The Third Door

by Alex Banayan

  A day later, the Chief of Staff’s reply popped up on my screen. I felt as though a gospel choir had stepped into the storage closet singing Hallelujah! I wanted to call Elliott so we could read the response together. But I couldn’t wait. I clicked it open:

  Well, that’s fantastic news. Congratulations!

  I hit the down arrow, searching for the rest of his message.

  But that was it.

  Clearly my email strategy didn’t work, but I wasn’t deterred.

  I emailed the Chief of Staff again.

  A week passed. No response.

  I told myself he must not have seen my message, so I sent a third email.

  Another week passed. There was still no answer.

  I began to come to terms with what his silence meant. The answer was no. And not only was it no, but now the Chief of Staff wasn’t talking to me.

  The choir stopped singing, gathered their things, and slipped out the door.

  * * *

  I’d guaranteed my publisher I’d get Bill Gates; now I had no Bill Gates. What would my agent say? And how would I explain this to my parents, after I’d sworn Gates would be a done deal if I took a leave of absence? I’d disappointed my family, let down my agent, and lied to my publisher: the asshole-trifecta.

  I frantically thought through my options in the storage closet. All right…If I can’t get Bill Gates…I’ll get Bill Clinton. Elliott has an in with him. And if I can’t get Clinton, I’ll get Warren Buffett. Dan can help with that. Plus, Buffett is best friends with Gates, so if I interview Buffett, he can get me to Gates. I don’t even need the Chief of Staff!

  While I had sent interview requests to most of these people before, I didn’t know what I was doing back then. Now I felt a bit more experienced. And the more I dreamed up next steps, the better I felt. My friend from Summit works for Oprah—so I have an in there. Another friend from Summit worked for Zuckerberg—maybe she can get me to him. And Elliott is friends with Lady Gaga’s manager—so I’m definitely golden there.

  I downloaded photos of Lady Gaga, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg, pasted them on a single page, and printed a dozen copies. I taped the pictures by my desk, on the walls, above my bed, and on my car’s dashboard.

  Only in hindsight can I see the change that was overtaking me. I’d left school and felt completely on my own. And I had sold everyone around me on a dream that was now falling apart. I was so terrified of being seen as a liar, so ashamed of being seen as a failure, that I became desperate to do whatever it took to save face. Ironically, that desperation fueled me to lie and fail even more.

  “The momentum couldn’t be stronger!” I told Elliott over the phone. “I’m sure Bill Gates’ Chief of Staff will get back to me any day now. Anyway, now that things are going so well, it’s the perfect time to get the rest of the interviews. Could you introduce me to Lady Gaga’s manager? And didn’t you say you knew Buffett’s grandson? And Clinton’s assistant?”

  I felt horrible about misleading Elliott, but an hour later I felt a lot better when I saw an introduction to Lady Gaga’s manager in my inbox. I asked for the interview, the manager replied back, and the answer was no.

  Elliott contacted Bill Clinton’s office.

  Another no.

  Elliott introduced me to Warren Buffett’s grandson.

  Dead end.

  A friend from Summit took me to a party where I met Buffett’s son.

  No help.

  Another friend from Summit introduced me to one of Buffett’s business partners.

  Again the answer was no.

  A third friend from Summit introduced me to Oprah’s PR team. When I explained the mission to them, they loved it and told me to write a letter addressed to Oprah. They passed it along to the first level in her PR chain and it was approved. The second and third level approved it too. Finally, it made it to Oprah’s desk and…her answer was no.

  My fear of failure had its hands around my neck, cutting off circulation to my brain. The only thing keeping me from suffocating was knowing I still had an ace up my sleeve.

  It was time to call Dan.

  Dan seemed like the obvious route for me to get to Warren Buffett. After the breakfast at Summit where Dan shared the Avoidance List, we became friends and talked on the phone every week. But anytime Buffett’s name came up in conversation, Dan seemed to get uneasy. I figured he was extremely protective of his former boss. I had decided going through Elliott to get to Buffett would be easier, but now Dan was my only hope.

  Instead of being transparent about what I wanted, I called Dan and said, “I miss you, man! When are we hanging out?” He suggested I come to San Francisco for the weekend and stay with him on his boat. I jumped on the offer.

  A few nights later, I landed in San Francisco and my cab pulled up to a fog-shrouded marina where Dan docked the boat he lived on. Before I even put my bags down, Dan wrapped me in a giant bear hug. He threw my duffel bag inside and whisked me off to a lavish dinner on the San Francisco Bay, followed by live music at his favorite café. The next morning, we played Frisbee at a sloping, grassy park. Over the two days, Dan took me around the city, treating me like family.

  Throughout our time together, I never brought up Buffett. I hoped the more Dan and I bonded, the likelier it would be that he’d agree to make the introduction. I felt like a salesman plotting an ask with a new client. Except this was my friend, so I felt terrible.

