(This is Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis about Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can subscribe. Here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday night.)
Buffett says almost everything
Warren Buffett and Becky Quick covered too many topics in an interview that aired on a A two-hour special on CNBC I need to write an actual resume for me on Tuesday evening.
“Warren Buffett: The Life and Legacy” included a discussion about him unable to find a large company to buy For Berkshire Hathaway, its cash position has moved toward $400 billion, with new CEO Greg Abel, the future of his company and past, the difficulty of giving away billions of dollars and the invaluable role of luck in its success. This is not an exhaustive list.
Here are some short clips and quotes that caught my attention.
- Buffett said what it takes to find a good business: “It doesn’t take a genius, and it doesn’t take Greek symbols or anything like that to figure out how much a business is worth. . . . If (Greg Abel) had left high school like some of our managers, he’d still be as smart as he is.”
- Buffett said at Sunday’s board meeting that directors considered his proposal and named Greg Abel as the next CEO.: “(Director) Steve Burke finally said, ‘We don’t have to sit around for three months and look at our navels or anything. It’s the right decision.” That’s why they voted to do it.”
Greg Abel speaks at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting of shareholders on May 3, 2025 in Omaha, Nebraska.
CNBC
- Buffett on the future of Berkshire: “It’s always going to move a little bit, but it’s basically going to expand. Sometimes there’s going to be things that disappear … We’re going to have companies that won’t be viable in that world’s economy 50 or 100 years from now. But we’re going to have a lot more that have evolved over the years. We can go with capital wherever the country goes.”
- Why is being on a corporation’s board of directors the best job in the world?:
“Being a director. I mean, it’s the best job in the world. You get 250, 300, even 500,000 dollars a year for doing something that’s really cool. They usually give you a car and they have cars to take you everywhere. And everything’s polite. And who likes that job?”
- Why he refused to bet on horses when he was in high school: “The first thing you learn in horse racing is you can win the race, but you can’t win the race… I had a few horses in mind, but I lost money in the first race. Then I did the stupidest thing you can imagine… I kept betting every race. I went home $50 poorer, and it took me…”
I went to Howard Johnson’s and I had two dollars left. I bought myself a fancy meal and sat there and thought about it and thought about it on the train. That’s the end of the horse race.” - Buffett has managed Berkshire for decades:
“Everything I wanted to happen was done… That’s not to say that everything we did was done. But I couldn’t think of more fun than running Berkshire. And Charlie and I often had more fun (if any) with things that didn’t work.”
- About being a teacher on one side: “I loved it. It suited my didactic style, and I loved my ideas… I had fun teaching. Except for when I ran out of gas a few years ago, I still do.”
- Advice for new parents: “The only advice I have for newlyweds is to never be sarcastic with your kids. I mean, it might be sarcastic to you, but it’s something they’ll never forget.”
“You have to be wiser in the second half of your life than you were in the first half. And if you’re all right, you have to be a better person in the second half of your life.”
- About being kind: “I would ask any man to answer the questions whether kindness would harm them in any way, and whether the world would not be better off if they said to themselves every morning, ‘Good and bad things will happen to me today, but I can be kind to anyone.’
Exclusive clip from Warren Buffett Watch
Although the special lasted two hours, the interview was more than enough time, which forced the producer to make some difficult decisions.
For here Warren Buffett watch readers – the clip he wanted to go into the final passage. Buffett explains why he has kept quiet about politics in recent years:
BECKY QUICKLY: You don’t comment much lately either. You basically save it for the annual meeting when all the shareholders come to town.
WARREN BUFFETT: That’s right.
BECKY QUICKLY: Why is that?
WARREN BUFFETT: On the one hand, I made a statement years ago — maybe, I don’t know, five or six years ago — someone asked to take a political stand. And I said that you do not trust your citizenship. But —
BECKY QUICKLY: As CEO.
WARREN BUFFETT: And — as CEO, yes.
You have three or four hundred thousand employees, you have millions of shareholders, but still you — I got the position — say
But I think — I keep coming back to this comment because people will — became tribal. We have seen it in ourselves concurrent rewards program.
But there’s no reason why someone answering the phone at GEICO or waiting on a customer at a Nebraska Furniture Mart should work with people who have a negative opinion of the company because of what I just said.
You know, I’m here — if I want to speak as a private citizen, I must leave Berkshire.
But I really don’t want to — I’m so familiar with Berkshire that I — When I’m speaking at an annual meeting or something like that, people associate it with Berkshire’s voice to some extent.
And employees don’t deserve it. Companies don’t deserve this. So I gave it up.
Buffett’s philanthropic children and the growing Buffett
Buffett has it gave three adult children a very difficult conversation about how to pass on his vast fortune after his death.
While she was in Omaha to interview her father, Becky sat down with Howard, Susan and Peter Buffett to talk about the assignment, their philanthropic efforts, and growing up in Buffett’s famously humble home.
An extensive segment was shown on the special, but here’s the whole story:
In this passage, they recall how their father was “wise” in giving allowances:
HOWARD BUFFETT: You know, we used to get that allowance for cleaning gutters, mowing lawns, raking leaves and stuff.
But he – but Warren was very smart and he started giving it to us in quarters. Then he bought a slot —
SUSAN BUFFETT: Dims!
HOWARD BUFFETT: Yes.
SUSAN BUFFETT: It was a penny slot machine.
HOWARD BUFFETT: Yes. Then he bought —
SUSAN BUFFETT: He took it all back.
HOWARD BUFFETT: Then he bought a slot machine, so he gets most of his allowance back. At least with me it gave back a lot.
In it Internal wealth On Wednesday’s “Squawk Box,” Robert Frank explained that Buffett’s children may have the hardest job in philanthropy:
In case you missed it
“Warren Buffett: The Life and Legacy” will air again on CNBC this coming Sunday, January 18 at 3:00 PM ET and Monday, January 19 at 7:00 PM ET.
BUFFETT AND BERKSHIRE ABOUT THE INTERNET
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BERKSHIRE STOCKHOLM
BRK.A share price: $740,750
BRK.B share price: $493.29
BRK.BP/E (TTM): 15.78
Berkshire’s market cap: $1,064,618,103,867
Berkshire Cash as of September 30: $381.7 billion (up 10.9% from June 30)
Excluding rail cash and bills of credit deduction: $354.3 billion (up 4.3% from June 30)
There are no repurchases of Berkshire shares beginning in May 2024.
(All figures as of date of publication unless otherwise stated)
BERKSHIRE’S TOP ACTIVE HOLDINGS – January 16, 2026
Berkshire’s top holdings of publicly traded stocks in the US and Japan, by market value based on the last closing price.
Holdings as of September 30, 2025 Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing On November 14, 2025, except for:
A complete list of holdings and current market values is available at CNBC.com Berkshire Hathaway portfolio controller.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send me any questions or comments about the newsletter at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we won’t direct questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
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It is also recommended to read Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders. There are people gathered on Berkshire’s website.
— Alex Crippen, editor, Warren Buffett Watch