Well, thank you for having me here today. You know, I often get asked this question, Warren, if you were starting over today, what would you do differently? And I have to tell you, it's one of my favorite questions to think about because it forces me to separate what's worked because of luck and timing from what's worked because of sound principles. So, let me be very clear from the start. If I were a young person in 2026, let's say I'm 25 years old, just like I was back in 1955, I would be absolutely thrilled, not discouraged, not intimidated by all the changes in the world, but thrilled because the opportunities available to young people today are extraordinary in ways that simply didn't exist when I was starting out. Now, I'm not going to pretend I'd be navigating TikTok or buying digital tokens or whatever the latest thing is, but what I would be doing is applying the same fundamental principles that made me wealthy adapted intelligently to the tools and opportunities of 2026.
Because here's the thing that most people don't understand. The principles of wealth building don't change. Human nature doesn't change. Mathematics doesn't change. What changes are the costumes, the terminology, the technology, but underneath it all, it's the same game it's always been. I'm in my mid-90s now, and I watched market cycles come and go. I've seen the go-go years of the 1960s, the stagflation of the 1970s, the junk bond era of the 1980s, the dot-com bubble, the housing crisis, and now whatever we want to call this current era, the AI boom, the crypto craze, the meme stock phenomenon. Different clothes, same human behavior. So today, I'm going to walk you through exactly what I would do if I were starting fresh in 2026. Not what I think you should do. I'm not your financial adviser, but what I, Warren Buffett, would do if I woke up tomorrow as a 25-year-old with my same brain, my same discipline, but none of my capital, and all of today's opportunities.
Let's start by acknowledging what's different because there have been real changes since I was buying my first stocks in the 1940s and 50s. When I started out, if you wanted to buy a stock, you called a broker. You paid hefty commissions, sometimes 2 to 3% of your trade. You couldn't just pull up a company's annual report on your phone while sitting on a bus. You had to write to the company and wait for them to mail it to you. I used to go through Moody's manuals page by page in the library, writing down numbers by hand. Today, you can open a brokerage account in minutes on your phone. You can trade with zero commissions. You can read decades of annual reports, earnings calls, SEC filings, all for free instantly. The playing field has never been more level. When I say I'd be thrilled to be starting today, this is a big part of why. When I was young, if you wanted to own a diversified portfolio of stocks, you either needed enough money to buy shares in dozens of companies or you paid into a mutual fund that charged you 1 to 2% annually and usually underperformed. Anyway, John Bogle changed everything when he created the first index fund at Vanguard. Now you can buy the entire S&P 500 for a 0.03% expense ratio. That's revolutionary. It's beautiful actually. It means that a school teacher or a plumber can invest just as effectively as someone with millions.
This is where things get concerning. You've got cryptocurrencies with no intrinsic value trading for billions of dollars. You've got SPACs, blank check companies raising money with no business plan. You've got retail traders organized on social media buying stocks not because of business fundamentals, but to stick it to hedge funds. You got people day trading options on their lunch breaks like it's a video game. I've seen speculation before. I lived through the 1960s conglomerates, the 1980s junk bonds, the 1990s dot-com mania. But the speed and accessibility of modern speculation is something new. 20-year-olds are gambling their life savings on crypto coins named after dog memes. That's not investing. That's not even intelligent speculation. It's just gambling with a smartphone.
Now, I'm not a technology expert. I freely admit that. I still don't carry a smartphone and I'm not about to start coding at my age. But even I can see that AI is a genuine revolution. Perhaps the biggest technological shift since the internet, maybe since electricity. Companies that successfully harness AI will have enormous competitive advantages. Companies that don't will struggle to survive. If I were starting today, I'd be studying AI the way I studied insurance and banking in my youth. Not because I need to build AI systems, but because I need to understand which businesses will benefit from it and which will be disrupted by it.
