I worked at a financial magazine for much of my 20s, and for the most part I pulled down a very modest salary compared with many of my peers. 

I always tell people it was worth it, because I got an education. Writing and fact-checking that publication gave me access to a level of financial literacy I might never have found had I taken an internship at “Garden & Gun” or “US Weekly.” 

The people I worked with had spent decades in newsrooms and had forgotten more about personal finance than I’ll likely ever learn. They showed me how to write leads and headlines, as well as how to pick stocks and mutual funds. I owe my career — and my competitive salary — to those people. 

That’s likely why I found the career advice Warren Buffett gave at Saturday’s meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders so heartening. “Don’t worry too much about starting salaries, and be very careful who you work for because you will take on the habits of the people around you,” the legendary investor said.

It’s advice he delivers regularly, and it seems to come from experience. Buffett didn’t know the salary he was agreeing to when he took a job with his mentor and value investing legend Benjamin Graham. “I found that out at the end of the month when I got my paycheck,” he told Gillian Zoe Segal for her book “Getting There: A Book of Mentors.”

It helped, in Buffett’s case, that the people he admired were some of the sharpest financial minds of all time — and that he is, too. But no matter your passion, Buffett says, prioritizing people over profits should serve you well over your career. 

“Who you associate with is enormously important,” Buffett said. “Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”

CNBC