  And now I was running out of time. As I woke up on my final day in San Francisco, I checked my watch—two hours until I had to leave for the airport. I headed out to the deck where Dan and his girlfriend were lounging, looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge, coffee mugs in their hands.

  After talking to them for a while, I glanced at my watch once more—thirty minutes until I had to leave. I still hadn’t asked Dan for the introduction.

  “Dan, can you look this over?”

  I took out my laptop and passed it to him. Dan’s eyes narrowed as he realized that on the screen was a letter I’d drafted to Warren Buffett. Dan read it, then looked back up a minute later.

  “Alex,” he said, “this is…fantastic. Mr. Buffett will love it.”

  I remained quiet, hoping Dan would fill the silence by offering to call Buffett and push this through.

  “And you know what?” Dan said.

  I edged forward.

  “You should print two copies!” he said. “Mail one to his office and one to his home!”

  Dan’s girlfriend put down her mug and reached for the laptop. “Let me read it,” she said. After she finished, she looked at Dan.

  “Honey, this is wonderful. Why don’t you just email this to Warren directly?”

  “That would be life-changing,” I said.

  Dan’s eyes darted from the laptop to his girlfriend to me.

  He stayed silent, and then a moment later said, “You got it, Alex. Email me the letter and I’ll pass it along.”

  Dan’s girlfriend kissed him on the cheek.

  “And if that doesn’t work,” he added, “I’ll fly to Omaha with you and talk to Mr. Buffett myself! We’re going to make this happen, Alex. You’ll have this interview in no time.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Grandpa Warren

  Before I left the boat, Dan pointed out that if I sent Buffett the letter and he immediately said yes, I wouldn’t be prepared for the interview. So I decided to hold off on sending it and went back home to do my research.

  I already knew what a lot of people know about Buffett: that he’s the most successful investor in history and the second richest man in America, yet he’s not someone who lives in New York with a big office on Wall Street. Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and still runs his company, Berkshire Hathaway, from there to this day. I once saw on TV that tens of thousands of people fro
m around the world make an annual pilgrimage to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. These people revered him, even loved him, which is why when I got to the storage closet and stared at Buffett’s face on the cover of an eight-hundred-page biography, I felt like I was about to join the extended family.

  Looking closer at his soft wrinkles and bushy eyebrows, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of warmth. Buffett’s eyes seemed to twinkle with a Midwestern charm. The more I stared at his image, the more I felt like the picture was moving and coming to life—Buffett was smiling at me, winking, and waving a hand, saying, “Alex, come on in!”

  I laid the book on my desk and happily began turning the pages. Now that I knew Dan would help me get the interview, the pressure was off. I was having so much fun reading I barely noticed the hours pass. Never before had I felt like this about learning. In college, I had all these tests and assignments, and reading felt like taking medicine. Now it was like drinking wine. I read his biography during the day, listened to audiobooks about him in the evening, and watched YouTube videos of him late into the night, taking in his every gem.

  “I tell college students, when you get to be my age, you will be successful if the people who you hope to have love you, do love you.”

  “No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

  “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business…So I do more reading and thinking, and make fewer impulse decisions than most people in business.”

  I’d never known much about finance and hadn’t thought I had a passion for it, but there was something about the way Buffett explained it that completely drew me in.

  “I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.”

  “The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything—you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you’re a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, ‘Swing, you bum!’ ”

  “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

  As soon as I finished the eight-hundred-page biography, I cracked open another. I eventually had fifteen books about Buffett laid out on my desk and I still couldn’t get enough. I learned everything I could about him, from his first business selling Juicy Fruit gum door-to-door at age six to the fact that Berkshire Hathaway was now the fifth most valuable company in the world, with investments in Coca-Cola, IBM, and American Express, and outright ownership of Heinz, GEICO, See’s Candies, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, and Dairy Queen. The more I reveled in Buffett’s experiences and wisdom, the more I saw him as Grandpa Warren.

  My favorite stories about him went back to when he was my age. I began to see some of my friends facing similar situations right in front of me. When my friends had problems, Grandpa Warren had answers.

  * * *

  I never would have thought to put my friend Corwin and Warren Buffett in the same sentence. Corwin’s passion for filmmaking had only grown stronger and his interests couldn’t be farther from finance. But when he needed advice on how to get meetings with directors who wouldn’t return his calls, I told him to do what Grandpa Warren did.

  After Buffett finished undergrad at University of Nebraska in Lincoln, he was working as a stockbroker, which essentially means he was a stock salesman. Though nearly every time Buffett tried to get a meeting with a businessperson in Omaha, he was turned down. No one wanted to meet with a young guy with no credibility, trying to sell them stocks. So Buffett changed his approach—he began calling up businesspeople and made them feel he could save them money on their taxes. All of a sudden the businesspeople said, “Come on in!” And just like that, Buffett booked his meetings.

