By Adam Levy
Publication Date: 2025-12-30 22:00:00
The long-time CEO of the conglomerate leaves his successor Greg Abel a stock portfolio full of great companies with enormous competitive strength.
Warren Buffett was never one to push Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A +0.45%) (BRK.B +0.53%) into hot trends. In his 1996 letter to shareholders he gave an excellent justification for this:
We look for companies that we believe will almost certainly have tremendous competitive strength in ten or twenty years. While a rapidly changing industry environment offers the opportunity for big profits, it prevents the security we seek.
In other words: Buffett would rather be the tortoise than the hare. As an investment manager, he is not particularly interested in hot trends such as Internet stocks in 1996 or booming companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Still, Buffett is responsible for a stock portfolio with about 23% of assets invested in three companies heavily tied to AI – including one of Berkshire’s…
