I don't think he is greedy. He just loves what he does.
What has he done that's ruthless?
For real. Buffett happens to be a brilliant stock investor and hedge fund manager He built his fortune having a keen eye for brick and mortar businesses that actually MADE SOMETHING.
Buffett isn't shuffling decimal points and making huge percentages on indecipherable stock instruments.
That's part of the reason he never relocated to Wall Street, although he did work there as a young man.
Berkshire Hathaway doesn't operate on a 2% fee and 20% cut of all profits on investments.
A quote from Buffett's biography, Snowball, which everyone IMO should read;
"
I got half the upside above a four percent threshold and I took a quarter of the downside myself. So if I broke even, I lost money. And my obligation to pay back losses was not limited to my capital. It was unlimited”.
The bolded part is what makes Buffett an entirely different animal than the generations of hedge fund managers that came after him.
Buffett's primary responsibility was to his investors, not enriching himself first.
People obsess about Buffett's personal wealth of $50-60 billion, but he made many times that amount for his investors.
Companies that make billions are usually ruthless in their business practices, that's not necessarily the case for a shrewd stock investor.
The Koch brothers are ruthless, amoral businessmen.
Buffett is not.
Buffett lives in the same house he bought in 1958.
Most of his political leanings are liberal IMO.
EDIT:
BTW Bliss I do agree with the adage, 'behind every great fortune there's a crime.'
Buffett doesn't care too much about how a company makes its money, just as long as they're profitable.
Strictly as an investor, he gives himself a layer of denial.
But I think if you examine how Trump got rich and compare that to Buffett, it's not even close.
Trump paid bribes and outright broke laws to get casinos and hotels built.
