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Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades
- RickJWagner 10mo agoHis YouTube series “Secret Millionaire Club” is great for kids. Buffett and Munger were both great teachers and entertainers.
- ravenstine 10mo agoI wonder how this will affect BRK-B, given that so many investors (or at least the "retail " ones) buy its shares with the assumption that they provide exposure to Buffett's strategy. In any case, I hope Warren can experience not working at all in the few years he likely has left after being alive for over 1/3 of his country's existence!
- Cheezmeister 10mo agoI don't know the guy, but by all indications he is even-keeled, low-stress, conscientious but come what may. Given his nationality and net-worth, I'd wager that Warren is a centenarian in waiting, unless and until he chooses to invest in the afterlife. Whichever comes first. Respect.
- scotty79 10mo agoThere's no Buffett's strategy. Market buys whatever Buffett's company bought. That's how he got unusual gains. Moment of fame stretched over 60 year of clipping coupons off of that initial fame. The thing that made it possible was that he was content with his performance and never tried to one up himself. He kept his fame and market interest in him simmering over six decades inatead burning out in one bright flash.
- irishcoffee 10mo ago> There's no Buffett's strategy. Market buys whatever Buffett's company bought. That's how he got unusual gains. That sure does trivialize him. If that was your goal, you nailed it. I personally don’t think that’s a fair take, but I’ve no interest in trying to change your mind.
- scotty79 10mo ago> That sure does trivialize him. If that was your goal, you nailed it. Pretty much. I'm always interested what's left once I reject te ususal narratives that people keep repeating to each other. I find this kind of excercise insightful and satisfying. While in every working thing there's myriad of significant details, the main engine of operation is usually just one usually quite straightforward thing. I like making attempts at recognizing those main things. I'm sometimes wrong but even when I am I find satisfaction that I tried instead just repeating some selection of what other people said.
- tommy92 10mo agoYes its the typical attitude than gives HN users a bad name. And this particular comment doesn't seem to have done beyond surface level research either on his investment works. Maybe not even surface level. Too much confidence too little works just empty words.
- tome 10mo agoI've begun to call it (in my own head) "pessimissivism", a fatal combination of being pessimistic and dismissive. It can't be unique to HN, but I find it particularly jarring that it has taken root here, given the optimistic and open-minded origins of this forum.
- scotty79 10mo agoWe are talking about about billionaires gambling with company issued casino chips while messing up the actual brick and mortar economy. Being open-minded and optimistic about this activity brought us such wonderful events as 2008.
- tome 10mo agoValue investing a la Buffett and Munger is certainly not how we got 2008. Quite the opposite. In fact they were some of the most prominent individuals before 2008 outspoken about the risks of the derivatives that led to 2008, calling them "financial weapons of mass destruction".
- enjeyw 10mo agoI used to share a somewhat similar sentiment. I know one anecdote is not data, but his investment in BYD all the way back in 2008 does counter that viewpoint somewhat - his investment success in the BYD case isn’t from other investors following him in, it’s from him identifying BYD as a successful company far before any other major investors did.
- tim333 10mo agoThat doesn't explain how he did well before people had heard of him. Also if you read his letters he talks about his strategy and it's not that.
- scotty79 10mo agoDead clock is perfectly accurate twice every day. He has plausible narratives for his success and that was enough to manufacture fame out of his initial random success. And the fame carried him for decades.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago> There's no Buffett's strategy There is and it’s found in float, leverage and low-volatility assets [1]. If you look at what he does, that becomes clear. If you only pay attention to how people talk about him on the internet, you’ll be misled into seeing trend following. [1] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19681/w19681.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19681/w196...
- scotty79 10mo agoYou can invent any strategy and you will be consistently successful if you get the flock to follow you. And if you don't, your strategy will crash and burn eventually, whatever it might be. The prolonged success of Buffet's strategy doesn't lie in the strategy. It lies solely in his fame and market followers.
- paxys 10mo agoBRK is now (since the last 10-20 years) large and diversified enough that it more or less tracks the S&P 500 and the overall stock market. There isn't some genius trading strategy in there. Buffett himself tells everyone who will listen to buy and hold a diversified index fund for a long period of time.
- zeroonetwothree 10mo agoBRK and VOO have a correlation of 0.7 over the past 5 years. That's high enough that they have been relatively similar, but not so high that I would really say it "tracks" it. Of course, no one knows the future so who knows if this will continue.
