Warren Buffett says ‘you’re giving up your potential’ if you don’t have this one skill—and it has nothing to do with the stock market
Especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence, strong communication skills have become even more critical for success in the business world. Even some of the world’s biggest tech and AI-focused companies are paying million dollar pay packages For people who can manage their communication efforts at a high level.
And that’s an important skill that Warren Buffett, one of the most legendary investors in history, firmly believes in.
“In life you need to be able to communicate and this is extremely important” Seer she said in a 2013 interview with Levo League, a career website for young women from Omaha. “To some extent, schools don’t emphasize this enough.”
Early in his career, at age 20, Buffett set out to overcome his fear of public speaking by enrolling in a Dale Carnegie course. still exists today. Before the public speaking course, Buffett said he and other students in the class were “afraid to stand up and say our names.”
But throughout his 60-year career Berkshire HathawayBuffett has been a prolific communicator and speaker. In fact, his voice became one of the loudest voices in the financial world and had the power to move the markets.
“If you can’t communicate, talk, and convey your ideas to other people, you’re giving up your potential,” Buffett emphasized.
Buffett’s advice still holds true today. One April survey A report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that oral and written communication skills are at the top of employers’ wish lists of things they want to see on the resumes of recent college graduates.
Reflecting on his career before his retirement at the end of 2025, Buffett suggested the following: latest shareholder letter Learning as a CEO is a lifelong journey.
“It is never too late to improve,” he wrote. “Take the right heroes and copy them.”
What other managers say about the importance of communication skills
Jeff Bezos is another prominent advocate of strong communication skills. when was that He was chosen as Businessman of the Year Luck In 2012, he emphasized how important communication skills are. Amazon’s now-famous six-page note culture. They read these notes together during meetings.
“This is a strange onboarding experience for new employees,” he said Luck. “They are not used to sitting quietly in a room with a group of managers and working in a workroom.”
But mastering the art of preparing a note is even more difficult.
“It’s harder to write full sentences,” he added. “It has verbs. Paragraphs have topic sentences. There’s no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not think clearly.”
As Generation Z enters a workforce dominated by artificial intelligence, CEO Jamie Dimon JPMorgan ChaseBeing successful in today’s job market requires more than mastering technical skills, he said.
“My advice to people is to think critically, learn skills, learn your EQ. [emotional quotient]learn how to be good in a meeting, how to contacthow to write,” Dimon said Fox News in December 2025. “You’ll have a lot of work to do.”
This story first appeared on: Fortune.com
