Warren Buffett Retires As Berkshire Hathaway CEO After 55 Years (nbcnews.com)
- Reference: 0180493883
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/31/226259/warren-buffett-retires-as-berkshire-hathaway-ceo-after-55-years
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/warren-buffett-retires-legacy-rcna251590
> Greg Abel, the 63-year-old lesser-known CEO of Berkshire's energy business, will take the helm of the conglomerate on Thursday. Buffett will remain its chairman.
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> Under Buffett's leadership, Nebraska-based Berkshire has thrived at the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street, with investments in industries ranging from railroads and insurance to candy and ice cream.
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> Along the way, while living in the same house he bought for just over $30,000 in the late 1950s, he redefined investing for the American public with his folksy and practical advice, became one of the wealthiest people on Earth and dedicated much of that fortune to philanthropy.
Berkshire's most significant tech bet was initiated in 2016 when it [2]invested $1 billion . Apple has since become Berkshire Hathaway's largest single holding, representing over 20% of the portfolio and valued at more than $65 billion.
While Buffett largely avoided pure tech for decades, Buffett long considered technology a blind spot, famously saying "I wish I had" bought Apple earlier.
Throughout the years, Buffett [3]expressed his disinterest in cryptocurrency and said he would " [4]never own bitcoin ," referring to it as "probably rat poison squared" and a "gambling token."
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/warren-buffett-retires-legacy-rcna251590
[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/16/05/17/0521218/warren-buffett-buys-1-billion-stake-in-apple
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/22/04/30/2245200/why-warren-buffett-still-wont-invest-in-bitcoin
[4] https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/01/03/1844241/bitcoin-surges-25-in-one-week-warren-buffett-still-wont-buy-it
Crypo is terrible as an investment (Score:3)
Of course Crypto is rat poison. There's no physical assets, whoever is the greater fool is going to be holding it as an investment while it becomes worth less.
Re: (Score:2)
> There's no physical assets
So, pretty much like every other fiat currency.
Re: (Score:2)
Fiat currencies don't claim to have assets, instead they have the backing of a government and a mandate to use them.
Bitcoin basically destroys assets and then pretends they're backing it (spoiler: no, because they've been destroyed!), and other cryptocurrencies are usually worse. Indeed, only the stablecoins come close, and usually they're fraudulent. But in all these cases, the crypto-boosters pretend the unique advantage to their fake currency is that it's "backed" by something, when it clearly isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Crypto currency isn't really a currency. It's more like a financial security. Which is nothing more than a contract where the parties holding or exchanging it agree to abide by its terms.
Bitcoin doesn't actually destroy assets. Those other assets are still there and you are still free to hold or trade them. What it does is challenge the monopoly positions that government issues currencies have.
Even gold and silver are partly like fiat (Score:1)
Admittedly, gold and silver have a utility value, but the price is much higher than the utility value because most people want it as a medium of exchange or a store of value, not to make stuff with.
He owns two tech stocks (Score:3)
While Buffett largely avoided pure tech for decades, Buffett long considered technology a blind spot, famously saying "I wish I had" bought Apple earlier.
In the third quarter of this year, Buffett purchased 18 million shares of Alphabet stock for $4.3 billion. He admits, [1]he should have invested earlier [cnbc.com]:
> "I had seen the product work, and I knew the kind of margins [they had]," Buffett said in 2018. "I didn't know enough about technology to know whether this really was the one that would stop the competitive race."
As he is famous for saying, invest in what you know. He didn't know enough about it and didn't invest until now. Either he saw the error of his ways or the incoming CEO took the plunge. Regardless, it will stay pay off handsomely for the company in the long run.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-reveals-new-position-in-alphabet.html
Buffett's criticism of (Score:2)
...convoluted and faddish "financial instruments" reminded me a lot of CRUD/biz development stacks: almost no stack designer wants to practice YAGNI, KISS, nor parsimony anymore, just collect resume buzzwords as if they were Pokemon. And the choices are not based on nor verified by science. I've seen productivity go down: the developer time per feature has gone up over time, and so has code per feature. Something is dearly wrong. Part of it is the fucked up DOM, we need a new standard.
Crappy New Year Slash
Time to give your money away! (Score:1)
Time to give your money away, Warren! We've waited long enough.
Re: (Score:1)
Why is it time to give his money away? If he just retired, now is precisely when he'll need it.
Re: (Score:3)
> Why is it time to give his money away? If he just retired, now is precisely when he'll need it.
Warren Buffett is worth about 173 billion dollars, pegging him as the world's 4th or 5th richest person if memory serves.
He's 95 years old. If he spent 100 million dollars a day, he would need to live another 47 years to spend it all.
This is a fair example of end stage capitalism. Will 100 million dollars a day make him live another ~50 years?
(To be sure, Warren Buffett is quite well aware of the dependences of wealth and worries about it, but has not found a solution he's willing to communicate.)
I've been
Re: (Score:2)
* 10 million a day, not 100.
Re: Time to give your money away! (Score:2)
I don't think he'd finish that task
He’s already doing it. (Score:3, Informative)
> Time to give your money away, Warren! We've waited long enough.
He long ago pledged to give away 99% of his fortune, and has already given away at least 60 billion. That isn’t chump change.
[1]https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/0... [cnbc.com]
This isn’t hidden information. Maybe check your media bubble?
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/with-6-billion-donation-buffett-has-now-given-away-over-60-billion.html
Re:He’s already doing it. (Score:4, Funny)
I am forced to agree that 60 billion dollars does not equal 99 percent . Units don't match for one. Learn how to math.
As for him pledging to give away 99% of his wealth (which I admit $60B is not) ... note that he's not dead yet. You don't know what his plans are for the future, or in his will.
Re: Time to give your money away! (Score:3)
go ahead and look into that. He rescinded all of that and is giving it to family members instead. The whole thing was just to make himself look good. Heâ(TM)s always been smoking mirrors the whole time, the guy is just a nasty oligarch asshole like the rest
Re: Time to give your money away! (Score:2)
These kinds of things always make me wonder a few things.
First, warren probably doesn't have much cash. He owns stuff, that on paper is worth money.
Now, if he were to sell everything... Is there enough money in the world to buy it all (at current valuation). I imagine banks are able to create mlney out of thin air, but what happens next after that?
It would be really interesting if a real economist tried to model what would happen if someone rich like buffet or musk converted everything they own into cash, a