- eigen 10mo agorandom web correlation calculator shows it has deviated since around May this year and is currently around 0.3 https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/asset-correlations#analysisResults https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/asset-correlations#analy...
- phil21 10mo agoBRK is like a conservative S&P500. It offers enough diversification off the "total market" funds for me that I invest a small but material portion of my "safe money" with them. Sort of like holding boring dividend stocks without the dividend.
- jart 10mo agoBRK has a beta of 0.7 (meaning it's less volatile than the market) because a third of it is just cash (probably because they want to buy the blood in the next crash like they did in 2000) so I'm curious why you wouldn't just keep that part of your portfolio in cash like he does? Now me personally I think that strategy is kind of dated because the dollar has lost 39% of its value over the last twelve months because it's only as good as the blood sweat and tears of the people who mint it. Dividend stocks like Heinz aren't good investments these days either, since as far as I can tell, those dividends have been coming straight out of the stock's value. Even Buffett turned his back on them. A tidal wave has been rolling through this country sweeping away everyone who follows the safe socially sanctioned wisdom about investing.
- user3939382 10mo agoLast I heard he had a couple guys working for him who sound extremely smart and explained it’s almost impossible to beat the S&P but they try.
- tstrimple 10mo ago> In any case, I hope Warren can experience not working at all in the few years he likely has left after being alive for over 1/3 of his country's existence! Honestly I struggle to understand the desire of folks earning an income to wish the best for folks who have literally never struggled in their lives. This hero worship of billionaires is bizarre in the extreme. Warren Buffet earned his billions on investments from friends and family that the vast, vast majority of people have zero access to. But people keep acting as if he is some sort of genius because he was able to grow an equivalent of $1MM in investments from friends and family at a time when basically every single fucking industry in the country was growing at crazy rates. Capital begets capital. Wake me up when someone actually comes from rags and doesn't just try to weave that into their propaganda.
- kwanbix 10mo agoI will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner. I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.
- satvikpendem 10mo agoTheir work is their enjoyment. Buffett would've been investing even in "retirement," so to him, work and retirement are functionally the same.
- Cheezmeister 10mo agoThis. The work/retirement dichotomy is such a weird and peculiar artifact of the 1950s US middle-class nuclear-family milieu. That's gone. For the rest of us, it's just...live your life, until you don't. (viz. Below the fold: "Buffett remains as chair...")
- ip26 10mo agoPeculiar artifact? Are you forgetting all the people who retired from mining coal, building cars, or running plumbing? It's not weird that seventy year olds would prefer to stop doing those things. I don't know that many people who would claim blasting ore underground is their enjoyment.
- satvikpendem 10mo agoWhy are you arguing a strawman? No one brought up coal miners, not sure what that has to do with the 1950s anyway in specific.
- RealityVoid 10mo agoThis is merely your failure to imagine it. Maybe they enjoy it, maybe they have a specific goal they want to achieve, have some sort of obsession, maybe they feel duty to all the people they lead and relie on them, think they are making the world better so they feel compelled to continue working, are mad with power and enjoy lording over other people. There are many many reasons why one would work after being financially secure, and they're all equally valid as a personal motivator. And, anyways, I think you say this now, but if you were to get those 10 millions you would probably change your tune. A lot of people would find some other project to dedicate their energy. Especially the kind of people that make stuff happen.
- mothballed 10mo agoI can't help but wonder if Buffett's dividend focused strategy will continue to be a successful approach in the future. Buffett is no slouch, but seems to have fallen behind relatively unsophisticated investors like Musk and Zuckerburg as time went on and they focused on valuation more than returns/profit.
- themafia 10mo ago> relatively unsophisticated investors like Musk and Zuckerburg They're sophisticated government contractors. They've insulated themselves from the wiles of the market.
- bayarearefugee 10mo agoBuffet's strategy assumes a rational market, so I wouldn't expect it to work as well in an environment where stock market valuations are increasingly vibes-based and often wildly inflated by circumstances that should be illegal (like selling X to xAI to generate a voodoo valuation). Arguably the entire market is heavily overvalued now, though, so while his strategies are probably no longer optimal, they'll probably continue to work out well enough at least until the next big correction.
