- So, this is adulting
- Posts
- Warren Buffett Final Words as Berkshire Hathaway CEO - Shareholder's Meeting 2025
Warren Buffett Final Words as Berkshire Hathaway CEO - Shareholder's Meeting 2025
Warren Buffett's final shareholder meeting as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in 2025 marked the end of an incredible era. Since acquiring the company in 1965, Buffett achieved an astounding 5.5 million percent return, averaging 20% annually - a track record unmatched in investing history. Buffett shared several key insights worth noting.
Guan 🍉 & DoitDuit | Your Investing Friend
May 07, 2025
Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett’s company and investment vehicle for all his investments, that means if you want your money to be managed by Warren Buffett directly, you can buy Berkshire Hathaway shares and he will help you invest.
Warren Buffett’s historical performance
He acquired Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 (which he said was a bad investment), turnaround the company and the share price has risen 5,502,284% (or 20% per year) since then (vs the S&P500 return of 39,054%). No one except him has achieved this kind of performance for such a long period of time, that’s why many investors respect him a lot.
Warren Buffett retires as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Most of you might have heard, Warren Buffett is retiring as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, even though he will still remain as Chairman of the company. This means that if you invest in Berkshire Hathaway now, your money will not be directly managed by Warren Buffett anymore.
Guan 🍉 attended the shareholders meeting in Omaha, US
This is my first time attending Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meeting, the vibe here is entirely different. You can see the best businessmen/investors from all over the world coming into one place, such as Li Lu, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Guy Spier, Mohnish Pabrai (I saw Bill Gates and Li Lu!).
It is like a networking community for amazing people. People come here not to listen to Warren Buffett only, because it will be livestreamed anyways. People come here for the superb networking opportunity. Super grateful to experience this in my lifetime.
As usual, Warren Buffett shares a lot of wisdom throughout the meeting. Here are my key takeaways from attending the meeting:
Lesson 1: Cashflow is sexy even when the business is boring
My biggest learning from this trip is not directly from what Warren Buffet said during the meeting, but from my observations of how he built Berkshire Hathaway into such an amazing company.
Private companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway is not one company, but a combination of 189 privately owned companies and a few public listed companies. This can be seen as investments directly made by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, forming Berkshire Hathaway’s investment portfolio.
Shopping Day exclusive for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
1 day before the actual shareholders meeting, there was a Shopping Day selling/showcasing all the products/services of companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway, exclusive for shareholders. Some well known companies that are under Berkshire Hathaway include Brooks (running shoes), Dairy Queen (fast food chain), GEICO (insurance), Duracell (battery) and See’s Candies (chocolate).
The companies they invested span across all industries. They are all simple businesses, cash generating, managed by hardworking business operators, and sold to Warren Buffet at cheap valuation. All the business are nothing fancy, each generating cashflow to Berkshire Hathaway for Warren Buffett to use the money to invest into the next business he likes.
The media always focus on public listed companies that Berkshire Hathaway is investing, but actually these privately-owned companies are the ones that form the backbone of Berkshire Hathaway.
Lesson 2: Trade can be an act of war
Warren Buffett reiterates that trade should not be weaponised, although he recognised that trade imbalance should be solved
“…There’s no question that trade can be an act of war, and I think it’s led to bad things like the attitudes it’s brought out in the United States. We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.
With eight countries possessing nuclear weapons, including a few I would call quite unstable, I don’t think it’s a great idea to design a world where a few countries say, “Haha, we’ve won” while other countries are envious…
The main thing is that trade should not be a weapon. The United States has become an incredibly important country starting from nothing 250 years ago – there’s never been anything like it. And it’s a big mistake when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well and you have 300 million people crowing about how well they’ve done.
I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise. The more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won’t be at our expense – the more prosperous we’ll become and the safer we’ll feel and your children will feel someday.”
Warren Buffett was born in 1930, so he experienced the World War II and the Great Depression before. He constantly said that the biggest risk for investors is war, because no matter how good your investments are, once a war started, all good investments will go to zero.
So, Warren Buffett is not a big fan of anything that will increase the probability of a war happening, even when it’s made in good intention.
Reply