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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28030 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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One interesting twitter debate going on right now is the billionaires prefer waitresses. Maybe not even interesting but complete culture war. The thing I’m seeing for the billionaires don’t marry waitresses is a very pedantic view of waitresses when I think the meaning is more like girl bosses versus attractive girl whose primary goal is not making money but finding a husband.

I do not know if anyone really disagrees with this. Like it’s a spectrum right? Only Jeb Bush married a girl who doesn’t even speak the same language but I assume was very cute. The spectrum is something like Laurene Jobs who did a little corporate prestige jobs and went to Stanford MBA then quit working versus Jeb Bush who just picked a big booty Latina at 18.

I feel like guys often pick the “waitress” over the girl boss. But the people saying the billionaires never pick the waitress are being excessively pedantic. The model isn’t a waitress. The presenter isn’t a waitress (Bezos). The art hoe isn’t a waitress.

I would say the best smart guys tend to marry the Princeton girl early like Bezos or Gates or Zuck. But over 30 the waitress traits start to show up.

Personally I would prefer girl who has career and interesting life but I have way more options in the waitress category of attractive with some things going on.

Got told people didn’t know the debate. I think this is the twitter posts that started it. debate

Astrid Menks was a cocktail waitress before meeting Warren Buffet in the 70s, though they cohabitated for 30 years before getting married. Today’s version of “cute waitress in the 60s” is “cute Instagram influencer with fake job”. Rich men still marry them, though maybe not billionaires.

That example is extremely interesting when you look it up, because she wasn't his wife for those thirty years, she was his housekeeper/mistress.

He was married - to a woman from his own background; their families knew one another, her father was his father's campaign manager. But she also had a singing career she wanted to boost, and in 1977 she left him and moved to San Francisco to pursue this. There's also hints that Buffett was close to Katherine Graham and his wife perceived this as an affair or something that would blossom into an affair, and she herself was involved with her tennis coach. So all that taken together meant she left him. But they didn't divorce, and by reports he was shattered.

Since he was also incapable of taking care of himself domestically (and I imagine the three kids, though they were in their early twenties now) she arranged for a replacement to look after him (and that's how it's described everywhere I look it up online, Menks was there to be his housekeeper first, bit of crumpet second). Astrik Menks is variously described as a cocktail waitress, server, or restaurant hostess, but she and Thompson (Buffett's wife) met at the same restaurant because Thompson occasionally sang there, became friends, and when Thompson left she handed Buffett over to Menks for her to be his caretaker:

Born in Latvia and later moving to America, Astrid met Susan Thompson—Warren's first wife—while working at a bar where Susan sang. Their friendship blossomed into something deeper when Susan chose to leave her marriage in search of independence. In this delicate web of relationships, Astrid stepped in not only as a companion but also as someone who would help manage Warren’s daily life—a role he desperately needed given his notorious lack of domestic skills.

From a book about Buffett:

Question

What was the role of Astrid Menks in Warren Buffett's life? Astrid Menks played a significant role in Warren Buffett's life. After Buffett's separation from his wife Susie, he was left alone and unable to take care of himself. Susie sent her friend Astrid Menks to check on him. Astrid, who was a restaurant hostess, ended up moving in with Buffett. After Susie's death in 2004, Astrid and Buffett got married. Despite his new marriage, Buffett was still primarily focused on his business.

This question was asked on:

Buffett was shattered by the separation, living alone and unable to clothe or feed himself. Susie kept in touch by phone, and eventually sent her friend Astrid Menks to check in on him. The restaurant hostess ended up moving in with the multi-billionaire and when Suzie died in 2004, the couple got married. Buffet sat by Susie's deathbd as she battled cancer, and was so broken after her death, that he wasn't able to attend her funeral. In his new marriage, Buffett was still unable to put anything but business first.

Another article on Buffett and reasons for separation, including the friendship with Graham:

Their relationship was strong and loving, their daughter Susie shares, but her mother wanted to develop a life of her own as her husband became ever more famous; like so many wives, she felt like she had lost herself in marriage. At midlife, it was time for her to reclaim her time, and what better way to do that than live apart together?

