The End of an Era—and to New Beginnings
It is the end of an era: after 60 years at the helm, one of the world’s most closely watched investors has stepped down as CEO.
Very few people stay in one role for six decades. For context, the median tenure with a single employer dropped to 3.9 years in the U.S., while the average working life spans roughly 37 years.1 This puts into perspective the remarkable length of Warren Buffett’s leadership of Berkshire Hathaway—nearly twice the span of a typical career.
Even if you don’t subscribe to Buffett’s investing philosophy, the scale of his accomplishments is clear. After taking control in 1965, he transformed Berkshire from a struggling textile mill into a multinational conglomerate holding company, growing its share price from about $19 to roughly $745,000—a cumulative gain of nearly 4,000,000 percent! In 2024, Berkshire became the first U.S. non-tech company to surpass a trillion-dollar market capitalization.
Now 95, Buffett shared in November that he was “going quiet”2 and will no longer write the annual letter or speak at Berkshire’s annual meeting. In his farewell, he offered reflections on both business and life.3 As we begin a new year, several insights may serve as practical reminders for our own wealth management:
Succession planning takes time. Greg Abel, named as Buffett’s successor in 2021, has been groomed for many years, spending nearly three decades at Berkshire and rising to Vice Chairman in 2018. Even after the transition, Buffett plans to “keep a significant amount” of his shares until shareholders gain confidence in Abel’s leadership.
Estate planning is fluid. Buffett has revised his estate plan many times over the years. His “unexpected longevity has unavoidable consequences” as his three children are now beyond retirement age (72, 70 and 67). He now aims to accelerate lifetime gifts to their foundations so they can fulfill his goal of distributing his entire estate while they’re alive.
Markets go up and down. While market returns have been strong in recent years, Buffett reminds us that markets—and economies—will see difficult times: “Our stock price will move capriciously, occasionally falling 50 percent or so as has happened three times…under present management. Don’t despair; America will come back, and so will
Berkshire shares.”
Our time is limited. “Father Time…is undefeated; for him, everyone ends up on his score card as wins,” Buffett notes. His advice? “Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.”
Buffett has long emphasized that money is a tool, not a purpose: “Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government.” Despite his accomplishments, Buffett distills success into something far simpler: “When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless.”
Indeed, Buffett’s humility appears to have deepened with age. He acknowledges the role of luck in his successes—and the successes of many others—and admits he’s fallen short of his own ideals many times before: “I have been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better.” His reminder: “The cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.”
And now, as he retires into the Chairman role, Buffett signs off with a message well-suited for a new year: “Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them. You’ll never be perfect, but you can always be better.”
As we turn the page to 2026, here’s to a new year that inspires reflection, growth and purpose—and, as in Buffett’s case, new beginnings. Happy New Year!
1. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdf
2. “Sort of”: he will pen an annual Thanksgiving message.
3. https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov1025.pdf
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