Warren Buffett disciple Guy Spier built career on value investing. A rare cancer changed everything

Key points

• Noted value investor Guy Spier first gained the public's attention in 2007 when he and a partner paid more than $650,000 at a charity auction to have lunch with the world's most famous value investor, Warren Buffett.
• Spier, who calls Buffett his hero, launched his Zurich-based fund Aquamarine in 1997. He mimicked the Oracle of Omaha's investing philosophy, anchored on the premise of compounding interest.
• Spier hoped the approach would help him build a similarly long-lasting, albeit more modest, investing legacy for Aquamarine.
• And for years, it worked.
• From 1997-2025, Aquamarine's total returns outpaced the S&P 500, long seen as the ultimate benchmark for a fund's success.