Warren Buffett on parenting, horse betting and why he stopped talking politics
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Buffett talks about almost everything
Warren Buffett and Becky Quick touched on a lot of topics in published interviews. Tuesday night’s two-hour special on CNBC for me to write a convincing summary.
“Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy” included discussions about his inability to find a major company to buy for Berkshire Hathaway as its cash pile approached $400 billion, new CEO Greg Abel, his company’s future and history, the difficulty of doling out billions of dollars, and the invaluable role of luck in its success. This is not a comprehensive list.
But here are some short clips and quotes that caught my attention.
- Buffett explains what it takes to find good businesses: “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a job is worth, and it certainly doesn’t need any Greek symbols or anything like that… If (Greg Abel) had quit in high school like some of our managers did, he’d still be just as smart.”
- At a board meeting on Sunday, Buffett selected Greg Abel as the next CEO after executives considered his recommendation.: “(Director) Steve Burke eventually said, you know, ‘We don’t need to sit around and stare at our navels for three months or anything about it. This is the right decision.’ And so they voted to do it.”
Greg Abel speaks at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting on May 3, 2025 in Omaha, Nebraska.
CNBC
- Buffett on Berkshire’s future: “It will always move some, but mostly it will expand. Sometimes there will be things that disappear… We will have companies that will not survive in that world economy 50 or 100 years from now. But there will be many more that develop over the years. And we can go wherever the country goes, and we can go with capital.”
- Why is sitting on a company’s board the best job in the world?:
“Directing. I mean, it’s the best job in the world. You get to make $250, $300, even $500,000 a year doing something pretty cool. They usually provide transportation for you and have cars waiting to take you everywhere. And everyone’s nice. And everyone loves it. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
- Why did he stop betting on horses when he was in high school?: “One of the first things you learn in horse racing is that you can beat a race, but you can’t beat races… I had a few horses in mind, but I lost money on the first race. Then I did the stupidest thing you can imagine… I kept betting on every race. And when I got home I was $50 poorer, that was all I took with me…
I went to Howard Johnson’s and had a few dollars left. I bought myself a nice meal and sat there, thinking and thinking on the train. That was the end of horse racing.” - Buffett has run Berkshire for decades:
“Everything I wanted to happen worked… That doesn’t mean everything we did worked. But I couldn’t think of anything more fun than running Berkshire. And Charlie and I often had more fun than the things that didn’t work (if they did).”
- On the other hand, about being a teacher: “I liked it. It appealed to my didactic style and I liked my own ideas… I had a lot of fun teaching. And I still do, but I ran out of gas a few years ago.”
- Advice for new parents: “The only advice I would give to newlyweds is to never be sarcastic to your children. I mean, it may be sarcastic to you, but it’s a whipping they’ll never forget.”
“You should be smarter in the second half of your life than you were in the first half. And if things went well for you, you should be a better person in the second half of your life.”
- about being kind: “I would ask anyone to challenge me on whether being kind would harm them in any way and whether the happiness of the world would be better… if they said to themselves every morning, ‘Good and bad things will happen to me today, but I can be kind to everyone.'”
Exclusive clip of Warren Buffett Watch
Although the special episode lasted two hours, there were more interviews than time, forcing the producer to make some difficult decisions.
Here Watch Warren Buffett a clip that readers wanted him to include in the final cut. Buffett explains why he hasn’t talked about politics in recent years:
BECKY FAST: You haven’t commented so openly lately either. You basically save it for the annual meeting when all the shareholders come to town.
WARREN BUFFET: Right.
BECKY FAST: Why?
WARREN BUFFET:Once, I made this statement a few years ago — maybe, I don’t know, five or six years ago — Someone asked about taking a political stance. I also said that you should not blindly entrust your citizenship. However —
BECKY FAST: As CEO.
WARREN BUFFET: And — As a CEO, yes.
You have three or four hundred thousand employees, you have millions of shareholders, but you still have rights. — I took the position — to talk.
But I guess — I reconsidered this idea in my mind because people — It has become very tribal. We saw this thanks to us one-time gift program.
But there is no reason for anyone answering the phone at GEICO or waiting for customers at the Nebraska Furniture Market to be dealing with people who have a negative opinion of the company because of something I said.
And you know here I am — If I want to speak as a private citizen, I must resign from Berkshire.
But I really don’t want — I identified so much with Berkshire. — As long as I’m speaking at the annual meeting or something like that, people will associate that with the Berkshire voice to some degree.
And employees don’t deserve this. Companies don’t deserve this. So I stepped back from that.
Buffett’s kids Buffett on philanthropy and growth
Buffett has Considering his three adult children The extremely difficult conversation of deciding unanimously how to distribute his enormous net worth after he dies.
When she traveled to Omaha to interview their father, Becky sat down with Howard, Susan and Peter Buffett to talk about the mission, her own philanthropic efforts and what it was like growing up in Buffett’s famously modest home.
Extensive portions of the special have been released, but here’s the full conversation:
In this quote, they recall how their father was “smart” about giving them pocket money:
HOWARD BUFFET: You know, we would earn this allowance to clean the gutters, cut the grass, rake the leaves and things like that.
But he – but Warren was pretty smart and started giving it to us in quarters. And then he bought a slot —
Susan Buffett: Dime!
HOWARD BUFFET: Yes.
SUSAN BUFFET: It was a penny slot machine.
HOWARD BUFFET: Yes. And then he bought —
Susan Buffett: He took it all back.
HOWARD BUFFET: He later bought the slot machine so he could get more of his pocket money back. At least for me it got most of it back.
in it In Wealth In Wednesday’s “Squawk Box” report, Robert Frank explained why Buffett’s children could do the toughest job in philanthropy:
If you missed it
“Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy” will re-screen on CNBC on Sunday, January 18 at 3 p.m. and Monday, January 19 at 7 a.m.
BUFFETT & BERKSHİRE ON THE INTERNET
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BERKSHire SHARE TIME
BRK.A stock price: $740,750
BRK.B share price: $493.29
BRK.BP/E (TTM): 15.78
Berkshire market cap: $1,064,618,103,867
Berkshire Cash as of September 30: $381.7 billion (up 10.9% from June 30)
Excluding railroad cash and treasury bills payable: $354.3 billion (up 4.3% from June 30)
There has been no Berkshire stock buyback since May 2024.
(All figures are as of the date of publication unless otherwise stated)
BERKSHire’S LARGEST GOVERNMENT HOLDINGS – January 16, 2026
Berkshire’s top listed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan by market capitalization based on their latest closing prices.
Holdings as of September 30, 2025, as reported. Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F application On November 14, 2025, except:
A complete list of holdings and current market values is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send me any questions or comments about the newsletter at: alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (We’re sorry, but we do not forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
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Additionally, reading Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders is highly recommended. There are people gathered on Berkshire’s website here.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
