Right, donating your present wealth because you expect to continue receiving an astronomical amount of wealth in perpetuity through your company ownership is not all that grand of a gesture.
Certainly better than many alternatives, but it’s not a gesture that should make the median income person feel like existing as an excessively wealthy person should be okay/legal.
> but to oversee their family's share in the enterprise
Not exactly, he's there to oversee the culture of Berkshire and ensure it's continuity. Buffett is donating all of his wealth (and has already donated $66B), so there isn't a fortune to protect.
Berkshire is an institution of sorts at this point, and requires strong stewardship to prevent enshittification (for lack of a better word).
While I liked your comment enough to upvote, I then realized that Chairman isn't an operational position. It's more a position where the person can exercise ownership of a company (to put it in layman terms). In your analogy he wouldn't be the athlete, more like the person who gets the winning money (assuming his son also has shares) and chooses the trainer/coach of the athletes (which still needs skill btw).
Warren was CEO until 9 months ago. While yes, he's been chairman for 50 years, he's been an exclusive chairman for only 9 months. The role is ambiguous anyways and it's pretty obvious that someone else won't have the authority Warren has. And his son has been a director for 30 years so it's not like he's a new hire
"Company culture" at Berkshire Hathway doesn't mean the same as at most companies. BH buys companies and don't interfere with them. So while BH employs upwards of 100k people, the people whose culture the CEO cares about is probably under 100 people.
there'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.
A 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.
Buffett 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.
Sat 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.
Maybe 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".
this 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
I wish I saw this comment two years ago while the stock price of one of our local company is still cheap. I sold all my shared before the price slightly tanked, earning just around 14% profit. Now two years later the price has gone up ~100% and they paid dividends twice during the time.
Should have treated it the old-fashion way, not the modern day-trading way.
Technically you can borrow money against your share, if you think your share gains will be higher than the interest rate you essentially have free money (although, obviously, not risk free). So that is a use for never selling shares.
If it pays a dividend there is income. Buy and hold is a very common approach to investing. Overtime the cost basis of a good stock will decrease. Some could be sold to invest in other things.
Buy and hold is a hedge against inflation as good if goods increases the the stock reflects the relative expansion of the money supply.
Because if you don't sell you don't pay taxes. You can instead borrow against the asset and get a credit for the interest you pay. The joys of being filthy rich.
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.
Rags 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.
71 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
Or 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
I 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-america...)
As I understand, the son is there not to lead the company (Greg Abel is the CEO), but to oversee their family's share in the enterprise.
I thought he was giving away 99% of his wealth?
Probably in a charitable trust that will be managed by the family. With the trust owning the shares.
Still leaves an absurd amount of wealth to manage.
He has. His family manages the foundation that owns BRK stock.
Isn’t that the usual loophole though? He definitely continues to donate large amounts but I always question setting up a trust that the kids run.
Right, donating your present wealth because you expect to continue receiving an astronomical amount of wealth in perpetuity through your company ownership is not all that grand of a gesture.
Certainly better than many alternatives, but it’s not a gesture that should make the median income person feel like existing as an excessively wealthy person should be okay/legal.
Well he's not dead yet.
Can he give me a few million then?
And me please. 2 mill.
he is giving 99% to the buffet family foundation ofc
> but to oversee their family's share in the enterprise
Not exactly, he's there to oversee the culture of Berkshire and ensure it's continuity. Buffett is donating all of his wealth (and has already donated $66B), so there isn't a fortune to protect.
Berkshire is an institution of sorts at this point, and requires strong stewardship to prevent enshittification (for lack of a better word).
Some better words just off the top of my head:
- to prevent institutional degradation.
- to avoid cultural shift for the worse.
- to keep hold of and nurture that culture.
And this is how you get constitutional monarchy.
While I liked your comment enough to upvote, I then realized that Chairman isn't an operational position. It's more a position where the person can exercise ownership of a company (to put it in layman terms). In your analogy he wouldn't be the athlete, more like the person who gets the winning money (assuming his son also has shares) and chooses the trainer/coach of the athletes (which still needs skill btw).
But we have been told for a long time that Buffett was a very active Chairman.
Warren was CEO until 9 months ago. While yes, he's been chairman for 50 years, he's been an exclusive chairman for only 9 months. The role is ambiguous anyways and it's pretty obvious that someone else won't have the authority Warren has. And his son has been a director for 30 years so it's not like he's a new hire
Whose strategy is explicitly to hold good stocks for a very long time.
I think Claude can do that right?
Maybe 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.
The Chairman position is to protect company culture, not make operational decisions.
Not sure any chairman has their ear to the ground to fully understand the culture within their organization.
I never saw our CEO in person, never saw our chairman even on a webinar.
And yes it's not their job to be that low level, but they can't have an idea of the culture either.
Berkshire itself has less than 50 employees, so it's absolutely possible to do this.
"Company culture" at Berkshire Hathway doesn't mean the same as at most companies. BH buys companies and don't interfere with them. So while BH employs upwards of 100k people, the people whose culture the CEO cares about is probably under 100 people.
there'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.
A 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.
These are jobs with titles we are talking about it says nothing about Buffets assets or wills.
Which is what?
Don't grow old
You only have to get rich once and opportunity to get rich occurs only once in every few generations.
Oh it applies to him. He just doesn’t care.
Buffett 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...
Sat 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.
https://archive.ph/E24O9
Many 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!
Maybe 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".
this 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
I wish I saw this comment two years ago while the stock price of one of our local company is still cheap. I sold all my shared before the price slightly tanked, earning just around 14% profit. Now two years later the price has gone up ~100% and they paid dividends twice during the time.
Should have treated it the old-fashion way, not the modern day-trading way.
Interestingly 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...
Technically you can borrow money against your share, if you think your share gains will be higher than the interest rate you essentially have free money (although, obviously, not risk free). So that is a use for never selling shares.
Also some shares pay dividends.
If it pays a dividend there is income. Buy and hold is a very common approach to investing. Overtime the cost basis of a good stock will decrease. Some could be sold to invest in other things.
Buy and hold is a hedge against inflation as good if goods increases the the stock reflects the relative expansion of the money supply.
Because if you don't sell you don't pay taxes. You can instead borrow against the asset and get a credit for the interest you pay. The joys of being filthy rich.
So after all no one could be trusted
Nepo dynasty.
It'll all burn eventually.
Yes, 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.
I 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.
Best 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 In context, his recent involvement in local politics seems rather odd.
Sounds like there's a grandson who's being groomed for that: 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.
Rags 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.
The grandson was in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high school. My guess is the Buffett family values environment was not typical suburban USA.
Is grooming the right word here? The guy is 42, grooming to me has a pedophilic connotation.
You should spend less time on 4chan.
The word has a many meanings - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/groom
Squinting at a [Compact] 1971 Oxford English Dictionary - the pedophilic meaning postdates that edition.
This is how groomed is used, yes. The sexually overt connotation is a very recent thing.
71 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
Warren Jong-il
People take what he does and says as gospel so knowing he went with monarchy tier nepotism is going to be very annoying.
Or 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