Todd Combs leaving is the biggest news, but expected.
Everybody always talks about Buffet and late Charlie Munger, but they also knew how to hire talents like Todd Combs and Ted Weschler.
Jamie Dimon is lining up his successor
Seems like they're splitting the responsibilities even more, Buffet will step down as CEO in this year's end.
He has been a role model in many areas of my life and it hurts to see how his best friends and wife died already. would have loved seen Charlie reach 100 years old age.
Visited Buffet's home in Omaha and accepted a well lived life can be one following your own set of values, specially when they do not conform to the normal.
I know more about Buffet and Munger lifes than my own grandparents whom died relatively young in my childhood. Cannot explain how anything related to Charlie and Warren had hit me, I think they really feel like close wise elders in my spirit
In a world of Chamaths, be a Buffet
How did you visit his home?
Just a guess, but Buffett would often host undergrad and grad students at his home.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/warren-buffett-hosts-15-whar...
FWIW, in 2015 I happened to be in Omaha and I made a point to try and at least "see" it. It's just in a regular neighborhood. I parked up the street and, trying not to be too intrusive, I just walked by it.
The only unusual element I saw were some ropes deliberately blocking off the driveway. From a prior news article, I was aware he employed a PSD, but I didn't see any obvious security presence on the property--likely they're very deliberately low-key.
After a lackluster year the market did NOT like this move at all.
This is classic Buffett year, being fearful when others are greedy & building a massive war chest for when a correction inevitably occurs.
When it comes to Buffett (and Berkshire), it's really only reasonable to look at 5-year returns. 1-year or YTD are too susceptible to market sentiment rather than true value. Eg the Buffett indicator (stock market value / GDP) is 2x std dev above the norm right now -- way overpriced by historical standards.
BRK-B doesn't seem much different than SP500 on 10, 15, and 20 year returns. BRK-B's 5 year return is 2% per year more than SP500.
https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/
https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/?ticker=BRK-B
If my goal is to not sell for a decade or more, I'm not sure what BRK offers over SP500, except more risk.
Kind of a niche use case, but BRK.B is nice if you want a single stock that is relatively diversified, kinda mirrors the greater market, and doesn't pay dividends.
My employer uses a shitty HSA provider (Healthequity) who doesn't provide any sort of tax reporting, and I live in a state that taxes HSAs. Investing in BRK.B instead of a broad fund is a bit riskier, but it saves me from spending an hour tabulating individual transactions when I do my taxes
> BRK-B's 5 year return is 2% per year more than SP500.
> If my goal is to not sell for a decade or more, I'm not sure what BRK offers over SP500, except more risk.
I think you have already answered your own question. Historically, BRK-B has very often outperformed the SP500.
Plus, their investment philosophy is pretty clear. It's a solid alternative if you distrust tech which is today very heavy in the SP500.
>Historically, BRK-B has very often outperformed the SP500.
Huh? The point I was trying to make that the returns seem to equalize the further back we go.
> It's a solid alternative if you distrust tech which is today very heavy in the SP500.
The only reason BRK kept up with SP500 over the last 10 years is because of its outsized investment in Apple in 2016 or so, after the disastrous results of sitting out of tech in the 2000s and early 2010s and pursuing other investments such as Kraft Heinz or whatever.
As of September 2025, Apple is still 21% of BRK's publicly listed holdings:
SPY has a cumulative return of ~370% from start of 2000. BRK.B is at ~1,200%. That's a pretty big difference.
You can discount Apple as being part of the portfolio, but that's a bit like saying, well they wouldn't have done so well if we remove the high performing stocks in the portfolio.
Had to be expected. Buffett was a once in several generations talent.
Is there a write-up somewhere of how much of an outlier he really was?
I would recommend the 2021 three-part Acquired podcast series on Berkshire. Episodes are long, though there are transcripts if you prefer reading over listening.
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-i
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-ii
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-iii
That said, I'll note this quote from Buffett:
>“I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more money than I've ever made,” Buffett told the audience, referencing the remarkable 680% surge in Apple's stock since Berkshire first began acquiring shares in early 2016.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-says-embarrass...
Aside: The 1.3B investment in UHC suggests BH thinks Obamacare will be around for awhile. That, or reversing healthcare costs will not happen for the time being.
Not sure why this is posted on hackernews.
Maybe the OP thought this was announcing Buffett's successor or that Buffett himself was stepping down?
I guess the one big thing is that Todd Combs is out at Geico which is pretty bad news for the firm as he was tremendous at running Geico and helping Buffett and Munger in an investment capacity.
Who ever gets the new CIO role at Berkshire is going to have a field day. They currently hold about $382B in cash.
You can invest in alot with a 1/3 of Trillion dollars and you can outright buy the vast majority of companies with a bank roll that big.
My theory is that Buffett is hoping for one last large crash before he retires so he can go shopping for distressed companies.
With so many long term people announcing they will be leaving within the next 2 years this announcement sets the table nicely for a new CEO(probably Greg Abel) and new CIO to pick their team.
> "My theory is that Buffett is hoping for one last large crash before he retires so he can go shopping for distressed companies."
There was a video of a QA session with him recently where he was asked something like that and he answered (paraphrased) "we are keeping cash so that we can buy cheap things when they come up. Some people think I'm waiting so Greg Abel(?) can have a nice opportunity when he takes over, but I'm not that nice, if I see something I will buy it". And reiterated the commonly stated idea that Charlie Munger thought they'd have done better if they only ever made ~5 carefully chosen investments in the lifetime of the company, and that investing too freely, quickly, often, was a bad idea.
I think that leaves a difficult situation for the next CEO, people are going to expect them to do something and probably the best thing they can do is as much nothing as possible, reading, watching and waiting. Without Buffet and Munger's history of that it might be hard to defend.
If there was ever a stock to invest in where the investors are satisfied for management to carefully do nothing, wouldn't it be Berkshire? Will they automatically go nutso-stupid once Buffet is gone? It's not exactly like it's a day-trader stock, the share price went from merely ridiculous to absurd-beyond the last few decades.
Buffet is stepping down at the end of the year.
agreed. That had been previously reported
I think the same, we maybe entering the state of market Munger grew up in. Dalio has been calling it for years. if it happens on Buffet watch and he manages it successfully it would be a text book example of resiliency in a kind of centenarian almost-black swam scenario.
Wonder if he can pull it just as he did with Solomon Brothers