Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

We 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.

That said, it makes me a little sad that we've read the last of his annual letters.

Driving 7 minutes to work and stopping at a drive-thru to pick up McDonalds breakfast every day. The man is a true American hero.

Rich guy has a job so easy he works until old age.

Never made anything, just leant money to companies that weren't as rich as him and his cronies, to get a share of profits for doing nothing.

And people here idolise that, because he is one of very few people who does that without coming across as a complete asshole? Did I get that right?

I 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!

I 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.

Berkshire'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.

Here 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.thea...

I 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.

I 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.

Interesting 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.

Berkshire stock could fall 99% and he would still have outperformed the S&P. Insane.

https://archive.ph/WQ9sq

So, 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.

BH share holder here. Thanks, Warren. You made me a ton of money. Forever grateful.

He's not dead. No need to eulogize just yet.

A very good (IMO) explanation of Warren Buffets success here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9owVrLm7mls

did 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.

I 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.

Is 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"

Related:

Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov1025.pdf

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45882837)

Probably 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.

His YouTube series “Secret Millionaire Club” is great for kids.

Buffett and Munger were both great teachers and entertainers.

he's as old as the hills, so yeah. see ya dude.

It'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...

Greeks had their Mythology with heroes and pseudo-Gods, we have oligarchs and pseudo-philantrops

I 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.

I 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.