No Reflection On Ability

The following is Fortune magazine’s description of Warren Buffet’s dealings with the Blumkin family, prior to the family’s splitting into competitive factions: The Blumkin family (or as Buffet refers to them, “the amazing Blumkins”) meet for dinner every few weeks at an Omaha restaurant. The Blumkins attending usually include Louis, 68, and his sons: Ron, 39; Irv, 35; and Steve, 33. The matriarch of the family and chair of the Furniture Mart is Rose Blumkin, who emigrated from Russia as a young woman and started a tiny furniture store that offered rock-bottom prices.

Her motto: “Sell cheap and tell the truth.” She built this furniture store into a business that last year did $140 million in sales. At age ninety-four, she still works seven days a week in the carpet department. Buffet says in his new annual report that she is clearly gathering speed and may well reach her full potential in another five or ten years.

He goes on to say, “Therefore, I’ve persuaded the board to scrap our mandatory retirement-at-100 policy. And it’s about time; with every passing year, this policy has seemed sillier to me.” Buffet simply does not regard age as having any bearing on how well a person can perform a job. He says, “Good managers are so scarce I can’t afford the luxury of letting them go just because they’ve added a year to their age.”