Spending it on watches like this is not 'the good life' it is ridiculous. If you need a watch to chat up people you have other problems besides.
It also might be just a tad disingenuous to talk about the cheap car of a man who owns and makes use of a fleet of private jets.
That said, Buffet is not exactly the most person on the planet but in comparison with the rest he comes off pretty good, and I highly doubt he'd be wearing a token of insecurity like this.
I've met some pretty rich people and the funny thing is that those that are truely wealthy and capable don't need such frippery.
Note that he did not, in fact, buy the $77,000 watch (which is, btw, not the most expensive watch you can buy by far).
Yeah, it's mainly a status symbol, with added collector and engineering angles to appeal to the inner geek. And it keeps time less accurately than a $10 watch from WalMart.
So what? $77k is a joke compared to what rich people blow on cars, art, yachts, and jewelry for their wives or mistresses, and it doesn't even take 1000th of Warren Buffet's wealth to be able to do that without going broke.
I didn't just go for the most expensive parts either, it would have easily been > $20k if I had. I'm sure we all can imagine a certain bank balance at which we wouldn't think much before buying such a system.
When I add up what I paid for computer hardware over the year it's scary, good thing it made me more than I spent on it, I think of them as tools. But if it were for consumption only then I'd spend considerably less.
If you're a software developer you can justify such a rig as a tool and book it to expenses, for ordinary people, even the most avid of gamers it would most likely be overkill.
On another note, you tend to write much better software on a system several years old, and then to run it on modern hardware for production.
Slow machines tend to make programmers perform better :)
or a Gucci purse, or those 50k shoes, or that massive engagement ring. Or that yacht, or that swimming suit which gives 0.05% less drag than your current, or that $500-per-plate restaurant. i.e., most PEOPLE. Why the separation of sex?
It's just middle-class trying to imitate rich-class. It happens in every culture, to every kind of person, except those intentionally keeping themselves separate from it.