The story begins with a highly accomplished yet humble financial titan, Mr. David S. Gottesman. “Only when a whale surfaces does it get harpooned,” said Gottesman in a 2013 interview at his Wall Street office. His low-key approach contrasts sharply with his longtime friend Warren Buffett.

Born on April 26, 1926, in Manhattan, Gottesman moved with his family to New Rochelle, New York, during his childhood. His father, Benjamin, was a banker.

“I was not a good student; I was more interested in making money,” Gottesman said. He sold magazines door-to-door, worked in a hardware store selling beetle traps, and even hired neighborhood kids to help him. Disinterested in college, he enlisted in the military. Initially sent by the army to study engineering at Princeton University, by 19 (in 1945), he was deployed to the South Pacific during WWII. Assigned to an artillery unit, he climbed trees to lay communication lines, providing frontline updates to the rear command.

After the war, Gottesman resumed his studies, earning a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Hartford, followed by enrollment at Harvard Business School. In the summer of 1948, he met Ruth Levy, who was about to start her freshman year. In 1950, Gottesman graduated from Harvard and married Ruth. Post-marriage, he chose a lower-paying Wall Street career while most of his peers entered the higher-paying industrial sector.

In 1963, a friend suggested he meet Warren Buffett. They lunched at the Wall Street Club and bonded over golf, initiating a close collaboration that lasted decades until Gottesman’s death. “Warren knew more about investing than anyone I had ever met, and I vowed to follow him closely,” Gottesman wrote in a memoir shared with his family. They often met in Omaha, Buffett’s base, sometimes chatting until late at night, even getting locked inside Buffett’s office building once.

In 1964, Gottesman founded First Manhattan Company and became an early investor in Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, serving on its board. Most of his wealth came from holding Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares.

“Wall Street history may never have seen such an outstanding stock return held for 44 years,” Gottesman wrote ten years ago, estimating his shares had increased 6,000-fold.

In September 2022, at age 96, Gottesman passed away, leaving a substantial estate to his 93-year-old wife, American educator Ruth Gottesman, instructing her to “do whatever you believe is right.“