  “This is the thing,” I told Corwin. “Although people won’t meet with you for the reason you want, that doesn’t mean they won’t meet at all. Just find another angle. Figure out what they need and use that as your way in.”

  My friend Andre wanted to break into the music industry. He didn’t know if he should try to get a well-paying job at a music label or work directly under a big songwriter and perhaps not get paid anything. I told Andre it was a no-brainer.

  When Buffett was working as a stockbroker, he decided he wanted to hone his skills and go to business school. He applied to Columbia University because he knew Benjamin Graham, the Wall Street legend known as the father of value investing, taught there. Buffett got into Columbia, took Graham’s class, and eventually Graham became his mentor.

  When Buffett was about to graduate, he decided not to take a high-paying corporate job, which most MBAs did, but to try to work directly for Graham instead. Buffett asked Graham for a job, but Graham said no. Buffett then offered to work for free. Graham still said no.

  So Buffett went back to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker again. But he continued writing letters to Graham, visiting him in New York, and in Buffett’s own words, after two years of “pestering him,” Graham finally gave him a job.

  Buffett was married and had a child by this point, but he still flew to New York as soon as possible to begin working. Buffett didn’t even ask if there was a salary. He worked at a desk outside of Graham’s office, learning firsthand under the master. Two years later, when Graham retired and closed down his firm, Buffett moved back to Omaha to start his own fund. And when Graham’s old clients were looking for a new place to invest their money, Graham referred them to Buffett.

  Buffett is famous for being a long-term value investor and this story shows he treated his career the same way. He could’ve gotten a high-paying job right out of school and made far more money in the short term. But by offering to work for free under Graham, he set himself up to make much more in the long term. Instead of trying to get paid as much as possible in dollars, Buffett chose to get paid in mentorship, expertise, and connections.

  “It’s like what Elliott told me,” I said. “One path leads to a linear life, the other an exponential.”

  Sometimes I had friends who didn’t even have a problem. Ryan, who wanted to work in finance, just wanted to know how he could be more like Grandpa Warren. I said the answer was three words: read the footnotes.

  After Buffett opened his own fund, a writer called one day and asked to interview him. The writer posed a tough question to Buffett about a public company. Buffett told him the answer was in an annual report he’d just read. The writer studied the report, but then called Buffett to complain there wasn’t an answer.

  “You didn’t read carefully,” Buffett said. “Look at footnote fourteen.”

  Sure enough, there it was.

  The writer was dumbfounded.

  “While this story is short,” I told Ryan, “the lesson is huge, and I think it’s one of the biggest keys to Buffett’s success. When everyone else skims a report, Buffett is obsessively scouring the fine print, going above and beyond, studying every word, looking for clues. You don’t have to be born a genius to read the footnotes—it’s a choice. It’s a choice to put in the hours, go the extra mile, and do the things others aren’t willing to do. Reading the damn footnotes isn’t just a task on Buffett’s to-do list—it’s his outlook on life.”

  It didn’t take long for all my friends to fall in love with Grandpa Warren too. The more stories I shared, the closer I felt to him. Finally, I was ready to reach back out to Dan.

  I rewrote my letter to Buffett and infused as many facts as I could about him, trying to show how much I cared. I emailed it to Dan for a final review. He said it was perfect.

  When I asked Dan if I should print the letter or copy it down by hand, he said, “Both!” I did just that and FedExed one set to Buffett’s office and an
other to his home. I emailed the letter again to Dan so he could forward it directly to Buffett.

  Dan called two days later. “Your note is sitting in Mr. Buffett’s personal inbox as we speak.”

  And, with those happy words, began the six most miserable months of my life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Motel 6

  TWO WEEKS LATER, THE STORAGE CLOSET

  From: Assistant to Warren Buffett

  To: Alex Banayan

  Subject: Letter to Mr. Buffett

  Dear Mr. Banayan –

  Attached is a written response from Mr. Buffett to your letter.

  I clicked it open. The letter I’d mailed was staring back at me, with two lines of Buffett’s loopy cursive in light blue ink at the bottom. He must have loved my letter so much he’d written his reply on the spot and told his secretary to scan it and email it to me right away. But because of the way it was scanned, I couldn’t make out the words. So I emailed Buffett’s assistant to ask what it said. I assumed it must have read something like: “Alex, you probably spent months researching to write this letter! I must say, I’m impressed. I’d love to help your mission. Why don’t you call my assistant and we can find some time to do the interview next week?”

  Five minutes later, his assistant replied:

  From: Assistant to Warren Buffett

  To: Alex Banayan

  Subject: Letter to Mr. Buffett

  It reads:

  Alex—All aspects of my life have been covered many times over. Too much on my plate to grant all the interviews requested.

  —WEB

  He barely lifted a finger to write that rejection, but it felt like he swung his arm back and punched me in the throat.

  I called Dan.