Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-31/warren-buffett-steps-down-as-berkshire-hathaway-ceo-after-six-decades

by ValentineC • 7 months ago

724 575 7 months ago

ravenstine• 7 months ago

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!

Cheezmeister2• 7 months ago

I 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.

scotty796• 7 months ago

There'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.

irishcoffee4• 7 months 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.

enjeyw2• 7 months ago

I 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.

tim3339• 7 months ago

That 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.

JumpCrisscross12• 7 months 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/w196...

paxys2• 7 months ago

BRK 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• 7 months ago

BRK 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.

phil212• 7 months ago

BRK 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.

tim3339• 7 months ago

Berkshire's cash holdings are pretty different from an S&P 500 index fund.

user39393822• 7 months ago

Last 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.

tstrimple4• 7 months 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.

kwanbix2• 7 months ago

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.

satvikpendem2• 7 months ago

Their work is their enjoyment. Buffett would've been investing even in "retirement," so to him, work and retirement are functionally the same.

Cheezmeister2• 7 months ago

This.

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...")

RealityVoid2• 7 months ago

This 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.

jimnotgym7• 7 months ago

sort of obsession

That doesn't sound very positive to me. Perhaps OP has a point

lumost• 7 months ago

It can also be as simple as finding meaning in the habit of work and the growth which may come with it. Nihilism and hedonism wear thin after a short while.

tehjoker2• 7 months ago

once someone is on top, they almost never give it up. how often does the king abdicate without being so ill he can’t continue?

Don’t apply the morality of a worker to a top capitalist

echelon• 7 months ago

We all die on the same order of magnitude.

We all have pleasure and suffering along the same couple of orders of magnitude.

In geological timespans, none of the fun you had will matter. Even a year from now, your memories are just wistful nostalgia (perhaps a psychological detriment!) And that's if your brain architecture is even set up to recall senses and events well (not everyone can).

My view is that the intellectual pursuit is more fulfilling than a world simulating traversal of novel experiences. Those neurons will turn to dust soon anyway, and it'll be like it never even happened. Why spend so much time fretting over it?

Spend time with family, but trying to rack up on restaurants and things and places and visits - meh, it's just simulation and squirts of neurotransmitters. Ephemeral. They leave no trace. It all fades to emptiness.

I'm not saying be completely stoic. But don't overdose on pleasure and thrill and novelty. Over indexing that way cuts down on impact.

Building never stops, even when you do. Laying a foundation shapes human behavior at scale. Leads to more shoulders being stood upon. Higher order effects.

Every single person I admire made an impact.

I'm not my genes that I was built from or the genes that I might pass down. I'm the ideas and deeds of a short life that hopefully left lasting impact and caused second order effects.

antinomicus• 7 months ago

Hacker news moment. If you believe this, you are lost, but man. What a terrible take.

Build what? The next big ad serving platform? The next mass surveillance platform? New ways to squeeze money out of people? You’re right we all die so nothing matters, why would what you build matter more than the relationships you make, the good feelings you create? Build, but build art. Build something that will change peoples minds, make them feel good, make them want to change the world.

Do not conflate building something to make some guy richer, as just as or more important than spending time with family or creating true art.

H8crilA• 7 months ago

Can you imagine reading and researching the world on your retirement? Because that's what people like him do, except they mainly focus on 10-K statements. Those are genuinely interesting to read once you learn to skip boilerplate and go for the content.

tobyjsullivan• 7 months ago

He also seems to talk to a lot of people, and he has access to pretty much anyone given his stature. Imagine being passionate about business and then being able to spend every day talking to people about their businesses and their thoughts on business. I'm surprised he retired at all!

jimnotgym7• 7 months ago

I agree with you. There are so many more worthwhile things to do than investing. I would also retire immediately with that kind of money and focus on creating real value in the world

danielmarkbruce3• 7 months ago

That's a very selfish take.

For folks with the ability to make truckloads of money and then give it away to good causes, that is going to be the best choice v trying to add value in the world to make themselves feel better.

65• 7 months ago

Have you ever considered that some people enjoy investing?

Imagine if I said "there are so many more worthwhile things to do than painting" if some famous artist retired.

SunshineTheCat• 7 months ago

You don't need retirement-level money to create "real value in the world"...

kortilla• 7 months ago

allocating capital well provides significant value to the world. His style of investing specifically meant not pouring money into hype stocks and instead investing in companies that have sustainable business models.

danielmarkbruce3• 7 months ago

He sat around talking to people, reading, betting on stocks/financial markets, playing games and occasionally buying a business.... that is many people's dream retirement.

kwanbix2• 7 months ago

Really? My dream retirement will be to be on a beach surfing while I drink caipirinha.

MaKey• 7 months ago

I totally get it. You need a purpose to be happy. If you enjoy your work and get a sense of fulfillment from it, why should you stop?

ronnier2• 7 months ago

I'm at that point now, debating when I'll retire. We only live once and I'm not sure if I should continue working. I've reached financial freedom at a pretty young age. It's a daily debate in my mind when to call it quits, but I've never not worked and it's difficult to make the change. What I'm missing in life is time and that's what work takes from me and is the driving force behind my desire to retire -- time to do other things in life.

deadbabe3• 7 months ago

If you don’t have family or kids do not stop working.

weinzierl• 7 months ago

When what you do depends on having power and you are above a certain level it's either up or down and out.

kryptiskt• 7 months ago

I get the sense that he arranged things so that he didn't have to work all that hard, he didn't do any short-term trading requiring constant attention and his work was done at his portfolio companies as soon as they had management he trusted.

nutjob2• 7 months ago

If you are really enjoying your life, why would you change it to something that you wouldn't enjoy?

nntwozz4• 7 months ago

“Everything must end; meanwhile we must amuse ourselves.”

