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Best wishes and all. But given Berkshire's scale, and the son's age (71), questions about the next succession plan seem appropriate.

Also, since the NYT says nothing else about the son: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Graham_Buffett In context, his recent involvement in local politics seems rather odd.

(comment deleted)
Sounds like there's a grandson who's being groomed for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Warren_Buffett

They all seem very similar to the British "new nobility" in the mid-late 19th century, albeit with less syphilis and opium.

Is grooming the right word here? The guy is 42, grooming to me has a pedophilic connotation.
71 is way past retirement age in many countries. Also didn’t know Warren Buffett is 96 already. Maybe it’s time to pass the torch to someone younger from a different generation
So after all no one could be trusted
People take what he does and says as gospel so knowing he went with monarchy tier nepotism is going to be very annoying.
Or it could be very beneficial - you don't need to know anything about finance to judge the quality of this particular decision, so it's easier to cast doubt on other gospels
I guess Warren’s quote only applies to other people, not him. "It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics." (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/us/dozens-of-rich-america...)
there's nothing wrong with leaving things to your kids to run.

that's the point of the effort after all.

warren as smart as he is was tryna go against the grain of thousands of human evolution. if you train your kids - then most likely they would've values similar to yours. hit or miss but most times a hit.

As I understand, the son is there not to lead the company (Greg Abel is the CEO), but to oversee their family's share in the enterprise.
I thought he was giving away 99% of his wealth?
While I liked your comment enough to upvote, I then realized that Chairman isn't an operational position. It's more a position where the person can exercise ownership of a company (to put it in layman terms). In your analogy he wouldn't be the athlete, more like the person who gets the winning money (assuming his son also has shares) and chooses the trainer/coach of the athletes (which still needs skill btw).
The Chairman position is to protect company culture, not make operational decisions.
Not sure any chairman has their ear to the ground to fully understand the culture within their organization.

I never saw our CEO in person, never saw our chairman even on a webinar.

And yes it's not their job to be that low level, but they can't have an idea of the culture either.

Oh it applies to him. He just doesn’t care.
Buffett has been planning this since at least 2011:

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Warren Buffett has told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that after he dies, he wants his son to become non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Howard Buffett, a farmer with no college degree, would be a good successor, the elder Buffett said, because he understands the values of the company.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffett-wants-farmer...

Sat on a couple of boards and the non exec chair mostly just guards the culture and can fire the CEO. Abel runs the business. That's a very different job from Howard's.
Many people do not know this but he still holds the stock that he first bought as a 13y old. It is now worth 8+ figures!
Maybe someone can enlighten me, but what's the point of "never selling"? Stocks are not a collectible that you can just look at for fun. Their whole point is to sell for profit, at some time. Maybe it's just me but if you "never cash out", that seems a waste of capital. Or perhaps this is a marketing stunt wealthy people sometimes to? Akin to "I live in a small house".