For most of my career, you could earn meaningful returns in bonds. There were periods where you could get 5%, 6%, even double-digit yields on safe government bonds. That affected everything. How we valued stocks, what alternatives look like, how much you needed to save for retirement. Today's environment is more complex. We've had years of near-zero rates. Then suddenly rates spiked. Inflation came roaring back after decades of being relatively tame. These changes affect the math of investing, but they don't change the principles. When I was young, the challenge was getting information. Now the challenge is filtering information. You're bombarded constantly. 24-hour financial news, social media, podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, TikTok influencers, telling you about the next big thing. Everyone's got a hot take, and most of them are wrong. If I were starting today, I'd have to be extremely disciplined about what information I consumed. The ability to ignore noise would be more valuable than ever.
Now, let's talk about what hasn't changed, because this is far more important than what has changed. People are still greedy when they should be fearful and fearful when they should be greedy. They still want to get rich quick. They still panic during market crashes. They still compare themselves to their neighbors and make foolish financial decisions to keep up appearances. They still believe they can time the market, that they can find shortcuts, that somehow the rules don't apply to them. I've been watching humans interact with markets for over 70 years and I promise you people in 2026 are making the exact same emotional mistakes as people in 1956. Different assets, same psychology. Einstein or whoever actually said it called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. It was true then, it's true now, it'll be true in 2126.
If you save money and earn a reasonable return over a long period, you will become wealthy. The mathematics don't care about AI or crypto or whatever. 10% annual return still doubles your money roughly every seven years. The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you got to do it. I said that decades ago, and it's just as true today. Once you hit that first $100,000, the compounding accelerates in ways that feel magical, but are really just mathematical. Ben Graham taught me to think of stocks as pieces of businesses, not as ticker symbols that bounce around. He taught me to buy when price is below intrinsic value, to maintain a margin of safety, to be patient. These principles worked in the 1930s. They worked in the 1950s when I started applying them. They worked through every decade since. And they work today. Yes, the world changes. Yes, new industries emerge. But the fundamental principle, buy a dollar for 50 cents, that doesn't change. The stock market is still a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient. That was true when I started and it's true today. Maybe even more true today when everyone wants instant results and the average holding period for a stock is measured in months, not years. If I were starting today, I'd know that my willingness to wait 5, 10, 20 years would give me an enormous edge over everyone trying to get rich by next week.
Rule number one, never lose money. Rule number two, never forget rule number one. I'm serious about this. The math of losses is vicious. If you lose 50%, you need a 100% gain to get back to even. This is why I've always been more focused on not doing dumb things than on finding the next Google or Amazon. Most people would be wealthy if they simply avoided the big mistakes. Buying things they don't understand, using too much leverage, panicking at the wrong time, paying excessive fees, trading too frequently. You don't need to be brilliant. You just need to be sensible and avoid being stupid. I still live in the house I bought in 1958 for $31,500. I'm not telling you this to brag. I'm telling you because it illustrates a point. Your lifestyle expenses are what determine whether you can save and invest. If you spend everything you earn, it doesn't matter how much you make, you'll never build wealth. This hasn't changed. Young people today face high housing costs, student loans, all sorts of financial pressures I didn't face. But the principle remains, if you can't live on less than you earn, you can't invest. And if you can't invest, you can't build wealth.
All right? So, let's get specific. I'm 25 years old in 2026. I have no money. Maybe I've got a few thousand dollars saved up from a job, but nothing substantial. What do I do? This might surprise you, but before I invested a single dollar in the stock market, I'd invest in my own skills and knowledge. The best investment you can make is in yourself. It's the one asset that nobody can tax, that can't be stolen, that inflation can't erode. If I were starting today, I'd be taking advantage of all the free and cheap education available online. When I was young, I had to physically go to Columbia Business School to learn from Ben Graham. Today, you can learn from the best minds in the world for free or for a tiny fraction of what I paid for my education. I'd be learning about business, about accounting, about psychology, about technology. I'd be reading voraciously just like I still do now. 500 pages a day. That's how knowledge compounds. Most people won't do it, which is exactly why it's such a competitive advantage for those who will. I'd also be developing skills that increase my earning power. The fastest way to build wealth is to earn more money and save the difference. Whether that's learning to code, learning to sell, developing specialized expertise in some field, I'd be focused on increasing my income. I know this isn't sexy. Everyone wants to hear about hot stock picks and secret strategies. But the truth is, if you're starting with little or no capital, your savings rate is everything.