— Voltaire

axiolite• 7 months ago

Work life is quite a lot different for a working-stiff than it is for a CEO. In large part, their company is an extension of themselves. Work whatever hours you want to. Private plane to take you wherever you want to go for free, if you can come up with a work-related excuse to go there (with no need to justify not coming back for weeks). Multiple folks acting more-or-less as your personal assistants. An office bigger than your house, filled with anything you want in it, on the company's dime. A big pool of cash you can order the company to throw at whatever interests you. etc.

osigurdson2• 7 months ago

I doubt he cares that much about the company paying for things. Once you hit 10B+, all of that stuff is just noise.

Refreeze5224• 7 months ago

Based on this description, you could say that what the CEO does in no way resembles what real work looks like for 90% of the population. Which I think is true. It's a pity they make so much more than people who do actual work.

osigurdson2• 7 months ago

Retiring simply means doing something else. For him, whatever that was must have been less fun.

RHSeeger• 7 months ago

I like to say if I could retire today; I would do the same thing I do now, just without a boss telling me to do it. I love what I do.

andrewaylett2• 7 months ago

I would probably be Software Engineering even if my employer didn't pay me to. As evidence, note that it's new year's eve and I'm writing patches (and waiting for tests) during my holidays for someone else's FOSS project I'm contributing to :).

I my employer didn't pay me, I'd stop working on their projects. But in the meantime, I enjoy my profession (at least most of the time) and get paid. If I had enough money then I'd stop working on what my management wants and work on stuff that I want to work on. And I have to imagine that at this point, Buffet is also doing whatever he wants to.

iancmceachern3• 7 months ago

This is how I am.

I can design and build anything. If I didn't have to do it for work, I'd be making my own evil projects.

You can't take the country out of this boy it turns out...

sharts2• 7 months ago

It provides purpose. Many people who retire early after doing all the random stuff they thought would be cool would likely find themselves isolated and decaying without purpose.

SkyPuncher• 7 months ago

I took a sabbatical last year. Ran out of cool and exciting stuff real quick.

I personally realized that I got bored of solo sized projects. It’s a lot more fun working with other really smart, motivated people.

wyldfire• 7 months ago

For a lucky few of us, our job is something we might do unpaid if we had our needs addressed already. It's fun!

I like travel, I like relaxing at home. But I don't know if it's what I'd want to do all the time. I like having some pull, driving me towards a greater goal.

BloondAndDoom• 7 months ago

As a retired person I’ve always been curious about this. I questioned a friend who is multiple FU money rich. He said he just love his job, and he’s in a position to work the way he wants to work.

Not my cup of tea (and Die with Zero book explains the common sense on this) but I get why though. There is tons of status attached to it, lots of people don’t know what to do with themselves, a lot of identity ( especially in US) attached to the work.

hylaride• 7 months ago

He's just wired differently. He spent his spare time reading financial statements.

You could argue he was retired and just continuing his hobby.

chistev2• 7 months ago

I get you, but maybe you wouldn't be able to retire.

It was that quest for more that made them even get to that 10 or 50 million you talk about.

If they didn't have that personality for more, they likely would have stopped way sooner.

pama• 7 months ago

Warren Buffett also retried at a younger age. In a 1969 letter to partners he wrote, “I intend to give all limited partners the required formal notice of my intention to retire”. But life had other plans…

j7ake• 7 months ago

Can you imagine a singer who will continue singing even after getting 50 million ?

To some people, their careers are interesting in and of itself, beyond money.

This applies to many professions: scientists, CEOs, writers, painters.

hristov• 7 months ago

When you are the boss work is a lot less unpleasant than when you are an employee. When you are at the highest level in the organization and also the major shareholder, you can shape your work environment and and workday in a way that you like it.

He worked for 60 years because he liked doing it, and as he became more successful, the job just getting more pleasant for him.

I cannot speak for him but from reading his annual reports and various writings and listening to the occasional interview, it seems that he enjoyed working much more than anything he would do while being retired.

You can call this great american work ethic, and that is part of it, but the other part of it is that when you are the boss you can kind of remove most unpleasant parts of your job and leave only the parts that are the most fun and interesting for you.

epolanski3• 7 months ago

According to him he was doing what he liked.

TacticalCoder• 7 months ago

I will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner.

Some people just love what they do. In addition to people loving what they do, there are also people who don't like to do nothing: travelling, reading, sipping pina coladas in the pool in Florida, painting, playing videogames all day long etc. is not for everyone.

And there are even people who fit both: they love what they do and they have moreover absolutely no interest in retiring and "doing nothing".

EDIT: also some people are action junkies that must be working. A friend of mine is working a full-time regular job and is also a voluntary firefighter, responding to emergencies during week-ends etc. He doesn't do it for the little additional money it brings: he does it because he loves to be helpful.

