Buffett Steps Back: The Legacy of Patience in a Fast-Money World

Warren Buffett has retired as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, closing a career in which he built one of the most closely watched track records in American investing by buying good businesses cheaply and waiting.

His approach — buy sound companies when prices are low, stay out when they are too high, and hold patiently — became the bedrock of what is known as value investing. It delivered decades of outperformance against the broader U.S. stock market. The method has periodically drawn skepticism when speculative favourites capture Wall Street's imagination, from dot-com shares in the late 1990s to gold during its record run earlier this year. Buffett has long been dismissive of gold, arguing it is neither useful nor productive.

Buffett's fame extended well beyond finance. Other investors have been celebrated — J.P. Morgan for railroads, Andrew Carnegie for steel and philanthropy, and television personalities such as Jim Cramer and Kevin O'Leary — but few entered the national consciousness as he did, and none from so central a location as Omaha, Nebraska.

His annual shareholder meetings became a pilgrimage. More than 40,000 people would fill an Omaha arena on the first Saturday of May to hear Buffett and his longtime partner Charlie Munger, who died in 2023. The pair discussed how they hunted for well-run businesses, confessed mistakes and traded jokes.

Todd Finkle, a retired professor who grew up in Omaha and wrote a book on Buffett, recalled that when students visited for extended question-and-answer sessions, the first topic was never financial. Buffett would say the most important decision in life is whom you choose to marry.

After a scandal at Salomon Brothers, in which Berkshire held a stake, Buffett became chairman and testified before Congress. He described telling employees that after obeying all rules, they should ask whether any contemplated act could appear the next day on the front page of their local paper, read by their spouses, children and friends.

That reputation for candour, alongside his patience, kept him prominent even in an era of rapid scrolling. His likeness has been used in AI-generated videos falsely showing him endorsing dubious investments or political candidates. On Reddit's WallStreetBets forum, where traders chase quick gains, his maxim to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful is well known — sometimes invoked ironically.

Bob Miles, who has taught a college course on Buffett for 16 years, said initial interest often stems from his wealth and the fortunes made by Berkshire shareholders, but deepens through his annual letters and interviews. Among the lessons people take away are his rules — never lose money, and never forget the first rule — and his observation that you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. He has also stressed the importance of the company one keeps, saying a life tends to progress in the direction of the people one works with and admires.

"People associate him with successful investing, but I look at him more and more as kind of a guide toward how to live a successful life, whatever your talents happen to be," Miles said.

At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, trips to Berkshire's annual meetings were always in demand, said David Musto, a finance professor there. With Buffett leaving the stage, the question is who might succeed him as the world's most famous value investor. Musto noted other prominent names, such as Will Danoff at Fidelity Investments, who is retiring from day-to-day management at the end of the year, but said matching Buffett's record, wit and personality is difficult.

Musto added that value investing remains important as a counterweight when traders pile into meme stocks, obscure cryptocurrencies and bets built more on hope than on a belief that a business is sound and reasonably priced. "It certainly helps to have people in the middle," he said, "thinking about the value of a stock."