Vengeance ≠ Violence (and why Warren Buffett is the OG)

 By S.E. Schaible

My nickname has been Mr. Vengeance since the early 1980s, providing an authentic and simple choice for the working title of my memoir. I cannot recall for certain who first coined it, but I credit my college roommate Matt McConnell for popularizing it when we lived in the Chi Phi house at Lafayette College in 1984. I still receive occasional Christmas cards addressed to Mr. Vengeance. Many people seem to think vengeance and violence are synonymous, but this is incorrect in many ways. The definition of vengeance is a punishment given in return for an injury or offense. It is spare, concise, even elegant in its simplicity. I believe vengeance became conflated with the lazy brushstroke of violence, in part because the news algorithms promote stories of jilted lovers and episodes of sloppy, hotheaded behavior. Vengeance is a measured response guided by a stance of justice and decorum; it is not retaliatory, impulsive violence. Regrettably, idiotic acts of revenge get clicks and sell ads.

Warren Buffett consistently ranks among the 10 wealthiest people on earth, and by all accounts seems to be a lovely man, but when it comes to business he is not to be messed with. In a classic tale that returns cyclically like a comet in the business publications, vengeance was the driving factor in Buffett’s purchase of Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960’s. Mr. Buffett had acquired a significant stake in the company, a formerly vibrant textile business that later faced some difficulties. He negotiated an offer to take out his position, a handshake deal with the CEO. However, when the paperwork arrived the share price was not as they had agreed. Buffett was angry, but rather than confront the CEO and call bullshit on the deception, he quietly cancelled the deal and continued buying shares. Over time Buffett became the majority shareholder of the company – with the end goal in mind of firing the CEO who’d tried to fleece him. And fire him he did. The Oracle of Omaha, as he is known, has openly acknowledged that if he had invested the same amount in a top-tier insurance company as he’d spent acquiring Berkshire Hathaway, he would be worth an additional $200 billion today. Here’s the part I most respect: He doesn’t care. Even though it worked against his economic self-interest, he felt the itch of duplicity and embraced the opportunity to scratch it. Mr. Buffett took his retribution without incident and moved on. Cokes to drink, businesses to acquire, shareholder letters to draft. Many people contact Warren Buffett about all sorts of things, and he is known to occasionally return correspondence with notes of encouragement or advice. If I ever bump into him in an elevator (or, if he someday agrees to be a guest on the Mr. Vengeance Podcast), I would tell him that I’ve held shares of Berkshire for decades, and that I am a fan based on the fact that he did exactly what I would have done under the same circumstances.

Ferris Bueller spent more time strategizing how to stay home from school than the average adult spends planning their next move when they find themselves on the receiving end of a miscreant’s shenanigans. Calling them out and getting into it in real time might work, but it could also get you beaten or busted. Going to HR is almost always a mistake if your goal is satisfaction – the person who has it in for you will lie and implicate you and at best, you will both be written up. The proper response is to say nothing, act like you didn’t notice or care, and deal with it in a measured way on a future date to be determined. It is crucial to hold it together, particularly when you’re the recipient of pedestrian, petty assholeism and not something egregious. When I was in elementary school, I had the luxury of options. Like fighter pilots toggle between guns and missiles, if my words didn’t stop a transgression, I switched to fists. That worked fine until the 4th grade, when I stopped growing and was forced to adapt. I could throw hands and get my face rearranged, or I could pretend it didn’t matter and get back at them later, on my terms. That might mean tossing someone’s tree fort and stealing their Playboys, egging a house, or it might mean blowing up a bully’s mailbox and its contents into scorched confetti and twisted shrapnel using an M-80 rigged with a cigarette delay. The options are constrained only by resourcefulness and imagination. The only catch is you cannot share your secret triumph with anyone – because sharing is how you get fired, sued, divorced, or sent to HR – the spin cycle of fallout we all strive to avoid. I promise this: By the time you decide to share a story at some dinner years later, after any statutes of limitation have expired, you will be celebrated for telling the most epic story of the weekend. They say to write about what you know; my writing centers on adventures in retribution that began when I was five years old, and that continues actively throughout today.

I’ve been doling out payback with a sense of humor and responsibility since the Nixon administration. And don’t ever think it’s too late. If you smolder about something you should have addressed years or even decades ago, I suggest taking your shot at letting it go – by belatedly delivering what they’ve got coming.