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Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chairman, Names Son to Replace Him
- bell-cot 15d agoBest wishes and all. But given Berkshire's scale, and the son's age (71), questions about the next succession plan seem appropriate. Also, since the NYT says nothing else about the son: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett In context, his recent involvement in local politics seems rather odd.
- deleted 15d ago[deleted]
- roryirvine 15d agoSounds like there's a grandson who's being groomed for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Warren_Buffett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Warren_Buffett They all seem very similar to the British "new nobility" in the mid-late 19th century, albeit with less syphilis and opium.
- mitxela 15d agoRags to rags in three generations, don't forget. These people are not Warren Buffett and most likely do not share his skill, luck, and psychological investment.
- detourdog 15d agoThe grandson was in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high school. My guess is the Buffett family values environment was not typical suburban USA.
- mgfist 15d agoBuffett’s giving almost all his wealth away so not the usual rags-to-rags. The grandson has a pretty successful career already anyways (helped obviously by his relation to Warren)
- aitchnyu 14d agoHeard that proverb. I'm more inclined to believe rich families from 1400s are rich now. Family wealth can be preserved by sending spare sons and daughters to monastic life. https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-14...
- echoangle 15d agoIs grooming the right word here? The guy is 42, grooming to me has a pedophilic connotation.
- avazhi 15d agoThis is how groomed is used, yes. The sexually overt connotation is a very recent thing.
- SirFatty 15d agoYou should spend less time on 4chan.
- bell-cot 15d agoThe word has a many meanings - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/groom https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/groom Squinting at a [Compact] 1971 Oxford English Dictionary - the pedophilic meaning postdates that edition.
- tclancy 15d agoThink you’re begging the question with that final phrase.
- sajithdilshan 15d ago71 is way past retirement age in many countries. Also didn’t know Warren Buffett is 96 already. Maybe it’s time to pass the torch to someone younger from a different generation
- theplumber 15d agoSo after all no one could be trusted
- kittikitti 15d agoPeople take what he does and says as gospel so knowing he went with monarchy tier nepotism is going to be very annoying.
- eviks 15d agoOr it could be very beneficial - you don't need to know anything about finance to judge the quality of this particular decision, so it's easier to cast doubt on other gospels
- kittikitti 15d agoThe decision was not based on competency so I can judge based on the factors that were considered. It's clear that this was done because of nepotism and I struggle to find other reasons. While you can hide behind ambiguity (it _could_ be very beneficial) there is no indication that it is at this time.
- dugmartin 15d agoI guess Warren’s quote only applies to other people, not him. "It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics." (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/us/dozens-of-rich-americans-join-in-fight-to-retain-the-estate-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/us/dozens-of-rich-america...)
- datsci_est_2015 15d agoMaybe the implication is that Warren thinks it’s significantly easier to run a wealth fund than get gold in the Olympics. I would probably agree.
- dzonga 15d agothere's nothing wrong with leaving things to your kids to run. that's the point of the effort after all. warren as smart as he is was tryna go against the grain of thousands of human evolution. if you train your kids - then most likely they would've values similar to yours. hit or miss but most times a hit.
- mcculley 15d agoA lot of rich men, when younger, say that they will not leave so much of the wealth to their children. Then they get older and realize what other old men realized.
- willmarch 15d agoWhich is what?
- jnsie 15d agoDon't grow old
- lifestyleguru 15d agoYou only have to get rich once and opportunity to get rich occurs only once in every few generations.
- keiferski 15d agoBuffett has been planning this since at least 2011: CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Warren Buffett has told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that after he dies, he wants his son to become non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Howard Buffett, a farmer with no college degree, would be a good successor, the elder Buffett said, because he understands the values of the company. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffett-wants-farmer-son-to-succeed-him-2011-12-09 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffett-wants-farmer...
- cushychicken 15d agoHoward Buffett, a farmer with no college degree, would be a good successor, the elder Buffett said, because he understands the values of the company. I’m not usually about hereditary succession, but this is an exception I could get behind.
- crossroadsguy 15d ago> Howard Buffett, a farmer with no college degree What absolute humble beginnings ;-)
- UncleOxidant 14d agoHe must actually like farming because he didn't have to become a farmer. Of course, knowing that the family fortune has your back even if the farm doesn't work out probably helps.