- abirch 10mo ago“in the short run, the market is a voting machine… but in the long run, the market is a weighing machine.” Ben Graham
- sporkxrocket 10mo agoIt seems like something is broken since TSLA (for example) has been completely divorced from fundamentals since at least 2020. The richest man in the world has the vast majority of his net worth derived from vaporware and straight up fraud. Still wondering when the "weighing machine" kicks in.
- abirch 10mo ago
- senthil_rajasek 10mo agoHere is a fantastic farewell message that Seth Klarman wrote on Buffett's retirement for The Atlantic, How Buffett did it? https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/warren-buffett-retirement/685294/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.thea...
- abirch 10mo agoBuffett's Alpha: http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf tldr; he was leveraged with good stocks
- lifeisstillgood 10mo ago“””Whether it’s socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down”””. Buffet, BH annual report 2008
- agobineau 10mo agothis is a very interesting read, thank you for posting you may consider a simple example for yourself: Portfolio $100,000.00 $60k into US Tbills, (3, 5, 10y) $40k into SP500 cash $40k into Sp500 on margin $140k exposure For the portfolio to be wiped out, you would need to have a 50% drawdown in the sp500 which hasn't happened in 90 years, and that assumes in a crash your tbill face value wont soar due to rate cuts
- chistev 10mo agoThat link isn't loading up for me.
- senthil_rajasek 10mo agoTry this one. https://web.archive.org/web/20251231204056/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/warren-buffett-retirement/685294/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251231204056/https://www.theat...
- walthamstow 10mo agoDriving 7 minutes to work and stopping at a drive-thru to pick up McDonalds breakfast every day. The man is a true American hero.
- dullcrisp 10mo agoI always salute at the McDonalds drive-thru.
- Tade0 10mo agoThe man has enviable health.
- bsder 10mo agoWealth does that.
- kylecazar 10mo agoAlso, consistently eating 1 item from McDonald's every day is probably not going to tank your health (if it's one of your few diet vices). We've got people drinking 600 calorie frappucinos before they touch a bite of food.
- matwood 10mo agoAlso, breakfast items are typically the "healthiest" fast food items. An Egg McMuffin for example has a fresh egg, piece of ham and an English muffin. Hardly a disaster meal diet wise.
- nine_k 10mo agoTake a Caesar salad at a McDonald's every day, and your health will likely also be enviable.
- lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
- jimnotgym 10mo agoI read somewhere that Bershire Hathaway had sort of finished it's mission. 40 years ago there were lots of large companies who were very 'inefficient' and BH would come along, invest a lot, and start demanding changes. Company performance would improve and BH would make big $$$$. Now there are few of these and it is hard to do. I don't know enough to know whether it is right or wrong. but I think that is what I read.
- WorkerBee28474 10mo agoBerkshire had a pivot where, decades back, Munger convinced Buffett to switch from investing in bad companies at a great price to good companies at a good price. Their new strategy is still active. That said, the turnaround 'mission' you mention about still happens, but is more associated with private equity than Berkshire.
- beambot 10mo agoThey also have a history of buying good private companies at a good price and then let the management keep cooking. This is especially relevant to family businesses that want liquidity for the heirs and good long-term (indefinite) stewardship rather than selling to some PE vulture that will destroy their legacy.
- Tycho 10mo agoNot quite right. The pivot was from good companies at a great price to great companies at a good price (unless you can get a great price, but that’s unlikely). Over the long run the latter is a better and more scalable strategy.
- chrishare 10mo agoWell, many companies are still mispriced, but stock markets today look a lot more like voting machines than weighing machines - so it takes more time to be proven right (or wrong).
- manquer 10mo agoIsn't that the model of every private equity? It was always hard to do well. Although it doesn't seem that way, there are lot of companies that have become large recently, it is best time ever historically for companies to be able to grow large quickly much more so than 50 years ago in the early days of BH. There are 1000+ unicorns today, about 50 of the fortune 500 are founded > 2000, a large number of companies that have chosen to remain private with revenues in excess of >$10B like Stripe or SpaceX etc While it is true that lot of the action has been in sectors BH has never been comfortable holding large assets in such as SaaS, new fin-tech(i.e. crypto etc), or gig econ(Airbnb/Uber etc), social media(tiktok et al.) etc, that doesn't mean the principles are no longer needed or there aren't opportunities to take stake in these now mature companies and drive value.
