巴菲特女弟子的成长史

    在其中学老师的印象里，库尔有些早熟，为人谦逊，很早就具备了多任务处理能力。她中学会计老师格伦达•艾希曼回忆说：“她很安静、勤奋。”。英语老师玛丽•艾伦•摩根则记得库尔参加了许多课外活动，且常常担任领导职务。摩根说：“她很受人喜爱和尊重，她不是返校节皇后那种类型的女孩，但那也不是她的梦想。”还在上中学时，库尔就担任了农夫市场（Farmer’s Market）主席，同时还要兼顾学业、在各种俱乐部的活动以及与同学的友谊。特洛伊•摩根（玛丽•埃伦•摩根的儿子）是她朋友圈中的一员。他说，库尔时间管理能力超强，能在各种事务间取得良好平衡。

    这种能力在她上大学后也得到彰显。在曼哈顿中学（ManhattanHigh School）以年级第一的成绩毕业后，库尔于2003年进入哈佛大学，主修经济学专业。她很快成为哈佛大学各种女性组织的中坚成员。2006年，哈佛大学著名的商界女性组织（HUWIB）任命库尔为主席。此前，她制定了该组织2005年募捐活动计划，筹资金额比上年高出逾一倍。她还担任了专注于中学生的组织——女性领导力项目（Women’s Leadership Project）负责人。2006年，她和几位同学创办了智慧女性证券组织（Smart Women Securities），向本科女生传播投资知识。2007年，库尔向自己家乡的《水星报》（The Mercury）表示，她在课外活动上花的时间肯定要比在学业上的时间多很多。

    库尔对商业和女性领导力的双重兴趣，促使她参加了职业女性组织85 Broads。2005年暑期，她一直往返于美国银行（Bank of America）和85 Broads之间。该职业女性组织的创办人珍妮特•汉森当时刚刚卸任在对冲基金麦顿投资公司（Milestone Capital，资产管理规模25亿美元）的CEO职务，转而加盟雷曼兄弟公司（Lehman Brothers），担任董事总经理一职。汉森此前以85 Broads的名义，在富达投资集团（Fidelity）开设了一个证券账户，初始投入资金7.5万美元。此举激发了该职业女性组织成员对投资的兴趣。一天下午，她和8名来自哈佛大学（Harvard）、哥伦比亚大学（Columbia）、宾夕法尼亚大学（Penn）、普林斯顿大学（Princeton）和耶鲁大学（Yale）等著名学府的学生在一间会议室促膝而坐。汉森让她们选两三只股票。汉森说：“这太不科学了。但4小时后，这些女生都神采奕奕。她们意识到自己已经是投资者了。”。

    对于库尔来说，参加85 Broads的另一大好处，在于和对冲基金经理吉尔•狄罗萨（Jill DiLosa）邂逅。汉森说，前年，年仅27岁的狄罗萨就正式退休了，当时净资产估计有2500万美元。在孩提时代目睹双亲离婚的狄罗萨，一直致力于靠自己打拼致富，而库尔也有同样的家庭经历。汉森说，库尔见到狄罗萨后惊呆了。两人都是来自美国小城镇，她们的师徒关系发展成了友谊。汉森说，狄罗萨赞赏库尔的坚毅。“她不是典型的常春藤联盟名校生。狄罗萨教了她一些真本事。”

    所有这些经历都为库尔去奥马哈做了铺垫。现在，她的圈子里有很多人脉广博的职业女性，能够激发她的智慧和干劲。在创办智慧女性证券组织后，库尔和她的同学蒂芙尼•尼韦尔（老家也在奥马哈）给巴菲特寄了一封信，询问她们组织的成员是否可以前来参观。巴菲特同意了（库尔去年10月份对《财富》杂志称，她认为巴菲特之所以同意，是因为尼韦尔的老家是奥马哈）。在智慧女性证券组织对伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司首次年度访问期间，库尔作为该组织的负责人，与巴菲特在他最喜欢的餐馆一道就餐。

    2009年从哈佛商学院毕业后，库尔再次致信巴菲特，说她很想与巴菲特共事，哪怕是“一天、一个星期、一个月，我做什么都行。”但巴菲特表示并不需要帮助，但建议她如果来奥马哈可以去他那坐坐。库尔表示：“这是巴菲特以他独特的方式在响亮地说‘来奥马哈吧’。”。