Jach• 7 months ago

If your number is on the order of $10 million, I suspect that no, you wouldn't, because you haven't thought hard enough about retirement and how to achieve and keep it with a satisfying lifestyle to realize that you don't need nearly so much (or at least most people, maybe you have a need for very fancy things, I won't judge). And requiring $50 million at a younger age? What's the logic in that? The younger you are the lower you can set your number, because if you end up being wrong either about the feasibility or about your mental state from not having a job, you still have time to fix things or even pivot to a new career. (You also get more years of compound interest.) I quit my BigCo job 5 years ago just before my 30th birthday with ~$500k across VFIAX and VGT, I've been "retired" since and that amount has grown considerably. I'm still quite happy not working for someone, while still being reasonably confident I could get a programming job again if a need or desire arose, and there's always the possibility of going a bit crazy and burning through it all to self-fund hiring some employees of my own to make a go at a business.

It's not hard for me to understand why people keep working even if I'm not and don't want to be that way. There are so many reasons, I'll list a few, some work just as well even for people who are working despite having "enough", whatever that means. Some people just really like having a job, or think of it as a moral duty (and themselves as doing good by fulfilling that obligation), or some get their self-worth from having a job, or some like being occupied by work when they know that without it they'd just rot. Some like the social company. Many actually like their work a lot more than they dislike it and pay above some threshold is just "nice". If you're particularly good at your job, too, there's a lot of joy in doing things you're good at, no matter what kind of job it is. Some have expensive tastes or have made expensive compromises or have fallen on expensive bad luck that all can need ongoing funding. Some want to make or support things and need capital to do so. Some just see life as a game, and money going up is their source of happiness and sign of winning. There's all sorts of minds and preferences in this world.

citizenpaul• 7 months ago

HN seems allergic to discussing the reality of power dynamics IME.

Being in charge of Berkshire hathaway is a very powerful and respected, revered, envied, coveted, admired. Retired is just retired. As folksy as he presented I suspect Buffet very much enjoyed weilding that power which he could not likely ever get elsewhere.

rib3ye• 7 months ago

Charlie’s will explains their mindset:

https://youtu.be/FvRT15EayG0

globular-toast6• 7 months ago

What would you do though? My brain needs problems to solve. Maybe I'd just grow my own food. But if I didn't like that and just bought food I'd get bored very quickly.

iancmceachern3• 7 months ago

He did exactly what he wanted to do. That's all you need to know. To each their own.

utopiah• 7 months ago

What does retiring even means when

- you enjoy it AND

- you do not have a "boss" telling you what to do AND

- it makes you more "popular" because the World you live in associate a higher number with your "value" in society

Why would you even stop? It's not about having enough to survive.

EasyMark3• 7 months ago

It wasn't really work for him I think. He enjoyed the vast majority of what he did. Not all of us get to be so lucky. Does an artist or writer retire if they love their art?

mothballed4• 7 months ago

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.

themafia• 7 months ago

relatively unsophisticated investors like Musk and Zuckerburg

They're sophisticated government contractors. They've insulated themselves from the wiles of the market.

bayarearefugee2• 7 months ago

Buffet'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.

abirch4• 7 months ago

“in the short run, the market is a voting machine… but in the long run, the market is a weighing machine.”

Ben Graham

jimnotgym7• 7 months ago

Some people suggest this is a function of too much wealth centred in too few people, causing a high demand for assets. If that is true, maybe that is where we should focus?

JumpCrisscross12• 7 months ago

Buffet's strategy assumes a rational market

The public stuff, sure, in the short term. The wholly-owned stuff, however, is pure private equity: their cash flows should cash flow irrespective of financing conditions.

BurningFrog• 7 months ago

Musk and Zuckerberg are primarily entrepreneurs, not investors.

kelvinjps10• 7 months ago

Musk and Zuckerberg, investing it's not their main thing they happen to have shares in companies they're CEO of, and their main activities it's managing them not investing

senthil_rajasek2• 7 months ago

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...

abirch4• 7 months ago

Buffett's Alpha: http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf

tldr; he was leveraged with good stocks

lifeisstillgood• 7 months ago

“””Whether it’s socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down”””. Buffet, BH annual report 2008

agobineau• 7 months ago

this 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

chistev2• 7 months ago

That link isn't loading up for me.

senthil_rajasek2• 7 months ago

Try this one.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251231204056/https://www.theat...

walthamstow• 7 months ago

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.

dullcrisp• 7 months ago

I always salute at the McDonalds drive-thru.

Tade0• 7 months ago

The man has enviable health.

WalterBright17• 7 months ago

McDonalds has healthy food options. Getting a quarter pounder, a salad, and a cup of water is reasonably healthy.

It's the soda and the shakes and the fries that'll getcha.

yndoendo• 7 months ago

Sorry, a person who life is built around greed is no hero.

jacquesm6• 7 months ago

Actualy, he didn't. He's probably the one billionaire alive today for which you could not make that case. I know of one other (but he's dead).

mrwaffle• 7 months ago

Mostly true, compared to other billionaires he's a much better flavor and a stronger record of appearing human but still, agree. I'd recommend reading The Snowball for a more complete understanding of him.

Aarostotle2• 7 months ago

A man who built what he loves and produced so much surplus value for the rest of us to enjoy (read: profit) is _exactly_ a hero. I’m sure I could find ways critique him, but not in the context of celebrating his career.

IncreasePosts2• 7 months ago

He built his life around developing successful businesses. That's not greed.

bawolff2• 7 months ago

He made his billions by figuring out who were worthy people to give money to.

He's not exactly curing cancer but i could think of a lot more underhanded ways to make billions. I think he is above average ethically relative to his billionaire peers.

hyperbovine• 7 months ago

But hey, he also owns Sees Candy.

mothballed4• 7 months ago

I don't want a society where you have to be a hero to produce mass benefit to others. I want a society where greedy people feel like they have to serve the needs and wants of others to fulfill their greed.

