Buffett's parenting style

Tonight, on "Piers Morgan Live," Piers Morgan welcomes perhaps the most financially savvy panel he’s ever assembled on his set: billionaire businessman Warren Buffett, his son Howard G., and grandson Howard W., to talk fortunes and Buffett family values. As the most successful investor of the 20th century, the senior Buffett had assembled a vast fortune by the time his first son was born in 1954, but never strayed from the lessons learned through his own modest, Midwestern upbringing of self-reliance and frugality.

Citing an example of perhaps a father-son deal gone wrong, Howard G. tells Morgan of a rather odd deal he struck with dad Warren over rent on some land the eldest son wanted to farm. “Actually that was 400 acres that (my son) farms now and the deal was that the rent amount would be based on my weight,” says Howard G.

“Warren what were you thinking?” asks Morgan, continuing, “so, it was literally paid that if you put on weight, the rent went up?”

“Yeah, and I started feeding him candy and pie and all this” notes Warren with a chuckle. “This was not a brilliant moment in parenting.”

None of three Buffett children ever completed college, a fact that doesn’t bother Warren in the least. “I didn't want to go to college myself. My dad talked me into it,” says Warren, who counts the prestigious Wharton School and Columbia Business School among his alma maters. “I think my kids got a wonderful education in public school. They went to the same school that their grandfather did, their mother. ... the inner city school that's been between 20 and 35 percent black for 75 years. They saw the real world and they saw what America is all about, and I think it was a great education,” says Warren, echoing the core values he’s lived his life by despite his immense fortune.

Morgans asks the patricarch how his son and grandson dealt with being born into a family with such tremendous wealth, Warren responds, “They never felt that it was going to be passed on to create some dynasty or something. I always felt that we would live wonderfully, and then the rest will go back to society, and that's been the plan since I was in my 20s.” Warren plans to give the bulk of his fortune to charity.

Watch the clip, and enjoy the full interview at 9pm on CNN.
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