‘Don't worry' about your salary early in your career, Warren Buffett says—focus on this ‘enormously important' factor instead

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett announced at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 3 that he will step down as chief executive at the end of this year. He will stay on as chairman.

Since taking over what was once a struggling textile company in 1965, Buffett has turned Berkshire Hathaway into one of the largest conglomerates in the U.S. Under his leadership, Berkshire hit a market cap of $1 trillion in 2024. The legendary investor is also one of the richest people in the world, worth an estimated $160 billion.

With such a storied career under his belt, it’s no surprise investors of all ages attend Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting year after year to hear the Oracle of Omaha speak. This year, an attendee asked Buffett about the “pivotal lessons” he learned early in his career.

“Who you associate with is enormously important,” Buffett responded. “Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”

‘Be very careful who you work for’

While studying a lucrative trade and landing a job in a high-paying field can certainly help you build wealth, the people you surround yourself with may play a similarly important role in your success, Buffett said.

“Don’t worry too much about starting salaries and be very careful who you work for because you will take on the habits of the people around you,” he said at the shareholder meeting. “There are certain jobs you shouldn’t take.”

Buffett emphasized the importance of finding a job that you actually like, along with working for people you respect and can learn from. While it may seem wise to try to mimic the steps of someone like him who has already found wealth and success, you’ll be better off identifying your own passions and smart people in your orbit, he said.

“I’ve had five bosses in life and I liked every one of them — they were all interesting. I still decided that I’d rather work for myself than anybody else. But if you find people that are wonderful to work with, that’s the place to go,” he said.

‘If very stupid things are happening … you do not want to participate’

Buffett said he sees opportunity for young people to create something as successful as Berkshire Hathaway, but warned against taking too many risks to get there. 

“If very stupid things are happening around you, you do not want to participate,” he said. “If people are making more money because they’re borrowing money or participating in securities that are pieces of junk … you have to forget that. That’ll bite you at some point.”

Buffett has famously championed a long-term strategy of buying and holding stocks, rather than trying to time the market or get rich quickly on newer, more speculative investments like cryptocurrency. 

“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes,” he wrote in his 1996 letter to shareholders.

From there, stay the course and trust that you’ve created a diversified portfolio that will stand the test of time. Investors need “an ability to both disregard mob fears or enthusiasms and to focus on a few simple fundamentals,” Buffett wrote in his 2018 letter to shareholders.

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