Warren Buffett and I won a lottery, says billionaire Howard Marks

“Warren Buffett and mine lottery was to be born as a white male in America in the mid-20th century,” Howard Marks, the co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, said at the Moneycontrol Global Wealth Summit in Mumbai on March 7.

78-year-old Marks is a prominent investor, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, according to Forbes. His incisive analysis of market trends has earned him ardent followers worldwide.

Buffett had made a similar statement in November 2024. “As I write this, I continue my lucky streak that began in 1930 with my birth in the United States as a white male,” Buffett, whose net worth is estimated at $155 billion by Forbes, said in a letter to shareholders at the time. It wasn’t the first time Buffett admitted to winning an ‘ovarian lottery’

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American progressives would welcome this acknowledgement of the advantage of being white in the US, especially, when it comes from billionaires like Marks and Buffett.

However, market Guru Marks also sees such racial inequity is a thing of the past. “Today you don’t have to be born a white male in America to achieve success. It is not dependent on your gender, race or vocation,” he added.

Acknowledgements of white male privilege are significant in the current political climate. US President Donald Trump and his friends like Elon Musk have waged a war on policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Their view, however, may not be in sync with recent studies. While there has been improvement in the lot of the racial minorities in America over the decades, inequality and discrimination persists as shown by the two surveys, shared below, conducted by Pew Research Institute four years apart.

The latest Trump administration and its allies have denounced any progressive rhetoric to help the marginalised sections of the society as the product of the ‘woke mind virus’, a disparaging phrase used by the current US establishment to denounce political opponents and dissenters.

Conversations around white privilege seem to have polarising effect, according to a 2022 study published in the National Library of Medicine.

Consistent haranguing, from both sides of the debate, has also caused some fatigue. Between Feb 2023 and October 2024, there was a sharp decline in overall support for DEI policies in workplaces, according to another Pew survey in America.

Marks also sees Trump as a ‘pro business’ president. “Donald Trump will try very hard to make business do well, to make American businesses do well. His tariffs could have an inflationary impact… Ironically, we have a highly pro-business president who has introduced a lot of uncertainties,” he added.

Read more: Howard Marks does not want to miss out on India of the next 10 years

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