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JULY 2025 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 11 S M T P E RS P ECT I V ES A N D P RO S P ECTS day and how his own days had slowed. He began to occasionally lose his balance, and suddenly, the newspapers he read looked like they were printed with too little ink. However, Buffett said he feels good every day, and doesn't have any trouble making decisions—it feels no different than 20, 40, or 60 years ago. The Announcement and Replacement At the end of the meeting, Buffett surprised every- one, including his successor, by announcing that he plans to step down as CEO in December. The new CEO will be Greg Abel. "The difference in energy level and just how much he could accomplish in a 10-hour day com- pared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day—the difference became more and more dra- matic," Buffett said of Abel. "He just was so much more effective at getting things done, making changes in management where they were needed, helping people that needed help somewhere, but in all kinds of ways. It was unfair, really, not to put Greg in the job. The more years that Berkshire gets out of Greg, the better. "My interests are still the same, I have no inten- tion, zero, of selling one share of Berkshire Hath- away. It will get given away. The decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg's management than mine." Buffett owns about a 16% stake in Berkshire Hathaway, worth more than $157 billion. Greg Abel will assume the reins on Jan. 1, 2026. He joined Berkshire in 1999 and was promoted to vice chair in 2018. Buffett has since put him in charge of Berkshire's noninsurance operations. We look forward to Greg Abel's leadership. Paramount Partnership and Friendship "Charlie never sought to take credit for his role as creator but instead let me take the bows and receive the accolades," Buffett said of Munger. "Even when he knew he was right, he gave me the reins, and when I blundered he never—never— reminded me of my mistake." 6 What a peerless and unmatched relationship. It is so admirable, enviable, and genuinely inspiring. A Learning 13-year-old A 13-year-old boy, along with his 15-year-old brother and their father, won the lottery in their section. The boy asked what high school class or activity helped influence Buffett to become who he is today. "The teachers you get in your life have an incredible impression on you, and a lot of them are the formal teachers you have, but some are infor- mal teachers too," Buffett responded. "You hope you're learning from everybody you find who's well-intentioned and has had a lot of experience. "I'd read the books that were around that nobody else ever read. I discovered the public library, and I read every book there was on invest- ments, literally, in the Omaha Public Library. I enjoyed learning about that. If Charlie were read- ing about electricity, he would want to know every- thing that Thomas Edison knew and more, and go through the same thought processes and under- stand how everything worked. I didn't care how it worked. I just cared whether it worked. That's a limitation. I'm confessing here, I'm not bragging. "As Charlie would say, people would always ask – 'If you could only have lunch with one person, liv- ing or dead, who would it be?' Charlie would say, 'I've already had lunch with all of them because I've read all their books.' I think having curiosity and finding sympathetic teachers is very useful. I would say that I went to three different universities, and I went to high school in Washington, and at each place, I found about two or three really outstanding people. I just spent my time with them. I would say my school experiences were good, but I attribute it much more to the individual than to the institutions." ▼ T h e c rowd re a ct s d u r i n g t h e B e r ks h i re H at h away A n n u a l S h a re h o l d e rs M e et i n g i n O m a h a , N e b ra s ka o n M ay 3 , 2 0 2 5. C N B C