If I were 25 in 2026, I'd probably have roommates. I'd drive a used car or better yet use public transportation or a bike. I'd cook my own meals. I'd skip the expensive coffee shop, the streaming services I don't watch, the gym membership when I could exercise for free outside. I'd be laser focused on keeping my monthly expenses as low as possible. Why? Because every dollar I don't spend is a dollar I can invest. And every dollar I invest at age 25 is worth exponentially more than a dollar I invest at age 45 because of compounding. Let's say I could save $800 a month. That's $9,600 a year. That might not sound like much, but at 10% annual returns, which is roughly what the S&P 500 has averaged over the long term, that's $54,000 after 5 years, $164,000 after 10 years, and over $600,000 after 20 years. That's just from saving $800 a month.
If I had any credit card debt, student loans with high interest rates, or car loans, my first priority would be paying those off. This is non-negotiable. Why? Because if you're paying 15% interest on credit card debt, you can't out-earn that. Paying off that debt is a guaranteed 15% return. That's better than almost any investment you can find. I'd live on rice and beans if I had to. But I'd get rid of high-interest debt as fast as possible. Only then would I start investing in the market. Once I had a small emergency fund, maybe $1,000 to $2,000 to cover unexpected expenses and no high-interest debt, I'd open a brokerage account. Today, you can do this in minutes with Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, or several other reputable firms. Zero commissions, no minimum balance requirements. And here's what I'd buy. A low-cost S&P 500 index fund. That's it. Nothing fancy.
Now, I spent my career picking individual stocks and I've done pretty well at it, but I'm honest enough to tell you most people shouldn't do what I do. It takes enormous time, discipline, emotional control, and a temperament that most people don't have. For the vast majority of investors, the right answer is simple. Invest regularly in a low-cost index fund and don't touch it. I've said this publicly many times. I've even instructed the trustee of my estate to invest 90% of my wife's inheritance in an S&P 500 index fund. Why index funds? Because you're buying a piece of 500 of the largest American companies, automatically diversified. When you buy an S&P 500 index fund, you own Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, all of them. The fees are minimal, usually under 0.1% annually, and over long periods, you'll likely beat 90% of professional investors who charge much higher fees.
If I were starting today, I'd set up automatic transfers from my checking account to my brokerage account. Let's say every time I get paid, $400 automatically goes into my investment account and immediately buys more shares in my index fund. Why automate? Because it removes emotion from the equation. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to debate whether now is a good time to invest. I don't see the money sitting in my checking account tempting me to spend it. It just happens month after month, year after year. This is what we call dollar-cost averaging, though I don't love that term because people overthink it. The point is simple. You're buying consistently regardless of whether the market is up or down. When prices are high, your $400 buys fewer shares. When prices are low, it buys more shares. Over time, this works out beautifully.
Now, let's talk about the first major goal, reaching $100,000 in investable assets. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you got to do it. Why is this milestone so important? Because of mathematics. When you have $10,000 invested and you earn 10% in a year, you make $1,000. That feels like nothing. You probably spent more than that on rent in a single month. But when you have $100,000 invested and you earn 10%, you make $10,000. Now we're talking about meaningful money. Your investments are starting to generate returns that feel substantial. When you reach $200,000, a 10% return is $20,000. That's potentially more than you saved that year from your salary. Your money is working as hard as you are. By the time you hit $500,000, a 10% return is $50,000. You effectively have a second high-paying job, except you don't have to show up. This is why I say the first $100,000 changes everything. It's the inflection point where compounding shifts from feeling theoretical to feeling real.
