{"id":378906,"date":"2025-12-31T07:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T07:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378906\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T07:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T07:16:09","slug":"today-is-warren-buffetts-last-day-as-berkshire-ceo-business-leaders-tell-us-what-they-learned-from-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378906\/","title":{"rendered":"Today is Warren Buffett\u2019s last day as Berkshire CEO. Business leaders tell us what they learned from him"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Warren Buffett has worn many hats over the years: The stock-picking Oracle of Omaha. An avuncular, Dairy-Queen-eating, Coke-drinking product pitchman<\/a>. A living symbol of capitalism and its complexities.\n <\/p>\n

\n But for generations of business leaders, the 95-year-old has also served as something else: a teacher.\n <\/p>\n

\n Buffett\u2019s combination of success and sagacity has made him one of the most famous investors in the world, \u201con the Mount Rushmore of business leaders in our country,\u201d Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said. And through his advice-packed investor letters, his hourslong quote-fest annual meetings, his choices at work or in his personal life, Buffett has taught CEOs and executives around the world how to run their businesses and, in many cases, their lives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Buffett, who\u2019s spent much of his life among the top 10 richest people<\/a> in the world, is stepping down Wednesday as head of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway; prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Greg Abel<\/a> will take the reins Thursday.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the iconic investor steps down from his post<\/a>, several business leaders told CNN about the lessons Buffett leaves behind.\n <\/p>\n

\n As a journalist, I\u2019ve covered countless earnings reports. None were as fun as Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s, in large part because Buffett remains among the business world\u2019s top communicators.\n <\/p>\n

\n He said what he meant, and he never used a 10-cent word if a one-cent word would do. And he was flat-out funny in a way that made covering him a hoot.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhat I\u2019ve always admired about Warren Buffett, and (his late business partner) Charlie Munger for that matter, is their use of plain English and plain language to explain difficult concepts,\u201d Steve Hafner, the CEO of Kayak, said. \u201cIt takes a lot of skill to take a complex issue and just split it to the bare minimum.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Their dry wit made \u201ctheir shareholder letter one of my favorite reads,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some gems among those shareholder letters:\n <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only when the tide goes out that you learn who\u2019s been swimming naked<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPredicting rain doesn\u2019t count; building arks does<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death<\/a> \u2013 abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term \u2018thinking outside the box.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n One theme among the CEOs who spoke to CNN: Buffett\u2019s legendary patience. Buffett was known to sit on ginormous piles of cash at Berkshire, waiting for the right opportunity to invest. And when he did invest, he was in it for the long haul: \u201cour favorite holding period is forever<\/a>,\u201d he wrote to shareholders in 1989.\n <\/p>\n

\n Investor, podcaster, entrepreneur and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci wrote to Buffett 30 years ago, saying he was buying Berkshire shares for his daughter.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd since she was one and a half years old with a life expectancy of 84 years, she had 82 and a half years left in which to hold her stock,\u201d Scaramucci said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe wrote back very quickly and said that was a manifestation of short-termism. His own intention was to hold the stock for a hundred years.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Yes, Buffett was a shark who made billions of dollars off Goldman Sachs<\/a>, among the most hardcore capitalists on the planet.\n <\/p>\n

\n But he was a shark with ethics.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFrom Warren Buffett, I\u2019ve learned that excellence really is a discipline,\u201d said Larry Restieri, CEO at wealth management firm Hightower. \u201cSet a clear direction, stay true to your principles and execute patiently.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Buffett racked up a net worth around $150 billion, according to Bloomberg<\/a>, but he always emphasized honesty and integrity.\n <\/p>\n

\n And he expected the same from every single person who worked with him: \u201cLose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless,\u201d he once testified before Congress<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Buffett famously loves flying private. He is a Cadillac fan. He is uber-wealthy, and he makes no apologies for it.\n <\/p>\n

\n But he has also decided to pass on some of his massive riches. Buffett, along with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, created the Giving Pledge<\/a> in 2010 for the world\u2019s richest people to promise \u201cto give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes in their lifetime or wills.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Marcel Arsenault, the CEO of Real Capital Solutions, is one of the people who signed that pledge. \u201cWarren inspired me to think beyond monetary success,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a letter explaining his commitment, Buffett wrote: \u201cToo often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But giving doesn\u2019t have to be about piles of cash.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world,\u201d Buffett wrote in 2025<\/a>. \u201cKindness is costless but also priceless.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett has worn many hats over the years: The stock-picking Oracle of Omaha. An avuncular, Dairy-Queen-eating, Coke-drinking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-378906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}