Monday, March 3, 2008

Top Performing Financial Website

I was reading some of Warren Buffett's latest statements for the current bear economy and decided to do some checking into his credentials. I've heard his name, synonymous with finance, frequently mentioned but knew very little about Buffett. Wikipedia had most of what I was interested to find. 3rd richest man in the world (until he gave $37 of his $52 billion to the Gates Foundation - a man's gotta live), CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and at 73, a respected financial genius.

Buffett has built Berkshire into its own micro economy, capable of rescuing some of the housing debacle with a rather large loan. Berkshire has it's tendrils into some of the top performing companies and brands in the world. It has returned 25% a year on average and has the largest stock price on the NYSE at $100k a share - which just so happens to be Buffett's salary.

All of this, and you would expect to see a beautiful website with marketing messages so distilled, they resonate with the human psyche. Interaction design so perfect and logically organized, that it seems to direct itself. Creative design so rich it politely reminds you that Berkshire is one of the wealthiest companies in the world. Then I clicked the link to Berkshire Hathaway.



I had to triple check the link! Now, I've been on the web since 56k was high speed. I still recall the digital grinding of the modem connecting to the web. This website took me back to that time.

Consider that Buffett still lives in the home he bought back in 1957. However, now it is worth $700k - the guy can't lose. He refuses to leave tremendous amounts of inheritance to his children and is considered to be frugal.

Things that make you go hmmmm.