So, how do you get there? Let's do the math. After year one, about $10,000. After year three, about $32,000. After year five, about $61,000. After year seven, about $96,000. After year eight, you've crossed $100,000. So it takes roughly eight years of consistent saving to hit that first $100,000. Does that sound like a long time? It is, but it's going to pass anyway. You can either be eight years older with $100,000 invested or eight years older wishing you had started. Maybe you start by saving $500 a month, but every time you get a raise, you increase your savings. Your income goes from $50,000 to $60,000. You keep living on $50,000 and invest the difference. Then you get promoted. You're earning $75,000, still living on $50,000 or $55,000, investing the rest. If you start at $500 per month and increase by $100 every year, you can hit $100,000 in about six years. That's the power of increasing your savings rate.
Maybe you get a bonus at work or a tax refund or an inheritance. Instead of buying a new car or taking an expensive vacation, you invest it. A $10,000 windfall invested at the start of your journey can shave a year or more off the time it takes to reach $100,000. The key is to treat every windfall as an investment opportunity, not as permission to inflate your lifestyle. During this accumulation phase, this journey to $100,000, your most important asset isn't your investment skill. It's your savings rate and your ability to stay consistent. You could be the world's best stock picker, but if you can't save money, you'll never build wealth.
All right, so we've established the foundation. Now, let's talk about the specific strategy I'd employ in 2026 and beyond. Every percentage point I can save matters enormously over time. If I'm saving 10% of my income versus 20%, I'll have twice as much after 30 years. It's that simple. I'd constantly be asking myself, how can I earn more? How can I spend less? Can I get a roommate? Can I negotiate a raise? Can I start a side business? Can I cut my housing costs? Can I eliminate my car payment? This isn't about being miserable. It's about being intentional. Every dollar has to fight for its life. Does this purchase move me toward my goals or away from them? I'd be putting the vast majority of my money into a simple S&P 500 index fund with an expense ratio under 0.1%. Vanguard's VOO, Fidelity's FXAIX, Schwab's SWPPX, any of these would be fine.
Some people might ask, Warren, wouldn't you pick individual stocks? And the answer is probably not, at least not for a long time. Here's why. When I was young, I had an enormous competitive advantage. I could read annual reports that nobody else was reading. I could find small companies that were statistically cheap because no one else was looking at them. The market was less efficient. Today, information is instant and universal. Millions of people, including sophisticated algorithms, are analyzing every piece of public information the moment it's released. For a young person with limited capital and limited time, the odds of consistently beating the market are very low. Maybe once I had substantial capital, let's say $500,000 or more, and I'd spent years studying businesses, I might allocate a small portion to individual stock picks, but even then, probably only 10-20% of my portfolio. The core would remain in index funds.
When my index fund pays dividends, I'd automatically reinvest them. I wouldn't take the cash. Every penny would go back to work buying more shares. This is crucial. Reinvested dividends are a huge component of long-term returns. Over my lifetime, something like 40% of the stock market's total return has come from dividends that were reinvested. The market will crash. Not maybe, not probably, it will. There will be years where the market drops 20%, 30%, maybe even 50%. It's happened before. It'll happen again. When that happens, I would do absolutely nothing. And actually, that's not quite true. I'd be thrilled because my monthly $800 would be buying more shares at cheaper prices. Think about it this way. Imagine you own a farm that generates $10,000 in crops every year. One day someone offers to buy your farm for $150,000. The next day they offer $100,000. Did your farm change? Are your crops worth less? No. Only the offer changed. That's how you need to think about stocks. The underlying businesses don't change in value just because Mr. Market is having an emotional day. If you own good businesses at reasonable prices, a market crash is just noise.
This cannot be overstated. Fees are a cancer on returns. If I'm paying 1% annually in fees, whether to a financial advisor, a mutual fund, a robo-advisor, whoever, that might not sound like much, but over 30 years, that 1% fee can cost me literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. Let's say I invest $100,000 at 10% annual returns for 30 years with no fees. I end up with about $1.75 million. With a 1% annual fee, I end up with about $1.31 million. The fees cost me $440,000. That's insane. This is why I'd use index funds with expense ratios under 0.1%. Over that same 30-year period, low fees might only cost me $60,000 instead of $440,000. I'm keeping an extra $380,000 in my pocket.
