[HN Gopher] Berkshire Hathaway Announces Leadership Appointments...
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Berkshire Hathaway Announces Leadership Appointments [pdf]
Author : kamaraju
Score : 71 points
Date : 2025-12-08 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (berkshirehathaway.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (berkshirehathaway.com)
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| After a lackluster year the market did NOT like this move at all.
| gbacon wrote:
| Had to be expected. Buffett was a once in several generations
| talent.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Is there a write-up somewhere of how much of an outlier he
| really was?
| NaOH wrote:
| 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...
| beambot wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >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:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/berkshire-hathaway-portfolio/
| yibg wrote:
| 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.
| gen220 wrote:
| It's disingenuous to lump AAPL in with the tech stocks
| that compose the top part of the S&P 500 right now. Much
| of their valuations are highly-leveraged bets on a
| massive and nearish-term realization of a dream AI
| business scenario (NVDA, TSLA, AVGO, and to a lesser
| extent MSFT, GOOG and META).
|
| What % of AAPL is a highly-leveraged bet on AI, in
| comparison to those listed above? If you could only own 1
| of those over the previous and incoming 10 years, it'd be
| challenging to not choose Apple, with maybe Google as
| second (albeit with a sizable regulatory asterisk).
|
| I know there's a tendency to reduce everything to
| numbers, but Berkshire is playing a qualitatively
| completely different risk management game from the rest
| of the companies in the top 10 in the S&P 500 right now.
|
| Edit: selfishly, I think you have more to gain from
| understanding why BRK chose to invest in Apple, than you
| do from aiming to "explain away" BRK as unremarkable.
|
| If you're trying to choose where to lazily (i.e. with as
| little mental effort as possible) stash away your
| investments, that's a separate discussion. Buffet himself
| recommends S&P 500. But BRK is playing a fundamentally
| different game from the S&P. An investment in VOO vs an
| investment in BRK support very different theses.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 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
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You can easily transfer (or rollover) HSA funds from
| HealthEquity ti Fidelity. Do it at as many times as you
| want, but at least once per year should suffice.
|
| You don't even have to send anything to HealthEquity, if
| I recall correctly. Just send Fidelity the Transfer of
| Assets form and they do it all:
|
| http://fidelity.com/toa
|
| I would make sure all the funds in HealthEquity are cash
| though, just to make things easier and reduce error.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| HealthEquity charges a fee to do this which is very
| annoying. I think you can avoid it with an indirect
| rollover but you have to space those 365 days apart (not
| just in different years) and I prefer to not deal with
| the bookkeeping
| derf_ wrote:
| Buffett has repeatedly said that Berkshire's size means it
| will no longer be able to deliver outsized outperformance.
| He also says that most people should invest in index funds.
| It is perfectly reasonable to just buy the S&P if that
| aligns with your financial goals.
|
| _> BRK-B 's 5 year return is 2% per year more than SP500._
|
| That said, 2% per year is generally considered a lot in
| diversified mutual fund / ETF land. You might not be able
| to charge hedge-fund level 2-and-20 fees for delivering
| that, but you could certainly charge multiples of what the
| low-cost indexers do (instead, Berkshire charges you
| approximately nothing). Now, Berkshire is a conglomerate,
| not a fund, and you could argue 2% is an appropriate risk
| premium for a single stock, even one as diverse as
| Berkshire (which is still less diverse than the S&P). But
| it is pretty impressive for something that is _not_ a tech
| company. Those are the only things in the S &P that seem to
| be generating any returns these days (besides Berkshire, JP
| Morgan is the only other non-tech company with a market cap
| over $1tn, and arguably banks really are tech companies
| now, too).
|
| _> Apple is still 21% of BRK 's publicly listed holdings_
|
| The public company investments are a minority of
| Berkshire's current value. The majority comes from wholly-
| owned operating companies and insurance businesses.
| findjashua wrote:
| 20-yr CAGR seems to be consistently higher than SP500:
| https://testfol.io/?s=7boYMdNxqjh
| ksherlock wrote:
| BRK-B is also a top-10 (currently #10) component in the S&P
| 500 with a 1.74% weight. They also own ~40 stocks and I
| think around half of them are in the S&P 500 (including
| Apple, Amazon, and Google, which are also top 10 components
| but a combined ~15% weight), so, yeah.
| epolanski wrote:
| 2% is a massive difference.
|
| Another user posted the difference between sp500 and
| Berkshire returns in the last 2 decades. Starting with 10k
| in one case you end up with 160, in the other at 240. And
| if the 2% delta stays there, it's going to compound even
| further.
|
| Also, standard deviation on Berkshire is lower than the
| SP500, so the second is riskier.
| epolanski wrote:
| When it comes to equity investing even 5 years are too
| little. You want to judge returns in decades, otherwise
| you're speculating.
|
| Equity markets have been historically negative or flat even
| for 14 years (most recently 12 between 2000 and 2012).
| kristofferc wrote:
| Down 2% in the last 5 days?
| chollida1 wrote:
| 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.
| itsthecourier wrote:
| 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
| ikidd wrote:
| Buffet is stepping down at the end of the year.
|
| https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov1025.pdf
| chollida1 wrote:
| agreed. That had been previously reported
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _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.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| 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.
| itsthecourier wrote:
| 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
| Mistletoe wrote:
| How did you visit his home?
| gordonzhu wrote:
| 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...
| calmbonsai wrote:
| 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.
| mtgentry wrote:
| In a world of Chamaths, be a Buffet
| aanet wrote:
| Lucky you to have visited Buffet's house!
|
| I "visited" Buffet's house about a decade ago or so when I
| drove from Chicago to the Bay Area to move there.
|
| "Visited" is rather generous - I went by it, saw some security,
| took some selfies and pics, and paid my respects at the
| Steakhouse :) Now I wish I had sought an opportunity to visit
| him in person.
|
| Anyhow... BRKB has been in my portfolio for 20+ years. (Now
| dwarfed by other Tech equity)
| jksmith wrote:
| 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.
| kristianp wrote:
| 1.3B is peanuts for them really. More likely that Berkshire
| thinks its share price has reached a low enough point that it
| is good value.
| nabla9 wrote:
| 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.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Jamie Dimon is lining up his successor
| jll29 wrote:
| [Admittedly off-topic, but relevant to the readers of the post]
|
| Since this post is about financial investments, equity trading
| and M&A activities, I wonder is anyone shorting AI stocks to
| profit from the current bubble? I would be interested on people's
| stance (yes/no/why), and which instruments they use (if yes).
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Being short anything AI now seems like shotgun tasting unless
| you really want to give Citadel and Jane Street money since the
| options premiums are so high, but I have been trying to get a
| bit less exposed to tech over the last few months and just been
| buying other ETFs that are less exposed to tech.
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