“She basically wanted a room of her own. They were very connected in a very deep way. They didn’t need to be in the same room.”

After she died from a stroke, Warren and Astrid tied the knot in 2006, although for many years Astrid believed he would never marry her because he was so devoted to Susan, so she was content being called his housekeeper and mistress.

He later regretted driving his wife away and blamed himself — there was a bit of a possibly romantic thing happening with Katharine ‘Kay’ Graham, then publisher of the Washington Post–saying in 2008,

“It was preventable. It was definitely 95% my fault. … I just wasn’t attuned enough to her, and she’d always been perfectly attuned to me. She kept me together for a lot of years. … It shouldn’t have happened.”

And that arrangement went on for thirty years. Buffett and Thompson never divorced, he regarded her always as his wife, he was there at her death bed, and only then did he finally marry Menks.

So not at all a conventional "cute waitress and fledgling billionaire" story! If it reminds me of anything at all, it's classical Chinese first legal wife and subsequent concubine/secondary wife.

If I believe this article the entire thing is fascinating; Buffett plainly is some sort of financial wizard, but utterly, totally incapable of functioning without a mother figure to run his life for him:

By now he was spending so much time in Washington that he began keeping a spare set of clothes in Kay's guest room.

Meanwhile, Susie was depressed about her marriage and believed Kay was an interloper pursuing her husband.

In the hot rush of a midlife romance, she let herself be seen around Omaha with John McCabe, her tennis coach.

However, Kay, a flirtatious 59-year-old, was spotted tossing the 46-year-old Buffett her door key at charity events and the two were seen together ever more often in public. By early 1977, gossip columnists had taken note.

Friends, though, observed that the pair had 'zero chemistry'. Whatever romantic elements the relationship may have had initially, at heart it was a friendship.

At 47, Buffett was worth $72million and ran a company valued at $135million, while Susie was doing charity work and trying to establish herself as a singer.

She was also spending a lot of time in San Francisco, and installing her tennis coach in a separate apartment.

It was around this time that Susie struck up a friendship in Omaha with Astrid Menks, a restaurant maitre d' whose Latvian parents arrived in America when she was five.

Small-boned, fair-skinned with ice-blonde hair, she had a Nordic beauty with a subtle hard-knocks edge.

At times she looked even younger than her 31 years. Susie asked her friend to look in on Buffett and cook an occasional meal for him. It was then that, while insisting she was not seeking a divorce, Susie suggested to Buffett that with the children grown up, it was time for her to spread her wings; to have a place of her own in San Francisco. She simply wanted to surround herself with art, music and theatre.

Buffett was devastated. He wandered aimlessly around the house, barely able to feed and clothe himself. He called Susie daily, weeping.

'It was as if they couldn't live together and they couldn't live without each other,' one friend said.

Buffett later admitted: 'It was preventable. It shouldn't have happened. It was my biggest mistake.'

As requested, meanwhile, Astrid phoned him and called round. Arriving at the door to cook a meal, she found a cave filled with books, newspapers and annual reports.

Buffett, incapable of functioning without female companionship, had been reduced emotionally to an 11-year-old boy. He needed feeding; his clothes were unkempt.

Astrid was the least pushy woman imaginable but when faced with this problem, she took control.

By early 1978, with encouragement from Susie, Astrid was cooking and caretaking. Gradually, however, the relationship became something more as Buffett began to accept that Susie wasn't coming back.

Susie herself was shocked. This wasn't what she had in mind when she told her husband they both had needs. In her mind, Warren's dependence on her was absolute; how could he need a relationship with anyone else?

It might have been predicted. Astrid did all that was required: doing the laundry, taking care of the house, buying the Pepsi, giving him head rubs, cooking the meals and providing companionship. She never told him what to do and asked for nothing in return.

As Susie adjusted to the shock, she came to accept the situation, which did make her life easier. Buffett was perfectly open about living with Astrid, merely saying: 'If you knew the people involved, you'd see that it suited all of us quite well.'

Astrid accepted that Buffett would never marry her, so she tolerated being called his housekeeper and mistress, while Susie accompanied him to social and business events.

Buffett said: 'Astrid knows where she fits with me. She knows she's needed. That's not a bad place to be.'

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