If I were starting in 2026, I would be ruthless about what information I consume. I wouldn't watch financial television. I wouldn't check my account balance daily. I wouldn't follow stock market gurus on social media. I wouldn't read clickbait articles about the next stock to 10x. All of that is noise designed to make you feel like you need to do something. But the greatest investment strategy is usually to do nothing. Buy your index fund, reinvest your dividends, and ignore everything else. I'd read annual reports of companies I found interesting. I'd read books about business and investing. I'd study the history of markets and learn from past manias and crashes. But I wouldn't let short-term noise influence my behavior.
Now, let me talk about how I take advantage of modern opportunities while staying true to fundamental principles. I'd be learning constantly, taking advantage of free resources. YouTube has incredible educational content. You can take courses from top universities online. You can listen to podcasts from successful investors and entrepreneurs. When I was young, I had to travel to New York to learn from Ben Graham. Today, you can learn from anyone, anywhere for free. That's extraordinary. I'd be soaking up knowledge every single day. The internet has made it possible to start businesses with almost no capital. If I had a skill, writing, designing, coding, consulting, I could offer it online and reach customers globally. I'd probably start some kind of side business, not to replace my day job immediately, but to generate additional income that I could invest. Maybe I'd build websites for small businesses. Maybe I'd tutor online. Maybe I'd create some kind of digital product. The specific business doesn't matter. The point is that the internet gives you leverage to reach customers you could never have reached before.
If I were working a job in 2026, I'd max out every tax-advantaged retirement account available to me. If my employer offers a 401(k) match, I'd contribute at least enough to get the full match. That's literally free money. Then I'd max out a Roth IRA if I was eligible. Why? Because tax-free growth over decades is incredibly valuable. The difference between paying taxes on 40 years of gains versus paying no taxes on 40 years of gains is enormous. When I was starting out, investing globally was difficult and expensive. Today, you can buy international index funds just as easily as domestic ones. I'd probably keep most of my portfolio in US stocks because I understand the US economy and legal system better. But I might allocate 10-20% to international index funds for additional diversification. I'd be studying how AI is changing different industries, which businesses will benefit from AI, which ones will be disrupted. This would inform how I think about the economy, even if I'm mostly just buying index funds. But I wouldn't be trying to pick the next Nvidia or speculating on AI startups. That's not investing. That's guessing. I'd let my index fund own all the winners automatically.
Now, let me tell you about all the ways people are going to try to get you to sabotage yourself in 2026. These are the mistakes I'd be vigilant about avoiding. I've been very clear about this publicly. I don't own any cryptocurrency. I never will. And I think it's rat poison squared. Now, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your money. But if you're asking me what I'd do if I were starting in 2026, the answer is simple. I wouldn't touch crypto with a 10-foot pole. Cryptocurrencies don't produce anything. They don't generate earnings or dividends. They don't have intrinsic value. Their entire value is based on someone else being willing to pay more for them tomorrow than you paid today. That's not investing. It's speculation. It's the greater fool theory. Can you make money on crypto? Sure, if you time it right and get lucky. Can you lose everything? Absolutely. And the odds are strongly in favor of the latter over the long term. If I had to choose between buying an S&P 500 index fund and Bitcoin, it wouldn't even be close. I'll take my share of American business profits every single time.
With zero-commission trading and apps that make it feel like a game, there's never been more temptation to trade frequently. Don't do it. Day trading is not investing. The vast majority of day traders lose money. The only consistent winners are the platforms collecting your trades and the IRS collecting taxes on your short-term gains. Every trade you make is a decision that you know more than the person on the other side of the trade. Sometimes you're right, but on average you're not. And every trade has costs, spreads, taxes, mental energy, time. The way to build wealth is to buy and hold for decades, not to trade in and out trying to catch every little move. Every year there are stocks that go up 500%, 1,000%, 2,000%. You'll see stories about people who got rich on Tesla or Nvidia or whatever the next hot thing is. You'll feel like you're missing out. Ignore it. For every Tesla, there are 100 companies that go to zero. You never hear about those. Survivorship bias is real. If I were starting in 2026, I wouldn't be trying to find the next Amazon. I'd just own the whole market through an index fund, which means I'd automatically own Amazon plus the next Amazon when it emerges without having to guess.
