Few questions have followed Warren Buffett more persistently than what becomes of Berkshire Hathaway once he is gone. Across decades of shareholder letters he addressed it with characteristic candor - naming the risk of his own decline, describing the internal candidates lined up to take over, and insisting the culture and businesses would outlast any single steward. These passages trace how a plan for the future took shape in plain sight, long before the transition arrived.
At the Harvard Business School last year, a student asked me when I planned to retire and I replied, "About five to ten years after I die."
The other question that must be addressed is whether the Board will be prepared to make a change if that need should arise not from my death but rather from my decay, particularly if this decay is accompanied by my delusionally thinking that I am reaching new peaks of managerial brilliance.
We view MidAmerican as a partnership among Berkshire, Walter Scott, and two terrific managers, Dave Sokol and Greg Abel.
As I have told you before, we have for some time been well-prepared for CEO succession because we have three outstanding internal candidates. The board knows exactly whom it would pick if I were to become unavailable, either because of death or diminishing abilities. And that would still leave the board with two backups.
Buffett in his own words on camera. Transcribed from the interview; click through to watch the moment.
If you take our top 10 holdings at Berkshire, they probably cover, I got 150 billion in them. I don't know who the successor is to the CEO in any one of those 10, and I've watched a lot of successors come and go.