So it should come as no surprise that the Berkshire Hathaway CEO has scores of investors hoping to follow in his footsteps by adopting his investing principles. Former hedge-fund manager and Buffett follower Whitney Tilson attributes the 89-year-old's success to his "off-the-charts smarts," his more than seven decades of experience and his temperament. "What he does is simple in concept but difficult in practice," said Tilson, now the founder and CEO of Empire Financial Research and publisher of a daily subscription newsletter. He has attended 21 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meetings in Omaha, Nebraska.