- koakuma-chan 10mo agoI just asked ChatGPT what Warren Buffett's strategy is, and it said buying undervalued companies and holding for a long time. Is that true? I thought it's not a good idea to buy loser companies.
- reilly3000 10mo agoUndervalued, not underperforming. Companies that others overlook but have solid fundamentals and great strategy.
- ok123456 10mo agoHe calls them "cigar butts." His analogy is that you collect enough of them, and you have a whole cigar.
- flkz 10mo agoIf it's undervalued it should be worth more, no?
- koakuma-chan 10mo agoIs Intel undervalued? Should Intel be worth more? Intel is an example of a company that I had in mind.
- Tycho 10mo agoWhen people say undervalued in this context, they usually mean it has a low price to earnings ratio. Intel is definitely not that - although it could still be a good bet if you have reason to believe their fortunes will greatly improve in the future. But it wouldn’t be a Buffett target in its current state.
- wtcactus 10mo agoActually, yes, half a year ago Intel was massively undervalued when you looked at metrics like Price to Book ratio. It still is actually, although not as much.
- 10mo ago
- pinkmuffinere 10mo agoA very good (IMO) explanation of Warren Buffets success here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9owVrLm7mls https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9owVrLm7mls
- abdelhousni 10mo agoGreeks had their Mythology with heroes and pseudo-Gods, we have oligarchs and pseudo-philantrops
- j-conn 10mo agoIn what world is he a “pseudo” philanthropist? He’s already given more than $60 Billion away and pledged to donate 99%+ of his wealth. He has also called for his class of ultra-wealthy to be taxed more
- JumpCrisscross 10mo agoAlso, on what planet did Ancient Greeks not celebrate their wealthy.
- krapp 10mo agoAlso why are they "pseudo-Gods?"
- SilverElfin 10mo agoI always see fawning comments when it comes to Warren Buffet. I think people need to examine more closely what his portfolio companies do and how they’ve been successful. Some of them are genuinely positive stories. But in other places, the truth isn’t so pretty. Look up how rail workers are treated by BNSF, for example. Like many ultra wealthy people who are caught up in evaluating companies solely on financial grounds, Buffet ignores what the impact of his choices are. And let’s be real - there isn’t any “fair competition” in many parts of the American economy to fix these problems. The railways are especially problematic because the infrastructure they own creates monopolies in regions.
- paxys 10mo agoWhy are you assuming that people aren't explicitly celebrating those negatives? Buffett is a capitalist, and the evils are part of the package. The majority of people here would do the same in a heartbeat to earn the same wealth and status.
- Spooky23 10mo agoHe’s no worse than CSX with public ownership. Rail workers are getting what they voted for - a dimishment of rights at the federal level and right to work crap that broke their union. Don’t worship buffet, but study him. The Acquired podcast on him is a great jumping off point.
- missedthecue 10mo agoBerkshire stock could fall 99% and he would still have outperformed the S&P. Insane.
- verteu 10mo agoInteresting that his performance was essentially identical to the S&P over the past 30 years (Sortino 0.72 vs 0.69): https://testfol.io/?s=jJ4P0GrZxLi https://testfol.io/?s=jJ4P0GrZxLi I wonder how much is due to the market becoming more efficient, vs Berkshire's size / market impact?
- tim333 10mo agoProbably a bit of both. Berkshire's size means he was limited to the largest companies which are pretty well analysed. During that period he did some different things which some of his personal money like buying stock in Dae Han Flour Mills, a Korean flour miller that was like 2 times earnings in 2003 but was probably too small a position to make sense for Berkshire. (https://www.netnethunter.com/warren-buffett-cheap-stock-picks https://www.netnethunter.com/warren-buffett-cheap-stock-pick...)
- thinkingtoilet 10mo agoThat is wild.
- dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv 10mo agoHow do you figure? The portfolio looks to have performed roughly the same as the S&P.
- missedthecue 10mo agoBRK total return from inception to 2025: about 5,502,284% (55,000x gain) S&P500 total return over the same period: about 39,054% (390x gain) $1 in BRK would be $55k today. $1 in S&P500 would be $390 today. Therefore, following the hypothetical 99% drop, 1% of Berkshire return would be $550, still well above the S&P500's $390.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoProbably the best thing about Buffett was his admission of his shortcomings - he wasn't a manager, or adminstrator, of companies - he thought he could do it, blew it, and learnt from the experience. He was a damned fine investor, a very good eye for a bargain (that would later turn into a goldmine). I get that people have opinions on that, but I'm not too fussed about the player, when it's the game that they should be focussed on.
