David Gottesman

David Sanford Gottesman (April 26, 1926 – September 28, 2022) was an American businessman and billionaire. He founded First Manhattan Co. (FMC), and was noted for his friendship with Warren Buffett. Early life and education Gottesman was born to a Jewish family in New York City on April 26, 1926. His father, Benjamin, worked as a banker and investor; his mother, Esther (née Garfunkel), played a key role in procuring the Dead Sea Scrolls for Israel. He had two siblings, Milton and Alice. He was also a nephew of American pulp-paper merchant, financier, and philanthropist Samuel Gottesman. The family relocated to New Rochelle, New York, during Gottesman's childhood. He joined the US Army after high school and was first sent to Princeton University to study engineering, before being deployed to the South Pacific theater in 1945. Upon his return from military service after an honorable discharge, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Trinity College. He then undertook postgraduate studies at Harvard Business School, graduating with a Master of Business Administration in 1950. Career After graduating, Gottesman first worked at Hallgarten & Company in mergers and acquisitions for around a decade. In 1963, he was introduced to Warren Buffett at a Wall Street club lunch by a mutual friend, who recognized their identical approach of purchasing value stocks. They soon became good friends, playing golf with each other and having conversations every Sunday night over the phone about which stocks to invest in. Over the next two years, Gottesman travelled often to Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett resided, to meet during the later part of the day and discuss ideas into the early hours of the morning, with Gottesman frequently returning to New York on red-eye flights. Gottesman later founded the investment advisory firm First Manhattan Co. in 1964. He was also an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway. The two firms co-invested in Diversified Retailing Co., which was established by Gottesman, Buffett, and Charlie Munger to purchase private retail companies, beginning with Hochschild Kohn's (whose president was the uncle of Gottesman's wife). The trio soon realized they made a "terrible mistake" with that acquisition and Gottesman oversaw its reselling at only a minor loss. Diversified later merged with Berkshire in 1978. As of March 2021, Gottesman owned 17,202 class A shares and more than two million class B shares in Berkshire Hathaway.