Berkshire Hathaway Inc

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the Omaha-based conglomerate he built from a failing New England textile mill after serving as its CEO from 1970 until he stepped down in early 2026. The Nebraska-born investor studied economics at Columbia Business School under Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, and carried his mentor's habits with him: read the numbers, buy what is cheap, and hold what you understand. After earning his own fortune running a partnership in the 1950s and 1960s, he turned Berkshire into a sprawling holding company that owns businesses outright and keeps large stakes in public names like Coca-Cola, American Express, and Apple. Berkshire's origin is one of investing's most retold accidents. In 1962 Buffett began buying shares of the failing textile company at about $7.50 each — a classic Graham-style "cigar butt" bargain, a company priced below what it was worth. In 1964 its CEO, Seabury Stanton, verbally agreed to buy Buffett's shares back at $11.50, only to send the written offer weeks later at the slightly lower price of $11.375. Buffett, furious at being nickel-and-dimed, refused to sell and instead bought more, eventually taking control of the company and firing Stanton. The "spite" purchase — which he later called a foolish act that stranded his partners' money in a dying business — became the foundation of a conglomerate whose long-term, buy-and-hold approach was sharpened through his decades-long partnership with Charlie Munger, Berkshire's vice-chairman until 2023. Buffett has pledged to give away the bulk of his fortune to philanthropy and co-founded The Giving Pledge with Bill and Melinda Gates.