- andriamanitra 10mo agoIt's not possible to become a billionaire with a B without fucking over a lot of people, but for a billionaire he isn't so bad. If we can't get rid of billionaires the next best thing is to hope they are more like Buffett and less like Musk or Thiel or Trump...
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- sizzzzlerz 10mo agoBH share holder here. Thanks, Warren. You made me a ton of money. Forever grateful.
- davidw 10mo agoI don't think he's a hero, particularly, but he also does not strike me as a villain like some of the modern day billionaires either. I read a biography of him and he seems like an interesting guy. I don't think the 'humble lifestyle' thing was a schtick, like some suggest. I mean he mostly lived in Nebraska... give me a tiny fraction of his wealth and I would have taken right off out of Nebraska as the first thing I did, to go live somewhere warm and sunny. He also seemed a bit more aware of how much power money can translate into, and it seems he kind of stuck to "being rich" rather than shooting for "rich and also politically powerful" (although I'm sure there are probably a few exceptions). Compare his investment in the Washington Post with Bezos'. Buffett actually made money off it, and kept his hands off the direction of the paper. We all saw how much Bezos started leaning on it - which has had the effect of shedding subscribers as no one trusts it any more, and it's not attracting new readers of... the Fox News persuasion I guess we can call it. It also seems he mostly stuck to what he knows in terms of kind of boring investments rather than flashy rockets and other showy things. And of course he's been good with giving his money away and convincing others to do likewise.
- justin66 10mo ago> he also does not strike me as a villain like some of the modern day billionaires either With Musk, doge, and the handling of important programs like USAID, that bar has been set remarkably low.
- sethev 10mo agoWe should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire. - He maintained a disciplined approach to investing and managing risk over 60+ years. - He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old. Our society has become moralistic. It's so much more useful to identify behaviors to learn from - either to emulate or to avoid - than to debate whether various public figures are good or bad people. That said, it makes me a little sad that we've read the last of his annual letters.
- xeromal 10mo agoI appreciate this viewpoint. Thanks for sharing.
- twodave 10mo agoI agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.
- rhubarbtree 10mo agoDisagree. The last one is important. You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy.
- twodave 10mo agoThis is what I’m talking about. You’re assuming a lot about why and how people move.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 10mo agoNowhere did anybody say “moving house for any reason is bad”. Buffet could’ve moved if he wanted to, I presume. So, evidently, he didn’t have any of those ‘other reasons’. What we *can^ say is that he didn’t move, which shows that he didn’t allow lifestyle inflation to extend to his place of residence.
- lazarus01 10mo agodid warren buffets success help america or just his shareholders? How does the $350 billion cash concentration affect the economy and his businesses? I would think it would be better served redistributing it back into the economy to create opportunities for working class, so they can make a living wage, vs having multiple jobs and no savings or safety net.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- skybrian 10mo agoWays it helps America: * His shareholders include many Americans. The cash pile is concentrated as far as corporate governance is concerned, but lots of people own a piece of it in their retirement accounts. (Often indirectly via index funds.) * Many employees work for businesses owned by Berkshire Hathaway. I'd guess they're pretty stable businesses, not about to get bought out and shut down? Maybe decent places to work? (Not sure about the railroad, though.) * Many people are customers of these businesses. Mostly a good thing? Admittedly there are lots of Americans that don't participate in that, though.
- Tycho 10mo agoSo, best investor ever? (Not counting people who built enterprises, just people whose trade was to invest.) I plan to buy some BRK stock. I’m sure it will be a good investment. But also, somewhat sentimentally, just to own a part of a financial masterpiece.
- zerofor_conduct 10mo agohttps://archive.ph/WQ9sq https://archive.ph/WQ9sq
- ChrisArchitect 10mo agoRelated: Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf] https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov1025.pdf https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov1025.pdf (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45882837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45882837)
- mvkel 10mo agoBerkshire's investment in Apple is responsible for ~50% of its portfolio success in the last 20 years. The rest is insurance. Respect to the man for running an operation for 60 years. That's a helluva feat that deserves a lot of admiration. Still surprised at HN's glazing of someone whose life's mission was to make a number go up and to the right via insurance packages.
