Just to note, warrenbuffett.com is not an official Warren Buffett site. The front page does say this - but this article does not. This doesn't detract from the article's quality - just the provenance of this copy.

How about listening to actual rich people, not those who run websites acting as if they know what made someone rich.

In that case, may I recommend The Millionaire Next Door?

http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/d...

EDIT: Must say I'm not really sure why I was downmodded; this is an excellent book (a classic really) that provides advice from 'actual rich people'. Maybe it's the get-rich-slowly aspect?

I haven't read this, but Nasim Taleb talks about it a lot in Fooled by Randomness. For example, Thomas Stanley, the book's author, states that risk taking is a common characteristic that rich people have. Nasim basically says "Yeah, sure, but what about the masses of people who are poor because of their risk taking?"

I recommend reading Fooled by Randomness first and then, if you're still interested, The Millionaire Next Door.

That's a good point. Lots of the factoids about rich people don't say anything about all the people who used those approaches. So, besides things like common sense and intuition, it is hard to get a statistically accurate idea about the correlation between the methods and their users' success.

When you get down to 0 or -1 often it's just assholes being arbitrary or pedantic. Don't worry about it. Asking why you were downmodded is a sure way to get dowmodded more though; it annoys people.

On the other hand, saying "I know I'll get downmodded for this, but..." is a sure way to get upmodded:)

And Felix Dennis' How to Get Rich. http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp...

btw failure stories may be even more interesting.... generalizing from incomplete data sets (winners only) is dangerous.

Only if you have a scientific mindset. Otherwise it might be just inspiring ;)

A lot of rich people didn't theorize much about how to get rich. They just followed their gut feeling about how to execute, and they did it with confidence. Maybe the confidence makes all the difference.

I think quite a lot of poor people also just followed their gut feeling about how to execute, and did it with confidence. But of course you don't get to hear so much from them, for obvious reasons.

Yeah, maybe. Can't say without reliable data.

What do you do if your gut feeling tells you, with confidence, to study what rich people did before attempting it yourself?

Just saying :)

Unavoidable.

How about this less scientific but more practical approach. Go ahead & listen to W Buffet, Cuban or anyone else because they made it. You have a limited amount of listening you can do.

Then use sense, common or otherwise.

#11: Listen to your own advice and not speculate in derivatives

(re: http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2008/11/...)

I think "10. Know What Success Really Means" is awesome. Truly shows what a man he is.

why is this typo-riddled article, full of "folksy" tales, on the front page? "save money and reinvest profits"? is that so, cap'n obvious? :D

It's not obvious. Most of the people on this site, if they sold their website or whatever project for 100.000, will blow at least 20.000 on pointless stuff.

There is nothing wrong with blowing 20% of whatever you make on pointless stuff (though 10% would probably be more prudent), key is not blowing the other 80%.

I think it is pretty obvious; it's just not easy to restrain yourself from the temptation of getting a new toy, and it's too easy to rationalize why it's not necessary to save right now.

The fact that it's obvious but not easy does not necessarily mean that it's not worth reiterating periodically. Quite the opposite.

Another good example of something that's obvious and hard to do is "Make something people want" :-)

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who are rich and those who are not.

5. Watch Small Expenses

...sounds like a good way to lose your best employees. When done without thinking.

This kind of article would be appropriate for newmogul.com also. Which is run by nickb.

It's amazing how many people think that flashy and fancy is more important than common sense which those 10 points were all about!

my boss always told me you can either save more or make more, and to ways treat those atleast as equals because the savings usually come with free time. I found this advice better than the 10 but that's probably cause I know my boss; I don't know warren

How about this:

Build things people want (and are willing to pay for).

Build things people will pay for. It's too easy to build something people want but won't pay for.

why dont you just save money thats what i do