In 1971, the world was changing fast.

The Nasdaq opened as the world’s first electronic stock market. Intel released the first microprocessor. Starbucks opened its first store. Blue Ribbon became Nike. Federal Express was born.

But the biggest story came on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold and changed the global monetary system forever.

In this episode of Becoming Berkshire, we look at the end of Bretton Woods, the rise of stagflation, and Berkshire Hathaway’s 1971 results, where Buffett was still fighting the textile business while quietly building something much better through insurance and banking.

In this episode of Becoming Berkshire, we continue through 1971 with George Goodman’s Supermoney and the investing philosophy that shaped Warren Buffett.

Benjamin Graham gave Buffett the foundation: margin of safety, Mr. Market, intrinsic value, and the discipline to avoid permanent loss of capital. But investments like American Express and Disney showed the first signs of Buffett’s evolution from buying cheap stocks to recognizing the value of great businesses.

This episode explores Graham’s influence, Buffett’s partnership years, and the early bridge between cigar-butt investing and franchise value.

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.

Ep. 15

In 1969, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger redirected their capital away from stripped-down sectors like textiles and retail—seeking businesses with resilience, reliable cash flow, and fulfillment of Berkshire’s long-term vision. That quest led them to the Illinois National Bank of Rockford, run by Eugene Abegg—a vivid character who carried large sums in cash, rented safe deposit boxes at cocktail parties, and even printed his own currency.

This episode explores:

• The backstory behind the acquisition and purchase price dynamics

• The bank’s financial health: assets, equity, ROE, and ROA

• How this marked a strategic pivot for Buffett—away from failing textiles and toward cash-generating, float-rich enterprises like banking and insurance

Read the full issue here: https://open.substack.com/pub/theweekendinvestor/p/becoming-berkshire-1969-part-2-illinois?r=21sroa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

In 1969, Warren Buffett retired from managing money and dissolved his partnership, shifting his focus more towards Berkshire Hathaway. This decision occurred during a period of significant economic change marked by the onset of "stagflation" and sharp drawdowns for "high-flying go-go stocks", as Buffett found the investing environment increasingly "negative and frustrating" and struggled to find new opportunities that aligned with his investment style. Throughout his partnership, Buffett consistently followed fundamentalist investment principles, focusing on basic value, a margin of safety, and avoiding "glamour stocks" or "concept companies," a disciplined approach that contrasted sharply with the speculative market of the late 1960s.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theweekendinvestor/p/becoming-berkshire-1969-part-1-buffett?r=21sroa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false