I don't know to what extent Buffet does it. Nor does our current quasi-fascist society where the government is highly embedded with industry and regulating who is the winner and who is the loser and then taxing/inflating the working class to make sure they stay afloat.

But in the idealistic version of America, it is supposed to be a place where becoming a billionaire means you are not just producing billions of profit for yourself, but billions of value for others. That every deal, both sides are better off. This is what we aspire to, the whole ideal towards voluntary trade and capitalism as a method a tide that rises almost all boats and at the very least doesn't involve sinking another boat lower.

lr4444lr2• 7 months ago

I respect Buffett greatly on a professional level, and think it's the height of arrogance to believe any one of us personally has the moral right to decide which level of lawful activity becomes turpitudinous greed.

THAT SAID...

My uncle (he's 98) had a passing acquaintance with Buffett during their overlap at Penn, and in the one econ class they shared, he remarked having heard Buffett say in almost salivating eagerness as he rubbed his hands that if only there could be another Great Depression, he would make a killing. The dude has value investing in his DNA beyond anything else, I truly believe. But he's argued for changing complex and unfair taxation, and always been a good citizen as far as I can tell. I think if all of Wall Street were like him, the world would be a much better place.

kakadu• 7 months ago

He is an _American_ hero

DoesntMatter22• 7 months ago

And he’s giving away most of his fortune to help others when he dies.

Idk how that can be considered a “life centered around greed”

tim3339• 7 months ago

I don't think built around greed is fair. If he was greedy he'd be spending the money rather than giving nearly all of it to charity.

gbacon4• 7 months ago

If he built his life around greed, you must have numerous examples, so give specific instances to support this charge. No handwaving.

WalterBright17• 7 months ago

Buffet has also made a lot of money for his investors. People can buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway.

borplk• 7 months ago

His whole "I love fast food and coca cola" thing is a fake persona

koolba• 7 months ago

As a red blooded capitalist who loves this country as much as the next patriot, I can assure you admiration for fast food and coke is 100% real.

bdangubic3• 7 months ago

if one is to make a fake persona, fast food and coke (the drink) probably won’t make top-100 list

nine_k3• 7 months ago

Coca-Cola is a great energy drink. But you have to expend this energy, say, by thinking really hard.

nntwozz4• 7 months ago

Well, impossible to prove of course but it reminds me of Ingvar Kamprad (the man behind IKEA) who used to drive an old Volvo when in Sweden to appear as a "man of the people".

In fact he had his main residence in Switzerland and was filthy rich which is a bit of a hard swallow especially in Sweden, a country still very much affected by the "Law of Jante".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

A reporter that was doing a documentary about his wealth asked him once directly when stepping out of his old Volvo and Kamprad kinda lost it; it was a big kerfuffle at the time on the telly.

For those paying attention it was really revealing about the true nature of the man (let me add he was a young Nazi back in the day).

Most people came to his defense like the red-blooded capitalist gentleman commenting above about Buffet being a 100% American.

The older generation still swallow the farce hook, line and sinker. For the rest of us it's pretty clear it was a well thought-out facade to placate the plebeians to sell more cheap furniture.

riazrizvi2• 7 months ago

Yet another example to me of how he literally engineered his life for success, using principles like choosing which variables to hold fixed. What discipline.

mvkel2• 7 months ago

If you define success as number going up and to the right, sure.

flkz2• 7 months ago

If he was poor, people would call him lazy for eating mcdonalds everyday...

MangoToupe2• 7 months ago

Idk about hero, but he's definitely american. What a fast food warrior!

CPLX2• 7 months ago

Buffet is not a good guy. Our society’s greatest problem right now is concentrated corporate power being used to destroy the ability of working people to prosper.

Buffet had an active and direct role in making this happen. He supported and advocated for monopoly, and profited from it.

He lived a lavish life that included opulent mansions and private jets, and used his resources to deftly drive a media narrative of himself as a regular guy, with apparent success as your post demonstrates.

throwaway85825• 7 months ago

It's very obvious that some of the lesser plutocrats have public PR campaigns now. Zuck obviously got a stylist too.

mr_00ff00• 7 months ago

Not doubting you, but any specific examples of him supporting monopoly?

Or are you saying the general environment of high finance supports this?

No doubt he had more money than he needed but if this is referring to his preference for coka-cola and apple stock / any stocks with the ability to set their own prices because of market dominance, I feel like that’s not a totally fair criticism.

LastTrain2• 7 months ago

Do you feel this way about all billionaires or is it something about Buffet?

gbacon4• 7 months ago

Which “opulent mansions”?

csb6• 7 months ago

Being genuine here - what is heroic about those two things?

JumpCrisscross12• 7 months ago

what is heroic about those two things?

America threw off a king and founded a republic. Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. A rich man keeping his habits despite his wealth, and doing so next to the rest of us, is a role model for other up and comers.

(The Romans had a similar thing about pastoral farmers. Every culture has its myth, and we like it when those in power try to live up to it.)

nrhrjrjrjtntbt• 7 months ago

Nothing. We shouldn't dilute the term hero. Let's call it what it is "groundedness"

eBombzor• 7 months ago

It's sarcasm

zmgsabst• 7 months ago

I think they meant hero in the sense of archetype rather than heroic.

But I agree with the person suggesting not diluting the word.

