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It's always seemed curious to me that Berkshire Hathaway had major positions in IBM and now with Apple and Buffett and Gates are like BFFs, but BRK has no posit
by spinchange 8y ago
It's always seemed curious to me that Berkshire Hathaway had major positions in IBM and now with Apple and Buffett and Gates are like BFFs, but BRK has no position in MSFT and seemingly never will. MSFT has always seemed like the more BRK-style investment to me than any of them, besides.
- juandazapata 8y agoThem being that close probably means insider trading risks
- gregw2 8y agolmddgtfy 2018 version: http://fortune.com/2018/05/05/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-microsoft-stock/ http://fortune.com/2018/05/05/warren-buffett-berkshire-hatha... 1997 version: https://buffett.cnbc.com/video/1997/05/05/why-buffett-doesnt-invest-in-intel-and-microsoft.html https://buffett.cnbc.com/video/1997/05/05/why-buffett-doesnt... TIL: Apparently he bought 1000 shares from Gates pre-IPO? (Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Warren-Buffett-never-invest-in-Microsoft https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Warren-Buffett-never-invest-in... )
- spinchange 8y agoI'm familiar with his position on tech companies generally, as was kind of the premise of the comment (he doesn't "do" tech but does IBM and Apple and he's BFF's with Gates). What I didn't understand was there are several CEOs and executives of BRK portfolio companies on the BOD and why is there a not conflict there, but would be with MSFT...the reason, it seems to me is none of those portfolio company execs on the BOD report earnings separately from BRK. (wholly owned)
- bduerst 8y agoBuffet basically admitted he wanted to invest in tech, but didn't research very well which company in tech to invest in. IBM was more a dart throw amongst tech companies than any real research.