The Snowball is the definitive biography of Warren Buffett, authorized by Buffett himself. The title comes from Buffett’s own metaphor for how wealth (and life) works: “Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.”
The book traces Buffett’s life from his childhood in Omaha, Nebraska—where he was a mathematical prodigy obsessed with numbers and making money—through his studies under Benjamin Graham at Columbia, his partnership years, and his transformation of Berkshire Hathaway into a massive conglomerate.
But the “business of life” in the subtitle is key. Schroeder explores not just Buffett’s investing genius but also his personal complexities: his complicated relationship with his first wife, Susie; his emotional distance from his children; his late-life friendship with Bill Gates; and his struggles with loneliness, guilt, and the drive to keep compounding everything—money, relationships, reputation.