Lt_Riza_Hawkeye• 7 months ago

I think they just meant it's very stereotypically american to drive a very walkable distance and eat McDonald's every day

positron263• 7 months ago

Not just relative to other billionaires, relative to the average American, he never went after get rich quick schemes, has a reputation less dirty, values life-long relationships more, and fell to not one of so many traps and dynamics that see many successful people trash their own legacy.

The internet citizen is so often convinced that everyone with a high net worth is crooked, cheated to get where they are at, and would be even more morally corrupt if only they weren't so undeserving as to be incompetent of the ways to do so.

So often the ambitious can believe that to succeed one must perform ultra sexy acts of innovation multiplied by inhuman hours of naive young team members. This pressure can drive us to be impatient, reckless, and unscrupulous.

When we look at most startup CEOs who make it big, we say "don't try to emulate them" because we know they took huge risks and rolled at least a few good numbers. A person can emulate Warren Buffet. It's just patient and prudent, avoiding self-deception for decades. Yet it is excruciating. If not for Warren Buffet, so many would say, "It's not worth it" or "It will never work because you'll slip up."

Being at least an anecdote that being honest and right can work out in the long run is a herculean counterweight against the vast traps of cynicism that can lead many to defeat themselves before they even try. It's tough to keep going or commit to that path, especially as your options keep going up. Few else tried because it takes an entire lifetime. Making it work saved a lot of people from a lot of imprudent choices and will continue to save more. That is heroic.

xeromal3• 7 months ago

It's just a sarcastic take. I wouldn't read into it too much. If it didn't make you grin like a goofball, it failed and you should just move on to the next comment.

anonu2• 7 months ago

I think they are being hyperbolic.

JKCalhoun8• 7 months ago

It's down to earth.

We expect the ultra-wealthy to eat at the French Laundry in California, to have chauffeurs, to live in New York penthouses…

yearesadpeople• 7 months ago

America, as an idea, is so strange

csomar2• 7 months ago

Is the drive-thru pickup or the McDonald the strange idea. Actually, wait, both are strange.

That being said, McDonald did know how to do business. I’ve found myself there several times because their spaces are well located and they invested well in their interior that it made it a good place to grab a coffee alone, with a laptop or for a random meet.

pvtmert2• 7 months ago

America was the first influencer country in the history

moomoo11• 7 months ago

America is awesome.

cassepipe3• 7 months ago

No America as an idea is awesome. In reality ? Quite strange

bell-cot• 7 months ago

By several accounts, Buffet has a "McGold" card - good for free food for life, at least at Omaha-area McDonalds locations.

Combined that with his "frugal" and "creature of habit" reputations, that might explain is morning routine.

WalterBright17• 7 months ago

If Buffet was a customer of mine, I'd give him such a card, too. It's good for business!

fishingisfun• 7 months ago

also incredible that america is safe enough for a billionaire to do this alone without security

beenBoutIT2• 7 months ago

He spends big money on security.

agnosticmantis• 7 months ago

He shamelessly advertised companies in his portfolio, whether it was always having a can of coke or candies on the table or stopping at a McDonald's in a documentary.

I refuse to believe that his lifestyle was what was on display.

He lived in the same house for 60 years, sure, but his private jets kept getting upgraded. Good for him, but I find the frugality theater very off putting.

BiteCode_dev• 7 months ago

Besides, the chances that you get to that age, with his good health, on a diet of Coke and McDonald's when sitting all day are very low.

Much lower than the chance it's just marketing.

option• 7 months ago

He definitely had a multi million (vacation ?) house in Laguna Beach, California

itake2• 7 months ago

I don't know the details, but large personal residences tax your brain (as well as your bank account).

Instead of spending hours of his life negotiating RE purchases, maintaining his properties, cutting checks to plumbers, doing renovations, etc. (that I hear many other billionaires do), he was practical with his (luxury) purchases focusing on time saving (living near work, fast food, private jet) and the experience (luxury vacation).

If you don't appreciate that, I think you're missing the point of his frugality.

spectralista2• 7 months ago

I have read enough on Munger and Buffet that I don't think it was quite theater. I think they really believe/believed their own bullshit.

Like the way Munger would promote reading but Andrew Carnegie built 2500 libraries. They would view building libraries as an opportunity cost and waste of capital.

"Ah shucks, I wish people like me would pay a lot more in taxes" but of course these guys didn't spend a dime on actual lobbying to make that happen. Again, that would be seen as a giant opportunity cost and waste of capital. They wouldn't want to go outside their "circle of competence" into something like politics or policy. How convenient.

I think the only way to have this image of a saintly grandpa when actually an absolute cut throat , money obsessed, richest person of all time is to believe your own bullshit.

RickyLahey• 7 months ago

damn you guys are gullible

yuuu• 7 months ago

noooooooo he’s the billionaire with a heart of gold nooooooooo he’s just a sweet old man who likes mcdonald’s!!!!

eulgro• 7 months ago

I have legitimately no clue whether you're being sarcastic or not. Only an American could say that doing that amounts to being a hero. Personally, I call it misery.

EasyMark3• 7 months ago

you're going to get a lot of flack because some will only accept if he walked to work and ate vegan gmo-free granola at a granola stand on HackerNews I think to be called a "True American"

jimnotgym7• 7 months ago

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.

WorkerBee28474• 7 months ago

Berkshire 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• 7 months ago

They 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.

