Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School (CBS) isn't just another elite university department; for investors, it's hallowed ground. Located in the heart of New York City, CBS is widely considered the birthplace of value investing, the disciplined, research-intensive investment philosophy that has guided some of history's most successful investors. Its legacy was forged in the 1920s and 30s by two legendary professors, Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. They transformed stock picking from a speculative gamble into an intellectual pursuit, teaching that a stock is not a blinking ticker symbol but a fractional ownership of a real business. This fundamental idea, that one should buy businesses, not trade stocks, is the bedrock of the value investing principles taught at Columbia and forms the core philosophy of this dictionary.

The profound influence of CBS on modern investment practice stems directly from the groundbreaking work of its most famous faculty members.

The story of modern investing can't be told without Benjamin Graham and his colleague David Dodd. As professors at CBS, they co-authored the bible of value investing, the 1934 classic Security Analysis. This book, born from the ashes of the Great Depression, laid out a systematic approach to valuing businesses and finding investments that traded for significantly less than their intrinsic worth. Graham later distilled these ideas for the average person in his masterpiece, The Intelligent Investor, which Warren Buffett has called “by far the best book on investing ever written.” Their teachings at Columbia centered on crucial concepts like the margin of safety—the principle of buying a security at a significant discount to its underlying value to protect against errors in judgment and bad luck.

The proof of Graham and Dodd's genius is in the incredible success of their students. In a famous 1984 speech, Warren Buffett coined the term “The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville” to describe a group of investors who, despite different styles, all followed the same core value principles learned from Graham and Dodd and achieved spectacular, market-beating returns. It wasn't luck; it was a shared intellectual framework. Many of these investment legends studied at or were deeply influenced by the Columbia school of thought.

• Warren Buffett: Although he studied directly under Graham at Columbia, he is the most famous proponent of these principles.
• Walter Schloss: A classic “Graham-style” investor who bought baskets of cheap stocks and produced decades of market-crushing results with little fanfare.
• Mario Gabelli: A billionaire investor and founder of GAMCO Investors who earned his MBA from Columbia.
• Seth Klarman: A revered hedge fund manager and author of the rare book Margin of Safety, who is a modern torchbearer of the value investing tradition.

While proud of its history, CBS remains at the forefront of financial education today, continuing to shape the minds that will lead tomorrow's markets.

The spirit of Graham and Dodd is alive and well at CBS today. The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing is the school's hub for research and teaching in value investing. It runs the highly selective “Value Investing Program,” a rigorous academic curriculum that immerses students in the theory and practice of finding undervalued companies. The Center ensures that the foundational principles of value investing are not just a historical footnote but are continually adapted and applied to today's complex financial markets.

While its reputation is built on value investing, CBS is a comprehensive top-tier business school. Its graduates are leaders across all of Wall Street, from investment banking and private equity to venture capital and quantitative analysis. This broad excellence means the school's influence extends far beyond a single investment style, but the analytical rigor and disciplined mindset taught in its value investing programs permeate all facets of its curriculum.

You don't need an MBA from Columbia to be a successful investor, but you can stand on the shoulders of the giants it produced. Understanding the “Columbia School” of investing provides a powerful mental toolkit for navigating the market's madness.

• Focus on Business, Not Speculation. Embrace the core CBS lesson: you are buying a piece of a business. Research it as if you were buying the whole company. What are its earnings? What are its debts? Who are its competitors?
• Embrace Mr. Market. Use Benjamin Graham’s famous allegory of Mr. Market, your manic-depressive business partner who offers you wildly different prices for your shares each day. You are free to ignore his pessimistic lows and his euphoric highs, and only transact when his price is to your advantage.
• Always Demand a Margin of Safety. This is the central concept. Never pay full price. By insisting on buying assets for much less than you think they are worth, you build in a cushion that protects your capital from mistakes and market turmoil. It's the ultimate form of investment insurance.