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Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chairman, Names Son to Replace Him

323 points · 221 comments · saimiam

  1. dugmartin · · focus · HN ↗
    I guess Warren’s quote only applies to other people, not him. &quot;It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics.&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2001&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;us&#x2F;dozens-of-rich-americans-join-in-fight-to-retain-the-estate-tax.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2001&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;us&#x2F;dozens-of-rich-america...)
    1. Nemi · · focus · HN ↗
      The Chairman position is to protect company culture, not make operational decisions.
      1. cube00 · · focus · HN ↗
        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&#x27;s not their job to be that low level, but they can&#x27;t have an idea of the culture either.

        1. ekjhgkejhgk · · focus · HN ↗
          &quot;Company culture&quot; at Berkshire Hathway doesn&#x27;t mean the same as at most companies. BH buys companies and don&#x27;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.
          1. Nemi · · focus · HN ↗
            This is the answer. While it is very real to talk about &quot;employee culture&quot; as company culture, in this particular case, the &quot;culture&quot; I was talking about was from a corporate&#x2F;investment&#x2F;acquisition level. Howards job is not to understand how each company that BRK owns is run, that is the CEO&#x27;s job. But Howards job is to look at BRK from a high level and make sure that the CEO is executing in the same way that Warren set up, namely – buying companies and stocks at a &quot;fair&quot; price or below, and not micromanaging the companies that they acquire. If the CEO is not living up to that, Howard&#x27;s (and the board&#x27;s) one card that they can play is to replace the CEO.
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