An apostolic succession
On old age, works of art, and Warren Buffett's announcement that he's planning to retire before he turns 100
Warren Buffett has been at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway for six decades, cultivating a reputation for a broader worldly wisdom beyond his extraordinary business success. He has imbued the company with a sense of mission -- saying on many occasions that the company should seek to be (and be seen as) "a national asset", capable of acting in the national interest when government and the private sector need a muscular backstop. That might sound grandiose at first, but perhaps less so in light of the knowledge that the company pays 5% of all corporate income taxes in the US.
■ Buffett has taken to heart the well-established advice that a leader's most important job is to cultivate good successors. Thus, his bombshell announcement that he intends to step aside as CEO at year-end (at the age of 95) was surprising, but not all that shocking.
■ It has been official company policy for some time that Greg Abel was Buffett's designated successor, but the timing had been heretofore unknown. It wasn't unlikely, given Buffett's age, that the succession would take place upon his death. But as statements of confidence go, there's little that could be said any louder than Buffett promising not to sell a share of his holdings due to the transition.
■ On more than one occasion, Buffett has described the company as a work of art. Handing it over to another person while he is still alive is an act of enormous self-confidence -- and, in effect, seals the business equivalent of an apostolic succession.
■ On many unique occasions, Buffett has closed acquisition deals with the promise to a business founder that their work would be treated not unlike a gift to a museum, to be held permanently and cared-for as though the continuity itself were part of the business value. Here, we see the closest thing that can be done with a publicly traded company: Visibly and unequivocally endorsing the continuity of management under a hand-picked successor.
