Thread

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

323 points · 221 comments · saimiam

dugmartin · 1789732295 · focus · HN ↗
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." (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/us/dozens-of-rich-americans-join-in-fight-to-retain-the-estate-tax.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/us/dozens-of-rich-america...)
1. nlitened · 1789734152 · focus · HN ↗
  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.
  1. yuuu · 1789734967 · focus · HN ↗
    I thought he was giving away 99% of his wealth?
    Waterluvian · 1789739929 · focus · HN ↗
    Most of them seemingly have control problems where even if they do, it is in the form of a giant money pile still under their control that they give away the returns of, usually also completely under their control.
    toomuchtodo · 1789740361 · focus · HN ↗
    What's interesting is they cannot, but their ex partners go much further in their giving (Melinda French, MacKenzie Scott, for example).
    Waterluvian · 1789741152 · focus · HN ↗
    I wonder if there's a survivorship bias there: those who can and do reject the status quo.
    toomuchtodo · 1789741318 · focus · HN ↗
    My hot take is that men with extreme wealth and power are desperate to keep it as part of their identity, where the women I mentioned do not have the same character and personality flaws, and therefore use it as a tool to do good because they are not optimizing for status, power, and wealth: they are optimizing to do good. Doesn't always hold, there are exceptions.
    "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority." -- Lord Action
    DennisP · 1789741793 · focus · HN ↗
    One giant exception was Chuck Feeney, who made $8 billion on duty free shops and gave almost all of it away, much of it anonymously. By the end of his life he and his wife had a couple million and lived in a rented apartment.
    idiotsecant · 1789746422 · focus · HN ↗
    Giving away your fortune in secret is so much more virtuous than doing it with a giant foundation with your name on it. Much respect.
    fuzzfactor · 1789750543 · focus · HN ↗
    When they agreed in Nashville to rename the airport after Dolly Parton, all of the people commenting on the TV clip said it was well-deserved.
    Some were more emotional than others, but one of the proponents was very touched, she admired Parton so much because Dolly set an example of how to be as successful as a person can be, and not keep a billion for yourself.
    I can't find the clip now, but it was from the heart.

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