- badlibrarian 10mo agoBuffett's restraint was legendary and his transparency even more so. Bill Gates also initially dismissed him, thinking he had nothing to learn. General Electric also tried to "make a number go up" and effed up the insurance part despite having Buffett as a model and putting 10,000 people through their custom management training facility every year. Raise a glass to the man and read his letters.
- brcmthrowaway 10mo agoDid Berkshire investing in Apple shares help Apple achieve success?
- jedberg 10mo ago> Berkshire's investment in Apple is responsible for ~50% of its portfolio success in the last 20 years. And by all accounts, that investment was suggested by his son. He famously said that he didn't understand technology enough to invest in it.
- skybrian 10mo agoAlso bought $4.3 billion of Google in November. That’s tiny compared to what their Apple investment was, but their days of ignoring tech stocks seem to be over. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-reveals-new-position-in-alphabet.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/warren-buffetts-berkshire-ha...
- sammy2255 10mo agoIs this article written by a child? "he grew Berkshire from a struggling New England textile mill that he starting buying up for $7.60 a share in 1962"
- Nevermark 10mo agoInteresting that they are so over-liquid, when they sold off a lot of their Apple stock mid-2024 and Apple is up 22% from then. Not a significant miss relative to the portfolio. But a significant miss relative to holding cash.
- bibimsz 10mo agohe's as old as the hills, so yeah. see ya dude.
- jimnotgym 10mo ago[flagged]
- mctt 10mo agoI'll play along, so here is the counterpoint. The article remarks on end of an era during which he transformed a failing textile mill into a global conglomerate valued at over $1 trillion. So he never made anything? Wrong, textile mills make things. Elsewhere in the comments someone links BuffettsAlpha.pdf This explains that they used a 1.6-to-1 leverage refers to the estimate of the average amount of borrowed capital Warren Buffett uses to magnify the returns. This level of leverage means that for every $1.00 of equity, Buffett manages approximately $1.60 in total assets. It explains why Berkshire experiences high volatility (roughly 25%) despite investing in relatively stable, low-risk businesses. A significant portion of this leverage—estimated at 36% of liabilities—comes from insurance float. This is essentially a "loan" that costs Berkshire an average of only 2.2% annually, which is more than 3 percentage points below the average T-bill rate. So why does this matter? Unlike many investors who might face forced liquidations during market downturns, Buffett's unique access to stable, low-cost financing allows him to maintain this leverage even during significant drawdowns. So yes, he chose the right "cronies" because during inevitable downturn the money was still there to be used to run these low risk stable business. Do people idolise him? No need to debate that but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why did he continue to live a simple life while he has pledged that 99.5% of his wealth will go to philanthropic causes either during his lifetime or at the time of his death. So I do think you "got that right", however you may have missed that he started with a factory that makes things, invested in a way that survived adversity, and then plans to deliver on the principle that his wealth belongs to society rather than to a "family empire." I do wonder how you or I would handle running a business. To me that work does not sound easy.
- jimnotgym 10mo ago> I do wonder how you or I would handle running a business. To me that work does not sound easy. I think all of the hardest times in my management career have been dealing with investors/owners etc. 'Professional Investors' and PE have been some of the worst, because they tend to be extremely opinionated, whilst simultaneously demonstrating their contempt for the people doing the actual job, and their naivety in how things are actually done. Perhaps that has made me jaded. I never had the same problems with staff, customers and suppliers.
- maskil 10mo agoHe's not dead. No need to eulogize just yet.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- HardwareLust 10mo agoWonder if he's still going to go to McDonald's every morning.
- victor106 10mo agoCurious what is his secret to longevity? He drinks lot of Coke, I doubt he exercises much yet he is still alive at 95 and some would say reasonably healthy at that age.
- dzonga 10mo agowhat Buffet shows is the power of understanding fundamentals & sticking to your strengths remember this was a guy picking stocks in the middle of nowhere - Omaha Nebraska using just Newspapers, Annual Reports and a phone. With the power of conviction. not internet like we have to do or "A.I" - yet he built the largest conglomerate known to man
- ClayShentrup 10mo agolegend. no words.
- nephihaha 10mo agoThe world's richest ukulele player.