Warren Buffett is one of my heroes. Hes the second-richest man in the world, yet he lives more frugally than I do. CNBC recently broadcast an interview with Buffett. Naturally, its been posted to YouTube. Heres the show in its entirety (with notes and excerpts I made while watching). [Update 16 April 2007. The show is no longer available via YouTube. Instead, you can view excerpts at CNBC . ]

As a kid, Buffett would go door-to-door selling chewing gum and Coke. Hed buy six bottles for a quarter, and then sell them for a nickel each. He bought his first stock at the age of eleven. He bought a 40-acre farm at the age of fourteen using money he had saved from from a paper route.

Some of his fundamental tenets for investing are:

• Patience pays: buy em and hold em.
• Invest in businesses you understand.
• Look for businesses with durable competitive advantage.

• Look for honest, able management.
• Buy at a reasonable price.

Buffett notes that students today have a better standard of living than John D. Rockefeller once did. Really getting to do what you love to do everyday thats really the ultimate luxury Your standard of living is not equal to your cost of living.

Buffett is happy if he can have a big-screen television, a bucket of popcorn, and sit in his sweats watching Nebraska football games. The second-richest man on the planet lives the way he invests: simply and without much fuss. He eats burgers, fries, and cherry cokes. His doctor gave him a choice: eat better or excercise. He chose exercise.

CNBC. Youre not one to accumulate a lot of things.

Buffett. No. Most toys are a pain in the neck.

Aswath Damodaran. a professor at NYUs Stern School of Business says: I think what Warren Buffet embodies is the importance of thinking for yourself. not letting other advisors, other experts, tell you what the right stock to invest in, because theyre coming from a very different place than you are. In other words: do what works for you!

Buffett hasnt made a penny off all the products that are pitched using his name. His favorite book about himself is by Lawrence Cunningham, The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America . (The same author wrote How to Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffett . which also looks interesting.)

CNBC. What is the one thing that young people should be doing about money?