the era.

At the time, almost no one was paying attention.

Goodman asked a simple question in 1971: Who is Warren Buffett?

Even seasoned financial journalists didn’t know the answer.

From a modest office in Omaha, Buffett had compounded capital at an astonishing rate for over a decade—without publicity, without committees, and without participating in the speculative culture of the 1960s. While others chased concepts and technology, Buffett applied Benjamin Graham’s principles with absolute consistency and stepped away entirely at the height of his success.

This episode explores why the world missed him, how distance from Wall Street became an advantage, and what Supermoney reveals about temperament, discipline, and time—the real foundations of compounding.

Episode 17 | 1970: Goodbody’s Fall, Walmart’s Rise, and Buffett’s First Float Play

1970 opened with chaos on Wall Street. Broker-dealers were failing, the Fed was scrambling, and Goodbody & Co.—once a pillar of the brokerage world—collapsed in scandal before being rescued by Merrill Lynch. Meanwhile, in Bentonville, Arkansas, Sam Walton was taking Walmart public, setting the stage for one of the greatest retail stories ever told.

At the same time, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Rick Guerin were quietly buying into Blue Chip Stamps, discovering the power of float—a concept that would define Berkshire Hathaway’s future. And inside Berkshire, the textile mill was fading, but insurance and banking were beginning to take root.

This episode explores the contrasts of 1970: Wall Street’s crisis, Walmart’s rise, and the early blueprint of what Berkshire would become.

Episode 16

Our podcast delves into 1970, a year of profound financial turmoil where the Dow Jones plummeted amidst recession fears and an "uneasy Republican administration". We'll uncover two critical events: the Penn Central Transportation Company's bankruptcy, which sent "shock waves through the commercial paper market" and required urgent Federal Reserve intervention to prevent a domino effect on Wall Street. Simultaneously, the near-collapse of Hayden, Stone & Co., a major securities firm plagued by "terrible" record-keeping and bad investments, threatened to freeze 90,000 customer accounts and bankrupt "perhaps another fifty firms," narrowly averted by last-minute efforts involving figures up to President Nixon. During this chaos, Warren Buffett strategically invested further in Berkshire Hathaway and Blue Chip Stamps as his partnership dissolved, navigating the challenging economic landscape.