The Mentor I Never Met: A Personal Tribute to Warren Buffett

This week I read Warren Buffett’s final letter — his quiet goodbye after more than six decades of teaching the world how to think about business, investing, and life. I didn’t expect it to hit me the way it did. It felt like a chapter closing in real time — the Buffett era that shaped the entire direction of my life.

My journey into investing began in a finance class at USC. The professor posed a simple question: “If markets are efficient, how do you explain Warren Buffett?” He showed our class a graph comparing Buffett’s results to the averages. One by one, he asked every student for an explanation. No one had one — including me.

For some reason, that question shook me awake.

I went straight to the bookstore and picked up The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom. I couldn’t put it down. The logic, the rationality, the simplicity — it felt like reading something written in the exact language my mind was wired for. I’d been fascinated by stocks since high school, but I had no real direction, no philosophy, no framework. Buffett once said what became my favorite quote — the idea that shaped my entire approach to investing:

“To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework.”

For the first time, I felt like I had found it. A sense of clarity washed over me — I wasn’t just learning about investing; I was finally seeing the path I was meant to follow. By the time I finished the book, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

From that day forward, I devoured everything Buffett ever wrote — and everything ever written about him. His shareholder letters became my real education, far better than anything a business school could teach. Through them, he taught me how to think about businesses, competitive advantages, management quality, and long-term ownership. But he also taught me something deeper: how to live with integrity, patience, discipline, and character.

Every February, I looked forward to his annual letter like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. It wasn’t just investing. It was mentorship from afar. People often talk about how important it is to have a mentor early in life. The truth is, I never found that person in the traditional sense. I never had someone sit me down, guide me, open doors, or teach me how to make decisions. But I did have Warren — and Charlie. Even though I never met either of them, they mentored me through their writings, their interviews, their annual shareholder meetings where they tirelessly answered questions, their decisions, and the lives they lived. Their words became my guideposts when I didn’t have anyone else showing me the way.

In his final letter, Warren wrote: “Get the right heroes and copy them.” I smiled when I read that, because I realized I had been doing exactly that for nearly two decades. His heroes were Ben Graham and Tom Murphy. Mine were Warren and Charlie. And in my own small way, I tried to walk the path they illuminated. Rowan Street Capital was born out of that desire. I knew early on that if I wanted to invest the way Warren taught — patiently, independently, without the noise and incentives of Wall Street — I couldn’t do it inside a big firm. And truthfully, I couldn’t do it working for anyone else either. Starting Rowan Street was my way of honoring the principles he lived by. It was the only way I could truly invest the way my heroes taught.

Reading this final letter made me feel something I didn’t expect: sadness, gratitude, and a deep awareness of how fortunate I’ve been to learn from him. Without Warren Buffett, I simply wouldn’t be doing what I do today. His writing shaped the way I think, the way I invest, and the way I live. Rowan Street Capital exists in large part because one man in Omaha chose to share his wisdom with anyone willing to listen.

It truly is the end of an era.

But it’s also the beginning of a quiet responsibility — for those of us shaped by his teachings — to carry forward the principles he lived by: rational thought, unwavering patience, emotional discipline and temperament, integrity above all, and the courage to think independently and long-term in a world obsessed with short-term gains.

Thank you, Warren, for everything.

You changed my life.

And I hope I can honor even a small part of what you taught me — in the way I invest, the way I think, and the way I live.

— Alex Kopel

(These are my personal reflections and not investment advice.)