It’s been one week since Warren Buffett became “Chairman Emeritus” of Berkshire Hathaway — and I’m still not entirely sure what that means. A few thoughts on Buffett's announcement and the rest of this week's Berkshire news... kingswell.io/p/the-berkshire…

Greg Abel on Berkshire Hathaway's investment managers. "They run their own portfolio. I watch it with interest, [but] I don't really even know who's doing what amongst it. I do it mainly to observe and learn from what they're doing. I may ask them, 'That's really interesting. What triggered your interest?' But that's the extent of it." "That's their portfolio — and that's the way it will always be." (This interview aired in 2023. Since then, Todd Combs left for a new job at JPMorgan Chase, but Ted Weschler remains at Berkshire.)

Mohnish Pabrai: "Pascal said all man's miseries stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone and do nothing. So if you have this ability to watch paint dry or watch the back of an airplane seat for a few hours and just be in a nirvana state, [investing] is the work you need to be doing." (h/t @myfirstmilpod)

Warren Buffett: "You may not get a chance very often, but any calls you get on Sunday you're probably going to make money on. Things are really screwed up if you're getting calls on Sunday. All you have to do is make sure you're the callee and not the caller."

Warren Buffett: "I'm not going to try to hit any number for the quarter by having a sale on insurance — or doing something even worse."

NEW: Berkshire Hathaway purchased another 1.68 million shares of Lennar — for $136.4 million — over the past three days.

Warren Buffett: "[Greg Abel] has found, apparently, some little area in Des Moines where there's 48 hours in the day. That's the only explanation for how he gets everything done that he does." (CNBC || 2023)

Tim Cook: "We believe in focus. We think that we can only do a few things well. And we really believe this."

Warren Buffett: "The market doesn't instruct us. The market is there to serve us. If we get a chance to do something because [the market] is doing something silly, we do it. But it doesn't tell us anything. It just tells us prices."

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger on Amazon. MUNGER: It's very disruptive to practically everybody else. I think it's a formidable model that's going to change America. BUFFETT: It's one of the most powerful models that I've seen in a lifetime. And it's run by a fellow (Jeff Bezos) who has a very clear view of what he wants to do and does it every day when he goes to work and is not hampered by external factors like people telling him what he should earn quarterly. He's got a powerful business — and he's got satisfied customers. That's hugely important. (CNBC || 2014)

Charlie Munger: "In any company, the stock could get to a price so high that it would be foolish for the corporation to repurchase its shares. There's all kinds of excess that's possible. But the really great companies that buy [back] at high price-earnings, that can be wise."

John Ternus: "As we started working with Apple Silicon on the Mac, for those of us who had been building computers for a really long time, it was almost like the laws of physics had changed." "When you're designing products, you're usually dealing in trade-offs. You can add more battery life by having a bigger battery, but the product will be a little bit thicker and heavier. You can have more performance if you want to consume more power, but that obviously also goes against battery life and it means you need fans. If you push really hard, it gets really loud. [With Apple Silicon], all of a sudden, we could build a MacBook Air that's incredibly thin and light, has no fan, 18 hours of battery life, and outperformed the MacBook Pro we had just been shipping." "Even the [customers] that don't necessarily know that we're using our own silicon, they fundamentally see a completely different computer experience. You can't get computers like this from anywhere else." (CNBC || 2023)

Warren Buffett rarely criticizes any company or figure directly, but he was less than impressed with Norfolk Southern's response to its East Palestine train derailment in 2023. "I think they handled it terribly." "I don't know the CEO personally, but they were tone deaf." "I've done a lot of things that I'd rather have do-overs on, too, so I don't want to claim my responses have been perfect in every instance either. But I sure hope we don't do that ever at BNSF, I'll put it that way." (CNBC || 2023)

Warren Buffett: "Retailing is a tough, tough business. Partly because your competitors are always attempting — and, very frequently, successfully attempting — to copy anything you do that's working." "It's hard to establish a permanent moat that your competitor can't cross." "You've seen the giants of retailing — Sears, Montgomery Ward, Woolworths, Grants, Kresge. Over the years, a lot of giants have been toppled." (CNBC || 2014)

Warren Buffett: "Being contrarian has no special virtue over being a trend follower. You're right because your facts and reasoning are right — so all you do is you try to make sure that the facts you have are correct." "What you're looking for are things that are important and knowable. If something is important but unknowable, forget it." (Berkshire Hathaway AGM || 2006)

Tim Cook: "[Steve Jobs] was a great teacher. This is something that's never written about him — but what he left in not just me, but in many of us, is what he taught us." "It's a huge part of what he did that's missed in most of the things that I've read [about him]."

Warren Buffett: "There are a number [of share repurchase decisions] that we don't approve of. But when we own stock in a wonderful business, we like the idea of repurchases — even at prices that may give you nosebleeds. It generally turns out to be a pretty good policy."

Warren Buffett on tax cuts for corporations. "Before the tax cut, the government had a 35% share of the stock on income. It didn't have a share of the assets, but it had a share of the income. If it wanted to change it to 40%, it could have changed it — but, fortunately, it changed it to 21%." "That invisible shareholder, the government, just handed us back a bunch of the shares of stock. Our shareholders benefited and a lot of other shareholders benefited."

In 1955, CBS recorded Benjamin Graham teaching live at Columbia University. It's pretty much the closest thing we have to sitting in his classroom. Subscribe to Kingswell (for free!) to read the transcript. kingswell.io/p/benjamin-grah…

John Ternus: "When I started [at Apple], the way we tended to make products was we were using technologies from other companies and we were effectively building the product around that. We made these beautiful products, but they were constrained by what was available. One of the most — if not the most — profound change at Apple over the last 20 years is how we now do so many of the technologies in-house. Top of the list, of course, is our silicon." (CNBC || 2023)