A look at the remarkable career of Warren Buffett, who bought his first stock at 11 and built a $1 trillion company

Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

The legendary investor, who recently turned 96, bought his first stock at 11 and built a $1 trillion company.

Buffett made billions by investing in stocks like Coca-Cola and buying businesses like Geico.

It's the end of a legendary investing era.

Berkshire Hathaway announced today that Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman . Buffett, who recently turned 96, retired from his role as CEO at the turn of the year.

"Serving as your Chairman has been the privilege of a lifetime, and I have never taken your trust for granted," Buffett wrote in his parting words as chairman to shareholders. "Father Time always wins."

Over the course of his six-decade career, the legendary investor transformed a failing textile mill into a $1 trillion conglomerate.

Here's a look back at Buffett's remarkable life so far.

Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on August 30, 1930, at the height of the Great Depression. He was the second of three children and the only son of Howard, a stockbroker and later a congressman, and Leila, a homemaker.

The investor started his business career at six, selling Juicy Fruit chewing gum door to door. He later resold individual bottles of Coca-Cola from a pack, delivered newspapers, and built up a pinball machine business, which he later sold.

Buffett was 11 when he bought his first stock, Cities Service Preferred, and filed his first tax return at 13. He bought a farm at 14 and rented it to a tenant farmer.

When he was 16, he had amassed $5,000, around $85,000 in today's money.

Buffett majored in business at Wharton before transferring to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and graduating in 1950, at the age of 19.

Around that time, he read Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor," which introduced him to the key tenets of value investing, such as buying stocks so cheap that they provide a "margin of safety."

Buffett enrolled at Columbia Business School after learning Graham taught there. After graduating, he worked for his father's company for a year before joining Graham's investment firm, where he received a masterclass in analyzing companies and identifying bargain stocks.

In 1952, at age 22, he married a college student, Susan Thompson, and the pair had their first child, Susan or "Little Susie," in 1953. He began teaching night classes on investing and inviting family and friends to invest their money with him. In 1956, as Graham prepared to retire, Buffett moved back to Omaha and prepared to launch his firm, Buffett Partnership.