The Snowball
Metaphorical imagery begins with the title of the book. The snowball is, in fact, the controlling metaphor for the entire premise of Buffett’s ideological imperative of how one goes about getting obscenely rich or simply comfortable.
“Warren is catching snowflakes. One at a time at first. Then he is scooping them up by handfuls. He starts to pack them into a ball. As the snowball grows bigger, he places it on the ground. Slowly it begins to roll. He gives it a push, and it picks up more snow.”
Fundamental Concepts
The snowball theory of the cumulative effect of compounded interest eventually leads Buffett from the lowest level of building wealth to the corporate level. A fundamental concept of corporate wealth begins to consume him:
“How do companies make money? A company was much like a person. It had to go out and find a way to keep a roof over its employees’ and shareholders’ heads.”
He Didn’t Mean YOUR Name
Warren Buffett is far from the only famous businessperson to have studied Dale Carnegie’s social bible How to Win Friends and Influence People. It has been said that prototype for all the business advice books to follow was studied closely by Donald Trump also. That claims seems unlikely, however, or if it is true, then he certainly failed to understand it. Consider the way in which Buffett got one of Carnegie’s foundational rules for success completely as intended while Trump could not possibly have misinterpreted the point of the metaphor more egregiously:
“The sweetest sound in the English language is the sound of a person’s own name.”
The Prophet
Buffett’s legend grew to spiritual proportions, which is perhaps only to be expected in a country where capitalism is a religion. He eventually acquired the nickname the Oracle of Omaha for a seeming ability to predict the future course of stock performance. But the metaphor goes even deeper:
“The Congressmen excoriated Salomon, postured as saviors of investors, and demanded a total break with the past. Nonetheless, they appeared slightly awed by Buffett. When he spoke, `The Red Sea parted, and the Oracle appeared’”
