(That is the Warren Buffett Watch e-newsletter, information and evaluation on all issues Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You possibly can enroll right here to obtain it each Friday night in your inbox.)
Buffett talks about nearly the whole lot
Warren Buffett and Becky Fast lined too many matters within the interviews that aired in a two-hour particular on CNBC Tuesday night for me to jot down a cogent abstract.
“Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy” included discussions about his lack of ability to discover a large firm to buy for Berkshire Hathaway as its money pile strikes towards $400 billion, new CEO Greg Abel, his firm’s future and previous, the problem of freely giving billions of {dollars}, and the invaluable function of luck in his success. That is not a complete record.
Right here, nevertheless, are some transient clips and quotes that caught my consideration.
- Buffett on what’s wanted to search out good companies: “It does not take a genius, and it positive does not take any Greek symbols or something like that to determine what a enterprise is value… If (Greg Abel) stop at highschool like a few of our managers have, he’d nonetheless be as good as he’s.”
- Buffett on the Sunday board assembly when administrators thought-about his suggestion they title Greg Abel as subsequent CEO: “(Director) Steve Burke lastly stated, you understand, ‘We need not sit round for 3 months and peer at our navel or something on this. That is the appropriate resolution.’ And they also voted to do it.”
Greg Abel speaks through the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Assembly in Omaha, Nebraska on Could 3, 2025.
CNBC
- Buffett on Berkshire’s future: “It will at all times be transferring considerably, however it’ll be principally increasing. Often, there will likely be issues that disappear … We could have firms that fifty or 100 years from now won’t be viable within the economic system of that world. However we’ll have a complete lot extra that developed through the years. And we are able to go wherever the nation goes, and we are able to go together with capital.”
- Why being on an organization’s board of administrators is the very best job on the planet:
“Being a director. I imply, it is the very best job on the planet. You get 250, 300, even as much as 500 thousand {dollars} a yr for doing one thing that is fairly nice. Often they provide the transportation, and so they have automobiles ready to take you round the whole lot. And everyone’s well mannered. And everyone’d love that job. I imply, who would not?”
- Why he gave up betting on horses when he was in highschool: “One of many first stuff you be taught in horse racing is you may beat a race, however you may’t beat the races… I had a few horses in thoughts, however I misplaced the cash on the primary race. After which I did the dumbest factor you may think about… I simply saved betting each race. And after I went house, I used to be $50 poorer, which was all I might taken with me…
I went to the Howard Johnson’s, and I had a few {dollars} left. I purchased myself a flowery meal and simply sat there and considered it and considered it on the prepare. And that was the top of horse racing.” - Buffett on working Berkshire for many years:
“All the things I needed to have occur has labored out… Doesn’t suggest that the whole lot we have accomplished has labored out. However I could not think about extra enjoyable than I’ve had working Berkshire. And Charlie and I might have extra enjoyable out of the issues that did not work loads of occasions than (in the event that they) did.”
- On being a trainer on the facet: “I beloved it. It appealed to my didactic model, and I preferred my very own concepts… I simply had enjoyable instructing. And I nonetheless do, besides I ran out of fuel just a few years in the past.”
- Recommendation for brand new dad and mom: “The one piece of recommendation I give to newlyweds is do not ever use sarcasm together with your youngsters. I imply, it might be sarcasm to you, however it’s a lash throughout the again to them they will always remember.”
“Try to be wiser within the second half of your life than the primary half. And in case you’ve — if issues have labored properly for you, you have to be a greater particular person within the second half of your life.”
- On being sort: “I might simply ask anyone to problem me on whether or not being sort might damage them in any means, and whether or not the happiness of the world would not be higher if … each morning they stated to themselves, ‘I am going to have issues which can be good and unhealthy occur to me at the moment, however I might be sort to anyone.'”
Warren Buffett Watch’s unique clip
Although the particular was two hours lengthy, there was extra interview than time, forcing the producer to make some tough selections.