    于是，她来到伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司，带着上文提到的农产品做礼物。之后，两人共进午餐。事后，库尔花了整个夏天伏案研究雷曼兄弟的破产案（她曾于2006年在该行实习过）。在当年初秋，也就是在库尔回到富达的分析师岗位上后，巴菲特打来电话，说他这里可能有个工作机会，看她是否有兴趣。“我说：‘好，我马上飞过去。’”

    Her high school teachers remember a mix of precociousness and humility—and an ability to multi-task at a very young age. “She was quiet and hardworking,” recalls her high school accounting teacher Glenda Eichmann. Mary Ellen Morgan, who taught Cool English, remembered Cool’s involvement in many extracurriculars, often in leadership positions. “She was very well liked and very well respected,” says Morgan. “She wasn’t the homecoming queen, but that wasn’t anything she strived for.” Cool was president of the Farmer’s Market as a high school student, while also balancing schoolwork, clubs, and her friends. Troy Morgan (Mary Ellen Morgan’s son) was part of her friend group and says Cool’s time management was “evidently out the roof, being able to juggle and balance everything.”

    That ability would follow her to college. After graduating first in her Manhattan High School class, Cool headed to Harvard in 2003, where she studied economics and quickly became a staple in campus women’s groups. Harvard’s famed Women in Business (HUWIB) organization named Cool president in 2006, a title earned after she developed HUWIB’s 2005 fundraising campaign and raised more than double the funds compared to the previous year. She also headed the Women’s Leadership Project, an organization focused on high school students. She then founded Smart Women Securities (SWS) in 2006, an investment literacy group for female undergrads, with several classmates. In 2007, she told her hometown newspaper The Mercury that she spent “much more time” on her extracurriculars “than I ever spent on classes, that’s for sure.”

    Cool’s dual interest in business and female leadership led her to professional women’s network 85 Broads. In 2005, she split her summer between Bank of America and the women’s organization. Founder Janet Hanson had recently left her CEO role at Milestone Capital, a hedge fund with $2.5 billion in assets, to join Lehman Brothers as a managing director. Hanson got the group interested in investing by putting $75,000 in a Fidelity account. She huddled the eight students—spanning Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Princeton, and Yale—in a conference room one afternoon and asked them to pick 2-3 stocks. “This was totally unscientific. But after 4 hours, those gals were so fired up. They realized they were investors,” says Hanson.

    For Cool, another 85 Broads perk was meeting Jill DiLosa. The hedge fund exec retired at age 27, the year before, with an estimated net worth of $25 million, says Hanson. DiLosa focused on becoming independently wealthy after watching her parents divorce when she was a kid, an experience Cool also went through. “Tracy was gobsmacked” by meeting DiLosa, says Hanson. Both were from small towns and the mentoring relationship blossomed into a friendship. Hanson says DiLosa admired Cool’s grit. “She wasn’t your typical ivy leaguer. [DiLosa] really taught her the ropes.”

    All these experiences paved Cool’s road to Omaha. She now had a deep network of connected women to round out her intellect and drive. After launching SWS, Cool and her classmate Tiffany Niver (who’s originally from Omaha) mailed Buffett a letter asking if their organization could visit. He agreed—Cool told Fortune last October that she thinks he said yes because of Niver’s connection to Omaha—and, as head of the organization, Cool got to have dinner with Buffett at his favorite restaurant during SWS’s first annual trip to Berkshire Hathaway.

    After graduating from HBS in 2009, Cool again sent Buffett a letter saying she’d love to work with him for “a day, a week, a month – I’ll do anything.” He didn’t need help, but he suggested she stop by if she ever finds herself in Omaha, “which is Warren’s resounding way to say, ‘come to Omaha,’” she said.

    And so she ended up at Berkshire with that offering of produce. The two had lunch, and afterwards, having asked how she could help him, Cool spent the summer researching Lehman’s bankruptcy (she had interned there in 2006). In early fall, after she returned to her analyst job at Fidelity, Buffett called and said he might have a role for Cool, if she was interested. “And I said, ‘okay, I’ll be on the next flight.’”