- tzs 14d agoDescribing him just as a "a farmer" seems kind of ridiculous. Here has extensive business experience unrelated to his farm. From the Wikipedia page on him [1]: > Buffett was Corporate Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman of Archer Daniels Midland Company from 1992 to 1995, Director of Archer Daniels Midland Company from 1991 to 1995, Director of the Board of Directors of The GSI Group from 1995 to 2001, director of ConAgra Foods from 2002 to 2006, director of Agro Tech Foods Ltd. until October 26, 2006, and director at Sloan Implement. He became a Lindsay Corporation director in 1995, and served as chairman from 2002 to 2003. and in 2008, announced he would let his term as a director expire in January 2010. > He is, as of 1992, a director of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., and President of Buffett Farms. > Howard G. Buffett has been a Director of The Coca-Cola Company since December 9, 2010. From 1993 to 2004 he was a director of Coca-Cola Enterprises, the world's largest Coca-Cola bottler. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett
- hn9zmdcaou 15d agoSat on a couple of boards and the non exec chair mostly just guards the culture and can fire the CEO. Abel runs the business. That's a very different job from Howard's.
- BennyBallTC 15d agoMany people do not know this but he still holds the stock that he first bought as a 13y old. It is now worth 8+ figures!
- ricardobayes 15d agoMaybe someone can enlighten me, but what's the point of "never selling"? Stocks are not a collectible that you can just look at for fun. Their whole point is to sell for profit, at some time. Maybe it's just me but if you "never cash out", that seems a waste of capital. Or perhaps this is a marketing stunt wealthy people sometimes to? Akin to "I live in a small house".
- reticulates 15d agothis is such a funny comment, we are so tech-pilled that we forgot companies traditionally pay dividends and that’s the reason to invest, to share in the profits, not to speculate
- fhdkweig 15d agoInterestingly enough, Berkshire Hathaway is famous for never paying dividends (except once, I think), and instead use the income to speculate on buying new companies. https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/09/12/berkshire-hathaway-has-paid-exactly-1-dividend/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/09/12/berkshire-hathaway...
- dominotw 15d agoWarren Jong-il
- mrlonglong 15d agoNepo dynasty. It'll all burn eventually.
- program_whiz 15d agoYes, it could happen: 1. The next generation has been groomed by Buffet Himself, passing on as much knowledge as he can, but of course, this successor didn't create the fortune, doesn't appreciate it as much, and doesn't have as strong of judgement. However, he is surrounded by the old guard and wise mentors. But as those wither away, he is unable to determine who the worthy successors in his circle should be, slowly the inner circle begins to weaken too. 2. The next successor gets an even less effective set of principles from the first, only knowing off-hand how the money was made in the first place, they are a manager only. They also have no idea how the original people were selected or what makes a good inner circle. Soon it devolves into yes-men and people who seem superficially qualified to manage things. 3. The next successor has little no skills, other than showing up to meetings and going with what advisors say. Because the decision making of the original Buffet mentality has been so diluted, they only know superficial / surface understanding, akin to anyone who read the short books on the subject. They don't know how to do the deep diligence that made BH great. The inner circle is all sycophants, climbers, and clingers. Bad investments, debacles, and poor judgment create losses. Investors begin to panic sell, soon the BH stock crashes in value, losing 90% of the fortune. And so on... Not hard to see how its like handing off a complex but successful open source project to your progeny instead of the most qualified developers. Pretty soon, its just an unmaintainable mess. They don't understand why things are the way they are, maybe they aren't as good a programmer as great grandpa. They definitely don't know how to hire and keep the best talent that originally built the thing. Pretty soon complexity budget and community good will are exhausted, people move to something newer and more dynamic.
- andrewstuart 15d agoI think it would be tedious to be that wealthy. You’d spend all your time managing the money and associated stresses. A super comfortable life with enough money to get you to 105 years old that all you need.
- deleted 15d ago[deleted]
- cube00 15d ago> You’d spend all your time managing the money and associated stresses. That's what your personal executive team is for.
- rib3ye 15d agohttps://archive.ph/E24O9 https://archive.ph/E24O9
- jjallen 15d agoThere's a big difference between keeping all of your ownership and giving it to the son and paying a huge salary and making him non-executive chairman while giving away most of your wealth.
- iambateman 15d agoA lot of negativity here on Buffett. I doubt any mega-billionaire is a total saint, but by comparison Warren seems like a guy who tried to do good in the world. We should hope for fewer billionaires, but as long as we have them, we should hope for more Warrens.
- Joel_Mckay 15d agoWarrens team was famous for extracting undervalued companies from the market, and formed a solid rational investment posture that lasted decades. By comparison, most other companies including your Bank are often just a group of clowns in cheap suits offloading their mistakes onto suckers. I used to think people that complained were crazy, until I started comparative investing a few ETF. Warren drove the same old car for years, as unlike most of wall street is not selling his image. You don't have to like the guy, but we can respect his resolve. If he is leaving, it is a bad sign or his story is ending. =3
- jppope 14d agotrue he drove the same old car for years, however he traveled via private jet for most of his milage. Which brings me to a fun story: Buffett originally called corporate private jets an "indefensible" luxury. When he did eventually buy a jet he named it "The Indefensible", later changing the name to "The Indispensable." The guy has a great sense of humor.
