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Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

latimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#501

Post by larrydag »

sethev wrote: post #205

We should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire. - He maintained a disciplined approach to investi…

Adding the letter archive into a LLM prompt is a good read. you can use this as a source https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#502

Post by eulgro »

walthamstow wrote: post #10

Driving 7 minutes to work and stopping at a drive-thru to pick up McDonalds breakfast every day. The man is a true American hero.

I have legitimately no clue whether you're being sarcastic or not. Only an American could say that doing that amounts to being a hero. Personally, I call it misery.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#503

Post by pembrook »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #255
sethev wrote: post #205

We should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire. - He maintained a disciplined approach to investi…

The house he bought at 28 is 3500 square feet in a very very nice neighborhood and was worth $1.2 million a few years ago. It's humble by billionaire standards, not by average person standards. He never needed to size-up because of children, or size-down because of a bad economy, he was already set for both space and finances. Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need.

> Let's not create a moralistic myth out of his lack of need.

Absolutely, but let's also not do the opposite. Being poor does not make one morally superior either.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#504

Post by pembrook »

zwnow wrote: post #435
sethev wrote: post #205

We should never idolize a person (in my opinion). Here are some things Buffet has done that I admire (notice that phrasing): - He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. If you read these documents, I believe that you will have a solid understanding of how he built Berkshire. - He maintained a disciplined approach to investi…

> Our society has become moralistic Which is extremely important. It's important to call out highly immoral behavior and lifestyles. Being a billionaire by itself is highly immoral. These people sleep like babies while people starve to death. > He consistently communicated with shareholders of Berkshire in a straight-forward and transparent way in his letters and annual reports. We praising for the bare minimum now?

If we're going to assign moral value to people based on their wealth (a classic logical fallacy), then I think you need to take a look in the mirror.

The global median income is $2,760 annually. You sleep like a baby making likely 10-100X that, all while people are starving to death.

What are you doing to help the starving poor with your vast wealth? Are you not also morally bankrupt yourself, using your own logic?

While you're joining the current bolshevik revival that the populist left is trying to spin up, I just hope you remember the kulaks (the land-owning peasants) and many of the Serednyaks (the middle class peasants) also got murdered in the revolution. I'd keep any claims of moral superiority to myself if I were you.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#505

Post by twodave »

_heimdall wrote: post #334
twodave wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.

Avoiding scaling your lifestyle with tour current wealth seems like an extremely important lesson people could learn here. Very few people know what "enough" means to them. Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it.

I don’t disagree, I just don’t think “living in the same house for decades” qualifies as a clear signal of living simply. It could just as easily be a front or compulsive frugality. Or a really nice house to begin with. For instance, there’s no way my family would fit in the first house my wife and I bought. And we couldn’t have afforded our current house back then, either. It’s also worth noting that 60+ years ago was a very different house-buying experience. So I don’t think there’s much to learn from the fact that Warren Buffett bought a house back then and still lives in it, other than that it worked out for him and he’s not flaunting his wealth for whatever reason makes sense to him.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#506

Post by immibis »

gpt5 wrote: post #476
Yokohiii wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think moralism is an side effect of the demise of spiritualism in the west. We somehow have to shape moral values, the lack of a framework for it makes it feel blunt and chaotic. That being said, I find it odd to moralize on moralism. We have way too many people in power that are awful humans and do a bad job and never get punished. Meanwhile, stealing a car because you are hungry can be the begin of a ruined life.…

The point is that moralism makes everyone blind and see in black and white. Instead of seeing the nuance, you’d see everything that comes out of Elon Musk or Israel whoever you’ve managed to convince yourself is that current villain, as bad - without attention to details. More than that - you’d waste your time arguing whether they are “good” or “bad”, instead of focusing on specific actions, which is what society as…

It's pretty strange to see "whoever you've convinced yourself is the current villain" next to, you know, actual villains. Who do you think qualifies to be an actual villain, if they don't?

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#507

Post by SecretDreams »

jacquesm wrote: post #492
SecretDreams wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can you infer this from their Wikipedias?

Why do I need to go to a website when I'm fairly well informed about the lives of both?

Because the prior OP tried to direct me to wiki to learn about them. This chain has context.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#508

Post by samshine »

tstrimple wrote: post #440
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is heroic about those two things? America threw off a king and founded a republic. Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. A rich man keeping his habits despite his wealth, and doing so next to the rest of us, is a role model for other up and comers. (The Romans had a similar thing about pastoral farmers. Every culture has its myth, and we like it when those in power try to live up to it.)

> Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. Easily stated by someone who was not a slave. Equality had fuck all to do with the founding of this country. Some people were *literaly* slaves. You *literally* could not vote unless you were a male land owner. Fuck this nonsense propaganda. Every bit of freedom in this country had to be fought for against this country and against the majority of white men. And…

What a strange and naive post

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#509

Post by spectralista »

_heimdall wrote: post #336
inetknght wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy. Speak for yourself. There are a lot of aspects to being happy, and having to not want for things certainly helps.

You will never not want for things, no matter how much you have.

It is actually the opposite. The less things you have, the less things you will want.

I even experience this with food. If I am on a strict diet for 2 weeks and then have a "cheat" meal, a previously normal meal feels like a satisfying feast.

If I splurge on food for 2 weeks, even 3/4th a pizza doesn't satisfy. I just want the other 1/4th.

It is really why we have so much wealth as a society but so much discontent. It is like believing there is some amount of alcohol that would satisfy the alcoholic. It just grows the desire for more while contentment is harder and harder to achieve.

I am pretty sure this is just a property of the dopaminergic system.

Re: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

#510

Post by _yb2s »

zepolen wrote: post #472
_yb2s wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well designed car and proper driving technique make a backup camera unnecessary. Many old cars have excellent rewards visibility without needing any camera- no camera will compare to a first generation Porsche Boxster with the top down for example, where you can directly see behind you by looking back. Volvo wagons are great like that also. I also, as a rule never back anywhere that I haven’t seen directly just a f…

No driving technique will let you see the toddler that ran to your rear wheel by the time you got into the car.

How is a toddler going to get behind my car before I can get in it that I did not notice was nearby and start visually tracking from standing there? How is a backup camera going to help when I backed into the spot and am now pulling out forwards? That’s just not a realistic concern. Also, backup cameras cannot see much closer to the wheel than those cars I mentioned with good visibility.

Tech really won’t help you here- safe driving requires looking where your vehicle is going with your own eyes. The field of view of a backup camera is insufficient- even if you have one, it’s usually better to be looking directly behind you and not use it. I see cars with backup cameras and sonar hit each other in parking lots all the time, because they thought the camera was a replacement for looking and situational awareness.

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