The BNSF Railway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It is one of seven North American Class I railroads and the second-largest freight railroad network in North America, second only to the Union Pacific Railroad, its primary competitor for Western U.S. freight. According to corporate press releases, the BNSF Railway is among the top transporters of intermodal freight in North America. It also hauls enough coal to generate roughly ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. The company's three transcontinental routes provide high-speed links between the western and eastern United States.

The creation of BNSF started with the formation of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation on 22 September 1995. This new holding company then purchased the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (often called the "Santa Fe") and Burlington Northern Railroad, and formally merged the railways into the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway on 31 December 1996. On 24 January 2005, the railroad's name was officially changed to "BNSF Railway," using the initials of its original name.

Warren Edward Buffett (/ˈbʌfɨt/; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. He is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008 and is the third wealthiest person in the world as of 2011. In 2012, American magazine Time named Buffett one of the most influential people in the world.

Buffett is called the "Wizard of Omaha", "Oracle of Omaha", or the "Sage of Omaha" and is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Buffett is also a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Gates Foundation. On April 11, 2012, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Buffett was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three children and only son of U.S. Representative Howard Buffett, a fierce critic of the interventionist New Deal domestic and foreign policy, and his wife Leila (née Stahl). Buffett began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School in Omaha. In 1942, his father was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Congress, and after moving with his family to Washington, D.C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School, and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1947, where his senior yearbook picture reads: "likes math; a future stock broker."