You look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you
Quoted by Warren Buffett — but the line is not hisAnonymous (popularized by Warren Buffett)Originator unidentified · relayed by Warren Buffett, b. 1930, American investor · spoken at Columbia Business School, 1993
Buffett really did say these exact words — to graduate students at Columbia Business School in 1993, printed in the Omaha World-Herald of 2 January 1994 — but he began the sentence “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire…” Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that Buffett disclaimed credit and the creator remains anonymous.
“You look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you” Warren Buffett, relaying an unnamed source, in a 1993 talk to students at Columbia Business School; earliest printed record: Jim Rasmussen, "Billionaire Talks Strategy With Students," Omaha World-Herald, 2 January 1994, p. 17S. The originator is unidentified. Via Quotle.info
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In context
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Provenance
Where the words are actually documented
Spoken by
Warren Buffett, prefacing it “Somebody once said…”
Occasion
Talk to graduate students, Columbia University Business School, New York, 1993
First printed in
Billionaire Talks Strategy With Students
Newspaper
Omaha World-Herald, Business section, 2 January 1994, quote page 17S; by staff writer Jim Rasmussen
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.
You think about it, it’s true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them dumb and lazy. (Laughter)
Pick the kind of person to work for you that you want to marry your son or daughter. You won’t go wrong.
Omaha World-Herald, 2 Jan 1994
The popular quotation begins mid-sentence, at “you look for three qualities.” The clause it drops is the one in which Buffett tells the room the line is not his. Excerpt as transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from the newspaper report.
Quote Investigator (13 May 2023) ↗ opens its reply with the earliest citation it documents: “1994 January 2, Omaha World-Herald, Section: Business, Billionaire Talks Strategy With Students… by Jim Rasmussen (Herald Staff Writer), Quote Page 17S,” reporting Buffett’s 1993 remarks at Columbia — and concludes that because he said “somebody once said,” the creator remains anonymous.
The Buffett newsletter Kingswell reproduces the World-Herald’s transcript of that talk in full and dates the event 27 October 1993; the line appears at the end of Buffett’s opening remarks, right after his praise of Salomon’s Deryck Maughan — read the transcript ↗.
The same 2 January 1994 article is the documentary source QI cites for another famous Buffett line, “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing” — see that investigation ↗.
Twelve years later, at the April 2005 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Buffett gave the idea without the disclaimer and with the traits reordered: “we’re looking for intelligence. We’re looking for energy. And we’re looking for integrity… if they don’t have the last, the first two will kill you” — CNBC transcript ↗.
The words were spoken in 1993 and first reached print in the Omaha World-Herald of 2 January 1994 — far later than 1930, so the newspaper report and the reported remarks are in copyright, not public domain. The underlying aphorism Buffett was passing along has no identified author and no known earlier printed source, so nothing about it can be claimed as public domain either; quoting the sentence for comment and criticism is a separate matter from the text being free.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What gets lost in transmission
The words are genuinely Buffett’s mouth — but almost every version in circulation deletes the four words that say they are not his invention, and several rewrite the sentence on top of that.
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The creditWarren Buffett, as originator mis-credited
Buffett’s sentence begins “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire…” Quote a version that starts at “you look for three qualities” and the disclaimer vanishes. Quote Investigator ↗ states it plainly: he “disclaimed credit,” so “the originator remains anonymous.”
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The wording“In evaluating people… if you don’t have the first” variant
Robert G. Hagstrom Jr.’s 1994 book The Warren Buffett Way prints the line as “In evaluating people,” Buffett said, “you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you” — second person swapped in, and the framing clause replaced. QI quotes the passage and its footnote back to the newspaper ↗.
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The wording“But the most important is integrity…” rewritten
Mary Buffett and David Clark’s 2006 compilation The Tao of Warren Buffett gives a longer, smoothed-out rendering: “In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities… But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.” Transcribed by QI ↗.
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The wordingModern business-press retellings loose paraphrase
Coverage recirculates the idea in Buffett’s later, reordered phrasing with no note that he ever credited anyone — e.g. “We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy and we look for integrity. And if they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you” (Benzinga via Yahoo Finance, 2024 ↗), or “Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two” (Farnam Street ↗).
✓The sentence is real Buffett — spoken at Columbia in 1993 and printed in the Omaha World-Herald on 2 January 1994 — but he was passing on a line he credited to “somebody,” and no one has yet identified who ↗.
Context
The last beat of a “very short sermon”
The line was not investment advice. In the transcript of the Columbia talk, Buffett spends his opening remarks on Salomon Brothers — the phone call he says woke him at about a quarter to seven on 16 August 1991, the resignations, and the character of Deryck Maughan, who he says never asked what he was paid, never asked for indemnification, and worked eighteen-hour days holding the firm together. The three-qualities line lands immediately after that as the moral: the full transcript ↗ puts it at the close of what Buffett called “a very short sermon,” just before he says “let’s talk about a few things that can make a few dollars, too.”
The reason it travels is the inversion. Most hiring advice adds traits together; this one makes integrity a sign rather than a term — without it, competence and drive stop being assets and start being force multipliers pointed the wrong way. Buffett’s own follow-up makes the joke explicit, and the room laughed.
If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them dumb and lazy.
Who was the “somebody”?
Nobody knows. Buffett has never named a source, and Quote Investigator’s survey ↗ turns up no earlier printed version — its reply opens with the January 1994 newspaper citation and lists everything else as later. Until an earlier attestation surfaces, the honest answer to “who said it” is: an unnamed person, repeated by the most quotable investor of his generation.
By the 2005 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting Buffett was delivering the idea in his own voice, with the disclaimer gone and the traits reordered — “I tell students that what we’re looking for when we hire somebody, beyond this passion, we’re looking for intelligence. We’re looking for energy. And we’re looking for integrity. And we tell them, if they don’t have the last, the first two will kill you” (CNBC’s Warren Buffett Archive transcript ↗). That restatement, not the 1993 original, is closest to how the saying is quoted today.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Born 1930 · American investor · chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Edward Buffett was born on 30 August 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, and studied under Benjamin Graham at Columbia, taking a master’s degree there in 1951 — which is why the 1993 talk that produced this line was a homecoming. He emerged as chairman and majority shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway in 1970 and remains its chairman; Greg Abel became president and CEO effective 1 January 2026. Buffett is one of the most heavily quoted people alive, and that volume is exactly the problem: his habit of relaying other people’s aphorisms means plenty of “Buffett quotes” are lines he was passing along, not coining.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented citation
Jim Rasmussen, "Billionaire Talks Strategy With Students: Columbia University Group Hears From Famous Alumnus Berkshire Hathaway," Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, NE), January 2, 1994, Business section, 17S — the earliest citation documented by Quote Investigator, "Quote Origin: Look for Three Qualities: Integrity, Intelligence and Energy. And If They Don't Have the First, the Other Two Will Kill You," May 13, 2023. Buffett introduced the saying with "Somebody once said"; the originator is unidentified.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘You look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/you-look-for-three-qualities-integrity-intelligence-and/