The XX Factor

Those Wily Female Reporters

In his review of the new Warren Buffet biography, Michael Lewis has a great description of how writer Alice Schroeder won over the billionaire by turning his need to be mothered by lovely brainiacs against him:

Over his long and admirable career, the famous billionaire has been shockingly honest about who he is and what he does. Now along comes this first-time author who insists on seeing his pleasant honesty and raising it, painfully. Even worse: she’s a woman! Buffett has a long and happy history of admitting attractive, intelligent women into his life, which Schroeder describes without mentioning how neatly she fits into the pattern. These women have invariably felt the need to shelter and to protect their man, and to subordinate their own needs to his-until now. Buffett should have known better: you should never completely trust a writer. Especially if she is any good.