Tycho4• 7 months ago

Not 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• 7 months ago

Well, 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• 7 months ago

Isn'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.

tim3339• 7 months ago

That wasn't their main thing. The main one was to buy stocks or companies for less than they were worth, either because the market mispriced them or because company owners wanted to retire and sell to Berkshire. They also were big into insurance float which is getting insurance premium money that doesn't have to be paid out for a while which provides a kind of free leverage. Buffett did a lot of other things too.

bigthymer2• 7 months ago

I think over the last few decades, he could make deals just because the Buffett name held so much influence. If Buffett was investing, then others could assume that the company won't go bankrupt.

applesauce2• 7 months ago

Seems inaccurate to me. What I've heard is that BRK is famous for being hands-off. Their management team is too small anyway to have done much micromanaging.

tome6• 7 months ago

Correct. Berkshire only buys well-functioning businesses. '“Turnarounds” seldom turn'.

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1979.html

koakuma-chan2• 7 months ago

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.

reilly3000• 7 months ago

Undervalued, not underperforming. Companies that others overlook but have solid fundamentals and great strategy.

ok123456• 7 months ago

He calls them "cigar butts." His analogy is that you collect enough of them, and you have a whole cigar.

flkz2• 7 months ago

If it's undervalued it should be worth more, no?

koakuma-chan2• 7 months ago

Is Intel undervalued? Should Intel be worth more? Intel is an example of a company that I had in mind.

patmcc• 7 months ago

An undervalued company is one that everyone else thinks is a loser but actually isn't - if you can identify that (and maybe make some adjustments to it) you can make a lot of money pretty quickly.

JumpCrisscross12• 7 months ago

I just asked ChatGPT

Please don’t do this.

what Warren Buffett's strategy is, and it said buying undervalued companies and holding for a long time

No. It’s cheap leverage applied to low-volatility assets bought for a fair price [1]. (Munger got him off the ‘cigarette butt’ strategy of buying on the cheap.)

[1] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19681/w196...

Tycho4• 7 months ago

According to the paper you posted (interesting analysis), it’s not just low-vol assets, but good quality ones. Also, they would no doubt do a lot more buying of undervalued (good quality) companies if they weren’t by this point “too big to care”, so to speak.

pinkmuffinere• 7 months ago

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

abdelhousni2• 7 months ago

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

j-conn• 7 months ago

In 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

JumpCrisscross12• 7 months ago

Also, on what planet did Ancient Greeks not celebrate their wealthy.

SilverElfin• 7 months ago

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.

paxys2• 7 months ago

Why 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• 7 months ago

He’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.

missedthecue2• 7 months ago

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

verteu• 7 months ago

Interesting 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

I wonder how much is due to the market becoming more efficient, vs Berkshire's size / market impact?

tim3339• 7 months ago

Probably 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-pick...)

thinkingtoilet• 7 months ago

That is wild.

dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv• 7 months ago

How do you figure? The portfolio looks to have performed roughly the same as the S&P.

missedthecue2• 7 months ago

BRK 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• 7 months ago

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.

andriamanitra• 7 months ago

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...

sizzzzlerz2• 7 months ago

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

davidw• 7 months ago

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.

justin66• 7 months 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.

sethev2• 7 months ago

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.

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.

xeromal3• 7 months ago

I appreciate this viewpoint. Thanks for sharing.

twodave6• 7 months ago

I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.

rhubarbtree• 7 months ago

Disagree. The last one is important.

You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy.

_heimdall2• 7 months ago

Avoiding scaling your lifestyle with tour current wealth seems like an extremely important lesson people could learn here. Very few people know what "enough" means to them.

Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it.

conductr5• 7 months ago

The last one is key to my entire value system as a person. I have had some financial wins in life and try not to let it impact my day to day. I avoid, sometimes with great effort, flashy things (I’ve been tempted to by exotic cars as an example but have found if I just rent one for a day or two that urge goes away, it’s just a toy to me). I usually say I’m not materialistic, but I am at times, and what I strive to be is humble, modest, and invisible. I don’t want other people seeing me as flaunting wealth. It’s not who I want to be or how I want my kids to see me act.

That said, I do, like Buffet, live in a nice house. I’m not depriving myself. But it’s also very approachable by any successful employee of a company (maybe salary of a director or VP of any large company could afford it). It doesn’t represent what I could afford if I wanted to really get into the elite neighborhoods of my city. I don’t really enjoy people in those areas. They tend to always talk about money in one way or another (vacations, private schools, cars, houses, maids, nanny’s, etc). Nothing wrong with it I suppose, just not my jam and not how I want my children raised and not the people I want as my neighbors and peers. I’ve always been much more envious of those unsuspecting rich people that drive clunker cars or live in modest homes and mow their own lawns but then you find out they paid for 16 grand children to go to college or something random like that. That’s the kind of thing I’d rather be known for than the guy with the Ferrari or yacht (even if they weren’t mutually exclusive).

tjwebbnorfolk10• 7 months ago

His inspiration is a big reason why I still drive my 1993 Honda Civic after owning it for 15 years. I bought it for $1000 after graduating college. I say a little prayer every time I turn the key that it actually starts. I gave it its own github repo where I track the maintenance I do on it. It reminds me where I come from, and that I don't need shiny shit to be happy. I believe this to be a virtue.

My girlfriend years ago thought it was incredible and amusing that I was working a fancy tech job and drove this old car around. We are now happily married.

These days, I could buy a Bentley with cash. But I don't need one.

