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!
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.
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.
He sat around talking to people, reading, betting on stocks/financial markets, playing games and occasionally buying a business.... that is many peoples dream retirement.
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.
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.
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 being able to spend every day talking to people about their businesses and their thoughts on business. I'm surprised he retired at all!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
It seems like something is broken since TSLA (for example) has been completely divorced from fundamentals since at least 2020. The richest man in the world has the vast majority of his net worth derived from vaporware and straight up fraud. Still wondering when the "weighing machine" kicks in.
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?
Massive wealth inequality is certainly a factor, not just in this but the associated affordability situation being faced by the group of people whose wealth isn't being buoyed by the stock market.
But I don't know what we can do about it when government has been captured by people with vested interests in not fixing anything.
It feels like things have to get bad enough to get people to actually rise up. Not like, revolution or anything, but real protest (and enough political awakening to understand that they are being fed culture war bullshit to distract them from the class war they should be waging).
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.
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!
Respect.
How Buffett did it?
https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.thea...
tldr; he was leveraged with good stocks
I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.
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.
That doesn't sound very positive to me. Perhaps OP has a point
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...")
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.
Imagine if I said "there are so many more worthwhile things to do than painting" if some famous artist retired.
— Voltaire
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.
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.
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.
That said, the turnaround 'mission' you mention about still happens, but is more associated with private equity than Berkshire.
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.
Ben Graham
But I don't know what we can do about it when government has been captured by people with vested interests in not fixing anything.
It feels like things have to get bad enough to get people to actually rise up. Not like, revolution or anything, but real protest (and enough political awakening to understand that they are being fed culture war bullshit to distract them from the class war they should be waging).
They're sophisticated government contractors. They've insulated themselves from the wiles of the market.