- webdood90 14d agoThis is an incredibly sad perspective to have. We have to have higher standards than this, man.
- nozzlegear 14d agoWhy, what's wrong with it?
- locallost 14d agoThere are some things to like. Despite being so wealthy, he advocated for higher taxes on the wealthy. I think that in itself is worthy of praise and worthy of ignoring anything else. The fact he distanced himself from Gates because of the Epstein connection. In addition I get the general feeling amassing wealth was more of a game to him. Obviously he did not use it that much or even abuse it. Still, I do think the way he made money was investing in a lot of basically monopolies where it's questionable if that's really doing a service to society. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but I don't think that it's very beneficial to really anyone except himself. If you are a big believer in the free market economy and investment (which I am not), you might also disagree with his views. For instance, he was always very openly critical about investments like cars etc. because you can't pick the winner out of the thousands of entrants into this invention. This makes a lot of sense if you want to grow your wealth. But if you think about it, if everyone did that, there would be no car and ultimately nothing else, and so even his returns would be much smaller because the economy would be much smaller. That people rush in to create a booming market where a lot of wealth is ultimately squandered is a prerequisite to progress. In a capitalist world at least. For a billionaire, it's probably the most we can except from anyone really.
- bunabhucan 15d ago[dead]
- dupli 15d ago[dead]
- bicepjai 15d ago[flagged]
- PowerElectronix 15d agoHe had a good record with his pick until this one.
- lvl256 15d agoA legend through early 2000s. The game changed starting 2013-14 and he never adjusted. Bailed or undervalued a bunch of tech names that could have yield 2-3x his actual return. Recent example is them bailing on TSM because of Chinese invasion fears.
- kristianp 14d agoTSMC? They did well investing in BYD though.
- gorfian_robot 15d agoBerkshire HQ has exactly 27 people. so I think those comments about culture are spot on. but the issue of "what would walt/steve/warren do?" will eventually bite you in the ass.
- frozenseven 15d agoInstantly reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_67JbvXLrmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_67JbvXLrmw (I'm not hating on Buffet/Berkshire)
- Zaraif13 14d agoTo anyone who owns BRK-B shares (or BRK-A if you have that kind of money), over the next decade your money will likely grow on par with if not at a slightly higher rate than keeping it in an S&P 500 Index fund. Regardless of board or management changes, BRK will stay a better long term bet than an index fund. Both options have similar amounts of risk.
- bitpush 14d agoHow are you this confident about the future?
- IshKebab 14d agoEasy, by not understanding it.
- bluecalm 14d agoI hold BRK stocks and I expect it to underperform the market on average (but also be a very good hedge in case of big downturn). BRK is in big part short term treasuries then a stock portfolio then a core business (insurance, energy, rail, manufacturing etc.). While it's reasonable to expect the core business to outperform there is no way the whole thing is a favorite to do so because cash is a big drag.
- throwaway2037 14d ago> but also be a very good hedge in case of big downturn Are you aware that BRK cratered during the 2009 stock market crash? During a crash, except gov't bonds, pretty much everything sells off equally. There is a joke on Wall Street after 2009: During a crash, correlation on all assets goes to one (1.0).
- UncleOxidant 14d agoHasn't done so great since Buffett announced his retirement. Starting to recover lately.
- throwaway2037 14d ago
- ta20240528 14d agoNothing quite as important in life as picking your parents well.
- snapplebobapple 14d agoIs this the same son that was a drug addict for a long time or am i misremembering history?
- jbverschoor 14d agoChillin' with Tim Cook :)
- shevy-java 14d agoFamily Dynasty of Billionaires. The Dallas TV series was quite good, Larry Hagman as villain - but compared to the real world billionaires, Larry roleplaying as J. R. was a saint compared to what in reality is going on. Can we finally admit that the Epstein network was: a) much bigger than originally known or assumed, and b) not the only criminal abuse network? I mean we already see how much dirt is covered by Trump here. Now imagine we would have real investigations. How much would be revealed ...
- black_13 14d ago[dead]
- hugodan 14d agogood old meritocracy
- trencedamp 14d agoI could have sworn this already happened over a year ago
- Tycho 14d agoThat was his resignation as CEO.
- SanjayMehta 14d ago"It's not nepotism when I (or Soros) do it."
- andrewstuart 14d agoRich people tend to say they will give their money away but in fact retain control of it.