Warren Buffet's example is an inspiration that should be followed by more people who go into debt buying crap they can't afford with money they don't have in order to look rich.

solatic• 7 months ago

The key to a happy life is to learn how to reduce the amount of things you own and how to build strong relationships. Once you have enough to put a roof over your head and food on your table, more than that can only be used to purchase increasing amounts of comfort, which is not the same as increasing amounts of happiness.

YouTube has plenty of videos of people calling in with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year in income and somehow they are still broke and in debt. Live below your means, save the excess income into an investment portfolio, keep doing that until you have enough money to live off the interest. Don't even think about buying a Rolex until you have so much money coming in from interest that you don't even know what else to do with it. Even then, remember that the Rolex, like anything else, requires maintenance, but that if you make someone else happy, they can take care of themselves.

wickedsight• 7 months ago

- He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old.

Really makes me wonder what drives him. For many people it's the money, but with him it doesn't seem that way. But I haven't read too much about him, so if anyone has insight I'd love to hear about it.

chihuahua2• 7 months ago

For some people, money is not for buying things, but just for keeping score. That can make it rewarding and addictive to accumulate money, even if you don't buy anything (like a giant house) with it.

The score keeping aspect makes it interesting, just like playing tennis while keeping score is more interesting than just hitting a ball back and forth across the net without counting.

JuniperMesos• 7 months ago

Homes and physical community are a pretty personal thing.

Also, given that he is a billionaire, I do kind of assume that he has paid money to upgrade his home at some point, probably also owns additional homes elsewhere, maybe has done other things with his vast amount of money that normal people don't do, that are still consistent with living at the same address as when he was 28.

bdunks• 7 months ago

I can recommend the Acquired (podcast) 3 part series on Berkshire.

There was a cool fact in there that he sees every price tag as the opportunity cost with compounding interest.

TheAlchemist2• 7 months ago

Read his biography - "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life". It's quite long but pretty accurate picture of the man and what drives him. His answer was always that he just loves what he does and he does it with people he loves (Charlie). One can hardly ask for more in life.

TehCorwiz2• 7 months ago

The house he bought at 28 is 3500 square feet in a very very nice neighborhood and was worth $1.2 million a few years ago. It's humble by billionaire standards, not by average person standards. He never needed to size-up because of children, or size-down because of a bad economy, he was already set for both space and finances. Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need.

santoshalper• 7 months ago

I think it's more that he didn't build a gaudy billionaire mansion, even though he easily could have.

WaxProlix• 7 months ago

It's insanely humble by billionaire standards. Any FAANG SWE over 30 or so in the United States can get that. Contrast with multiple compounds, entire islands, etc.

jonemi2• 7 months ago

For reference, this is the house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#/media/File:Dun...

nonethewiser• 7 months ago

Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need.

That's the moral though. He didn't need it so he didn't do it. Whereas so many others with so much less do so much more.

g947o• 7 months ago

If you compare that with Zuckerberg, Buffett is a saint without question.

hn_throwaway_993• 7 months ago

You say "it's humble by billionaire standards" - I think it's relatively humble by ~$300k a year standards. The thing I love about this house is that I think it represents just about the maximum real utility one can get from a home.

He had 3 kids, and a 3500 sq ft house is, IMO, an extremely average size for any decently paid professional where I live with a family that size. It basically looks like something that had everything he needed, and anything beyond that that you so often see in rich people houses is just for show and bling.

altmanaltman• 7 months ago

No, he's really humble, guys, trust me. He has only owned JUST ONE private jet in his life and has upgraded it only ONCE guys. He also currently owns the world's largest private jet operator NetJets [0] via Berkshire that he uses regulary to leverage its fleet now. I'm dying in the light of this humility.

0 - https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DLB-28383

pembrook5• 7 months ago

Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need.

Absolutely, but let's also not do the opposite. Being poor does not make one morally superior either.

anonu2• 7 months ago

He said he would keep writing at least once a year.

kamaal5• 7 months ago

>Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing):

Perhaps the best thing Buffet has managed to do is to live long. Most of compounding magic begins at ages 60-65, a time where most investors start to die out.

Second best thing he did was to start/acquire a insurance firm. The 'float' helps them to run a kind of in house index fund on other peoples money, without having to pay TERs/Fees. Thats basically no effort bogle style compounding. Even if you end with a situation where you have to return ALL the premiums collected, you still get to keep the returns.

Other wise everything else is just fairly normal, if you are sitting in front of charts for long, its impossible to miss something that's going up on a weekly timeframe for long periods of time. You just pyramid upwards and wait, patiently.

The real issue is waiting doesn't work too well for most people as you start to die out after 60.

hn_throwaway_993• 7 months ago

Most of compounding magic begins at ages 60-65, a time where most investors start to die out.

Percentage-wise, few wealthy investors are dying out at ages of 60-65. In the US, males that make it to age 60 have a life expectancy of 81-82. But that's across all men - life expectancy is strongly correlated with wealth in the US, so a man in the top 1% could very reasonably expect to live to very late 80s/90s.

Nevermind that Buffet was still fabulously rich when he was 60, so none of your logic makes any sense to me.

EliRivers• 7 months ago

"He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old."

