Warren Buffett, billionaire investor: “When you reach my age, you’ll measure your success by how many people truly love you”
Warren Buffett has spent more than six decades building Berkshire Hathaway and amassed one of the largest fortunes in the world. However, when he was asked how he would measure success upon reaching his age, the investor did not speak about money, companies, or investments.
“Basically, when you get to my age, you will really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to love you actually do love you”, Buffett explained in a conversation with students at Georgia Tech. The reflection, later included in his biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, has become one of his best-known quotes about success.
Warren Buffett’s definition of success
Buffett’s approach starts from a simple distinction. Money can buy property, recognition, or certain privileges, but it does not guarantee personal bonds. During a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in 2003, he returned to that idea and summed up his position with another phrase: “The only way to be loved is to be worthy of love.”
In that same explanation, Buffett spoke of people with great fortunes, tributes, and even buildings bearing their names, but who do not have the affection of those around them. For him, that scenario shows that wealth and personal success do not necessarily go hand in hand. His conclusion is that what cannot be bought ends up being, precisely, what carries the most weight when evaluating a life.
“That is the ultimate test of how you have lived your life”, he explained.
your own personal balance sheet, he has insisted that the most important figure does not appear on any financial statement.
A reflection that appears in The Snowball
The phrase was recorded in The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, the biography written by Alice Schroeder. The book, published in 2008, retraces Buffett’s trajectory and also devotes space to his personal relationships and the way he understands success.
The idea has been part of his message for years and has circulated again in 2026 through new articles that revisit some of his best-known statements.
Buffett leaves Berkshire after more than six decades
The phrase takes on a special context now that Buffett has completed his departure from Berkshire Hathaway’s top positions.
Greg Abel assumed the role of CEO on January 1, 2026, after Buffett stepped down from the top position at the company. The next transition came on September 18, when Buffett also stepped down as chairman of the board and became chairman emeritus. His son Howard G. Buffett then assumed the chairmanship of the board, while Warren Buffett continues as a director.
At 96, Buffett no longer runs Berkshire Hathaway, but his way of understanding success remains far removed from the company’s financial results.
After decades at the helm of one of the most important companies in the world, his own criterion for measuring a life remains far more personal: how many of the people whose love really matters love him.