This is perhaps the most insidious wealth destroyer. You get a raise, you immediately increase your spending. You get a bonus, you buy a new car. Your income grows, but your savings rate stays the same or even decreases. If I were starting today, every raise would go straight to my investment account. If I could live on $40,000, I'd keep living on $40,000 even when I was earning $80,000. That's how you accelerate wealth building. Most financial advisers charge 1% of assets under management annually. On a $500,000 portfolio, that's $5,000 per year for what? For telling you to stay invested in a diversified portfolio. You don't need to pay someone $5,000 a year for that advice. If I were starting today, I'd manage my own money. It's not complicated. Buy low-cost index funds, reinvest dividends, rebalance once a year, and otherwise do nothing. You don't need to pay someone to do this for you.
People are always trying to predict when the market will crash so they can get out or when it'll bottom so they can get in. They're reading economic forecasts, watching interest rate moves, analyzing charts. It's all nonsense. Nobody can consistently time the market. I can't do it. Charlie couldn't do it. The smartest economist in the world can't do it. If I were starting in 2026, I'd never try to time the market. I'd simply buy consistently regardless of whether the market is high or low and hold forever. If I can't explain how a company makes money or why an investment will generate returns, I won't buy it. This rules out most complex financial products, cryptocurrencies, most IPOs, and a lot of trendy investments. I'd stick to what I understand. Businesses that sell products or services to customers and generate profits. Everything else is speculation.
Now, let's talk about the psychology because this is where most people fail. The math of investing is simple. The psychology is hard. If I'm starting in 2026 at age 25, I've got potentially 60 or 70 years to let compound interest work. That's an enormous advantage. But only if I actually give it time. Most people can't wait. They want results now. They check their accounts daily. They panic when the market drops. They get bored when nothing exciting is happening. If I were starting today, I'd embrace boredom. I'd think of investing like watching grass grow or watching paint dry. The less exciting my investments are, the better I'm probably doing. The market will test you emotionally. It'll soar and you'll feel like a genius. Then it'll crash and you'll feel like an idiot. Neither feeling is rational. I'd work hard to separate my emotions from my money. When the market crashes 30%, I'd remind myself that I'm buying shares cheaper. When it soars 50%, I'd remind myself that I'm buying shares more expensively. But either way, I'd keep buying.
The people who get wealthy aren't the smartest or the most educated. They're the ones who can control their emotions when everyone else is panicking or getting euphoric. Social media makes this harder than ever. You'll see people your age showing off their crypto gains, their new Tesla, their expensive watches. It's all noise. You have no idea whether those people are actually wealthy or just projecting an image. You don't know if they're drowning in debt. You don't know if their crypto portfolio crashed the week after they posted. Your only competition is your past self. Are you more financially secure than you were last year? Are you making progress toward your goals? That's all that matters. This seems counterintuitive, but if you're in the accumulation phase, building toward your first million, market crashes are your friend. Think about it. If you're consistently buying shares month after month and prices drop 40%, you're getting shares on sale. You're buying more shares with the same amount of money. The only people who should fear market crashes are people who need to sell in the near term. If you're 25 and investing for the next 40 years, crashes are gifts. When everyone else is terrified, I'd be excited. Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. That's not just a catchy phrase. It's a profound investment philosophy. Most people in the market are trying to get rich quickly. Hedge funds are trying to beat their quarterly benchmarks. Day traders are trying to make money this week. Financial media is trying to get clicks today. If I'm starting in 2026 at age 25, I'm playing a 40-year game. I'm completely indifferent to what happens this quarter or this year. I care about where I'll be in 2046, 2056, 2066. This fundamental difference in time horizon gives
