If it is looks like a hedge fund and acts like a hedge fund, it must be a hedge fund. And so Warren Buffett has gone about debunking a long-cherished story on the birth of hedge funds, prompted by an article in Financial History magazine. Legend has it that Alfred Winslow Jones invented hedge funds in 1949, but various media say billionaire Buffett shared the bruising news in a letter to the editor, that it wasn't Jones, an associate editor at Fortune magazine, after all. Ben Graham managed a hedge fund in the mid-1920s, Buffett wrote, noting that Graham's plan had all the characteristics of a hedge fund, namely partnership structure, a percentage-of-profits-compensation arrangement for Ben as general partner, a number of limited partners, and a variety of long and short positions. Buffett isn't saying Graham is the founder, but that HFs as we know it pre-dated Jones. Notes Buffett, Incidentally, I make no claim that Ben's mid-1920s partnership was the first. It's just the first that I know of. Actually, Charles Gradante of Hennessee Hedge Fund Advisory Group made a similar claim two years ago when testifying before the Senate Banking Committee. He said Jones may not have been the HF founder, though he was the first to make a long/short equity strategy work in a limited partnership. Buffett appears to be taking away that distinction from Jones as well.