Good for him. Big savings right there. Buying/selling/moving house can cost a fortune.

mschuster91• 7 months ago

... which makes the need for rent control and renter protection laws obvious. When people have the "choice" between paying their landlord 5k more just because the landlord can or spending 5-10k on finding a new home and moving, landlords have all the cards.

tjwebbnorfolk10• 7 months ago

Sure -- but as far as idols go, you could do a lot worse than Mr. Buffett

rTX5CMRXIfFG• 7 months ago

It's OK to have someone to look up to and have an example to follow, but why do you need to have an idol?

zwnow8• 7 months ago

Our society has become moralistic

Which is extremely important. It's important to call out highly immoral behavior and lifestyles. Being a billionaire by itself is highly immoral. These people sleep like babies while people starve to death.

He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports.

We praising for the bare minimum now?

pembrook5• 7 months ago

If we're going to assign moral value to people based on their wealth (a classic logical fallacy), then I think you need to take a look in the mirror.

The global median income is $2,760 annually. You sleep like a baby making likely 10-100X that, all while people are starving to death.

What are you doing to help the starving poor with your vast wealth? Are you not also morally bankrupt yourself, using your own logic?

While you're joining the current bolshevik revival that the populist left is trying to spin up, I just hope you remember the kulaks (the land-owning peasants) and many of the Serednyaks (the middle class peasants) also got murdered in the revolution. I'd keep any claims of moral superiority to myself if I were you.

Yokohiii4• 7 months ago

I think moralism is an side effect of the demise of spiritualism in the west. We somehow have to shape moral values, the lack of a framework for it makes it feel blunt and chaotic.

That being said, I find it odd to moralize on moralism. We have way too many people in power that are awful humans and do a bad job and never get punished.

Meanwhile, stealing a car because you are hungry can be the begin of a ruined life.

There is no balance.

(This isn't about buffet, idc, just about your interwoven opinion.)

gpt5• 7 months ago

The point is that moralism makes everyone blind and see in black and white.

Instead of seeing the nuance, you’d see everything that comes out of Elon Musk or Israel whoever you’ve managed to convince yourself is that current villain, as bad - without attention to details. More than that - you’d waste your time arguing whether they are “good” or “bad”, instead of focusing on specific actions, which is what society as a whole seems to enjoy seem to gravitate towards, and what increases polarization and reduce proper discourse.

pembrook5• 7 months ago

We have way too many people in power that are awful humans and do a bad job

When was this ever not the case? And what makes you think that you (or any other human) are somehow morally superior and would do a better job if subject to the same environment and pressures?

The point is that power corrupts, so we try to design decentralized systems wherever possible that don't require absolute power to function (ie. free markets, the internet, etc). Trusting specific human animals to wield authority over us in a non-awful way is not a reliable solution.

Meanwhile, stealing a car because you are hungry can be the begin of a ruined life.

Sure, but the overwhelming majority of people who steal cars are not starving. And thinking that being poor makes someone morally superior is simply an argumentum ad lazarum, one of the oldest logical fallacies going back to biblical times.

sethev2• 7 months ago

Yes, we seem to lack the framework and vocabulary to discuss morality anymore. You may be right that this is tied to the demise of spiritualism (or perhaps organized religion).

tialaramex• 7 months ago

Right. This is why I believe we should not build statues of people, only of ideas.

larrydag• 7 months ago

Adding the letter archive into a LLM prompt is a good read. you can use this as a source https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

corpoposter2• 7 months ago

I agree that more personal growth can be taken from reviewing other's behavior rather than analysis of their "overall morality". However, when people are powerful and their actions effect many people it is very important to reflect on the morality of their actions.

Holding powerful people and institutions to account for the morality of their actions can and has been a powerful force for good.

MuffinFlavored• 7 months ago

He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports.

How often did he ever deliver "bad news"?

ruszki• 7 months ago

He still lives in the same home he bought when he was 28 years old.

What does “living” mean in this case? That can mean absolutely nothing. I travel a lot (and probably Buffet too), and tax authorities would have a headache with what should I pay and to whom if I reported it completely to them when and where I am. In the country where I officially live I’m maybe 20-30%. There is no other countries with more. The simple case of 50%+1 days is nowhere near. In Buffet case, it can be even less. 10 years ago I had a different pattern. I wasn’t at home but in the same country (in the case of the US, like a state) at random places like 80-90%. So does Buffet really live there, like properly?

lisbbb• 7 months ago

How many days a year did Buffet live in that house, though? I suspect he was always on the move such that the home base never actually mattered. Same as Musk.

lazarus01• 7 months ago

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.

skybrian2• 7 months ago

Ways 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.

RickJWagner• 7 months ago

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

Buffett and Munger were both great teachers and entertainers.

Tycho4• 7 months ago

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.

zerofor_conduct• 7 months ago

https://archive.ph/WQ9sq

ChrisArchitect• 7 months ago

Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]

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

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

mvkel2• 7 months ago

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.

badlibrarian• 7 months ago

Buffett'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.

brcmthrowaway2• 7 months ago

Did Berkshire investing in Apple shares help Apple achieve success?

jedberg• 7 months 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.

skybrian2• 7 months ago

Also 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-ha...

sammy22552• 7 months ago

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"

sammy22552• 7 months ago

Probably an Indian

trueno• 7 months ago

"in today's fast paced business environment ... "

- our prolific overseas medium.com bloggers

Nevermark2• 7 months ago

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.

bibimsz• 7 months ago

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

maskil• 7 months ago

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

HardwareLust• 7 months ago

Wonder if he's still going to go to McDonald's every morning.

victor106• 7 months ago

Curious 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• 7 months ago

what 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• 7 months ago

legend. no words.

nephihaha• 7 months ago

The world's richest ukulele player.

Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

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