Right here for Warren Buffett Watch readers is a clip that she needed to get into the ultimate reduce. Buffett explains why he hasn’t been talking out on politics in recent times:
BECKY QUICK: You have not commented as a lot publicly recently, both. You principally reserve it for the annual assembly when all of the shareholders come into city.
WARREN BUFFETT: Proper.
BECKY QUICK: Why is that?
WARREN BUFFETT: Nicely, for one factor, I made the assertion just a few years in the past — possibly, I do not know, 5 or 6 years in the past — someone requested about taking a political stance. And I stated that you do not put your citizenship in a blind belief. However —
BECKY QUICK: As a CEO.
WARREN BUFFETT: And — as a CEO, yeah.
You’ve got three or 4 hundred thousand workers, and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of shareholders, however however you had been entitled — I took the place — to talk out.
However I feel — I’ve revisited that opinion in my thoughts, as a result of individuals could have — gotten so tribal. We noticed it on our items program at one time.
However there is not any motive why someone that is answering a telephone at GEICO or ready on a buyer on the Nebraska Furnishings Mart ought to be coping with individuals who have a unfavourable opinion of the corporate due to one thing I’ve stated.
And, you understand, right here I’m — if I wish to communicate as a personal citizen, I ought to resign from Berkshire.
However I do not really need — I’ve received recognized a lot with Berkshire that I — so long as I am talking on the annual assembly or something like that, individuals will affiliate it with the voice of Berkshire to some extent.
And the staff do not deserve that. The businesses do not deserve it. And so I backed away from that.
Buffett’s youngsters on philanthropy and rising up Buffett
Buffett has given his three grownup youngsters the extraordinarily tough speak of unanimously deciding how one can give away his monumental web value after he dies.
When she was in Omaha to interview their father, Becky sat down with Howard, Susan, and Peter Buffett to speak about that task, their very own philanthropic efforts, and what it was like rising up in Buffett’s famously unassuming home.
An in depth portion aired within the particular, however that is your entire dialog:
On this excerpt, they keep in mind how their father received “intelligent” about giving them an allowance:
HOWARD BUFFETT: You already know, we might earn this allowance for cleansing out gutters and chopping the garden and raking leaves and stuff.
However he — however Warren received fairly intelligent and he began giving it to us in quarters. After which he purchased a slot —
SUSAN BUFFETT: Dimes!
HOWARD BUFFETT: Yeah.
SUSAN BUFFETT: It was a dime slot machine.
HOWARD BUFFETT: Yeah. After which he purchased —
SUSAN BUFFETT: He received all of it again.
HOWARD BUFFETT: After which he purchased the slot machine, so he would get most of his allowance again. A minimum of with me, he received loads of it again.
In his Inside Wealth report on Wednesday’s “Squawk Field,” Robert Frank defined why Buffett’s youngsters might have essentially the most tough job in philanthropy:
When you missed it
“Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy” will likely be proven once more on CNBC this coming Sunday, January 18 at 3 PM ET and Monday, January 19 at 7 AM ET.
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET
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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
BRK.A inventory worth: $740,750
BRK.B inventory worth: $493.29
BRK.B P/E (TTM): 15.78
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,064,618,103,867
Berkshire Money as of September 30: $381.7 billion (Up 10.9% from June 30)
Excluding Rail Money and Subtracting T-Payments Payable: $354.3 billion (Up 4.3% from June 30)
No Berkshire inventory repurchases since Could 2024.
(All figures are as of the date of publication, except in any other case indicated)
BERKSHIRE’S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS – Jan. 16, 2026
Berkshire’s prime holdings of disclosed publicly traded shares within the U.S. and Japan, by market worth, based mostly on the most recent closing costs.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F submitting on November 14, 2025, apart from:
The total record of holdings and present market values is accessible from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please ship any questions or feedback in regards to the e-newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, however we do not ahead questions or feedback to Buffett himself.)
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Additionally, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are extremely advisable studying. There are collected right here on Berkshire’s web site.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
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