RWH057: CELEBRATING WARREN BUFFETT

W/ JOEL GREENBLATT, NICK SLEEP, TOM RUSSO, CHRISTOPHER BLOOMSTRAN & CHRIS DAVIS

17 May 2025

In this special celebratory episode, William Green spotlights some of the most important lessons from the greatest investor of all time: Warren Buffett. In honor of Buffett’s historic decision to retire after 60 years as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, William offers his thoughts on Buffett’s legacy & Berkshire’s future; he also shares powerful highlights from his conversations about Buffett with Joel Greenblatt, Nick Sleep, Thomas Russo, Chris Davis, Chuck Akre & Christopher Bloomstran.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • What makes Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting a joyous experience.
  • How Warren Buffett’s virtues & values shone through at this year’s AGM.
  • How he & Charlie Munger made most of their money off 8 or 9 big bets.
  • What Buffett taught Joel Greenblatt about buying great businesses.
  • What stunned Greenblatt when he finally met Buffett.
  • Why Chuck Akre attributes his enormous success to Buffett’s teachings.
  • What Thomas Russo learned from Buffett about reducing “agency risk.”
  • How Buffett inspired Nick Sleep to do what he already knew was right.
  • Why Christopher Bloomstran thinks all CEOs should study Berkshire.
  • What principles guide Greg Abel’s philosophy of asset allocation.
  • Why Berkshire directors like Chris Davis vow to protect its unique culture.
  • Why Buffett focuses relentlessly on resilience in the face of extreme risks.
  • How he achieved staggering success without making enemies.

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:03] William Green: Hi folks, welcome back to the Richer, Wiser, Happier Podcast. I’m thrilled to be here with you again today for a special celebratory episode that I hadn’t planned at all, but that I decided to record because something really, truly historic has happened. As I’m sure you know by now.

[00:00:20] William Green: A few days ago on May 3rd, Warren Buffett made a massive announcement at the end of his annual shareholder meeting in Omaha after six decades as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, he declared that the timers arrived for Greg Abel to become the CEO of Berkshire at the end of this year. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this milestone because it marks the end of an era in the spectacular story of this legendary investor, business leader and role model.

[00:00:51] William Green: The scale of Buffett’s achievements is astounding over the last 60 years. He’s built Berkshire Hathaway into a behemoth with a market value of about $1.2 trillion with almost 400,000 employees with huge stakes in companies like Apple and American Express and Coca-Cola, not to mention insurance operations, energy railroads, and consumer businesses like Dairy Queen and Duracell and Benjamin Moore and Fruit of the Loom.

[00:01:22] William Green: Oh yeah, he’s also sitting on almost $350 billion in cash. Since Buffett took control of Buck Hathaway back in 1965, he’s racked up an average return of 19.9% a year versus 10.4% a year for the S&P 500. According to Berkshire Hathaway’s latest annual report, Berkshire’s stock price has risen by 5502284% since 1965.

[00:01:57] William Green: That means Berkshire’s stock has outperformed the S&P by more than 5.46 million percentage points. So much for markets being so efficient that it’s impossible to outperform them. The scale of Buffett’s outperformance has been staggering, but as we’ll discuss, it’s not just the enormity of his victory that matters, it’s the manner in which he’s done it with so much honor and integrity and decency.

[00:02:26] William Green: Buffett has been obsessed with the stock market really since 1942 when he bought his first stock at the age of 11. So the fact that he’s now passing the torch to Greg Abel is really kind of epochal. I was in Omaha for the shareholder meeting and wanted to take the opportunity to share some thoughts and insights of my own in this episode, celebrating Buffett and highlighting what makes him such a gift to all of us who are passionate about investing.

[00:02:55] William Green: I’ll also be drawing very heavily on interviews that I’ve done over the years with an array of legendary investors who know Buffett well, have studied him deeply and have been profoundly influenced by him. That includes Joel Greenblatt, Christopher Bloomstran, Chris Davis, Nick Sleep, and Chuck Akre.

[00:03:14] William Green: I’ll play various clips from some previous episodes of the podcast in which we’ve discussed Buffett in depth, and I’ll add a few comments of my own. The goal here isn’t just to honor Buffett and to celebrate him. It’s actually to spotlight some very powerful lessons about investing business and life that I think we need to try to learn from him and truly internalize because they have the potential to deeply enrich and possibly even change your life. Because in the end, Buffett isn’t just the greatest investor of all time. Along with Charlie Munger, he’s also the greatest teacher that the investment world has ever seen. So here it goes.

[00:03:59] Intro: You are listening to the Richer, Wiser, Happier Podcast where your host, William Green, interviews the world’s greatest investors and explores how to win in markets and life.

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