It's Monday, May 3rd. Welcome to Marketfoolery. I'm Chris Hill with me today. Jason Moser. Good to see you. Happy May. Happy May.

Happy May. We have good news for market timers and we have a media deal to discuss, but we are going to start today with Mr. Buffett.

Berkshire Hathaway's operating income in the first quarter rose 20%. They bought back $6.5 billion worth of stock and Berkshire's cash on the balance sheet grew and now stands at $145 billion.

And all of that, Jason, took a backseat to comments that were made at the annual meeting over the weekend, which is that Vice Chairman Greg Abel, who runs all of the non insurance operations at Berkshire Hathaway,

is going to succeed Warren Buffett as CEO. And for those who missed it, this was not a formal announcement by the company. This happened during the Q&A when there was a question about how big Berkshire Hathaway has become sort of the sprawling nature of all these different operations.

And, you know, how are you going to, you know, is that more difficult to keep a handle on and Charlie Munger responded by saying Greg will keep the culture.

Like basically when Warren and I are gone, Greg is going to keep the culture. It's like, oh, well, I guess that's that then.

Do you think, do you think Charlie under his breath was like, damn it. I did not mean to say that. I think Warren, I think Warren under his breath, many have said, damn it Charlie. Why did you say that?

Well, I mean, we've been, we've been talking about this. It seems like every year for this meeting, it's just kind of that question of like, what, who is the name? I mean, in hindsight, God, it seems like it was so obvious.

I mean, just the name alone, he's quite able to handle the challenge. I mean, you know, we should have guessed. I guess we should have known as what I'm saying.

But it is a little bit of a surprise because I think a lot of, a lot of folks thought that Ajit Jane might be the name that ultimately would have been occupying that, that CEO sweet, but it sounds like it's going to be Greg able.

And I mean, Charlie and Warren know the business better than anyone, right? And I think, again, it sounds like it would be a team effort, no question.

But it is nice to get that certainty, right? I mean, now all of a sudden, you have an idea of who they feel like it's going to be able to keep this company going in the direction it's headed.

I think it's, it's a testament to their feelings on where the company is today and where they feel like it has the opportunity to go in the coming years because there's been obviously a lot of criticism recently, particularly with Warren and Charlie kind of being the old guys get off my lawn, old school investing and you guys aren't nearly as relevant anymore.

They seem to think that what they're doing is still working and they've got a team in place to kind of help keep steering that ship in the same direction. And frankly, I think that's the right call.

I think it's the right call as well. And I didn't realize that Greg able is 10 years younger than a G chain. And obviously both of them are significantly younger than Buffett and Munger.

But I, I do wonder if that I'm not saying it's the deciding factor, but it's certainly, you know, if you've been running Berkshire Hathaway for as long as Buffett and Munger have,

then whoever is going to succeed you, you want them to have as long a run as possible.

Yeah, I mean, and I appreciate that. You want to set yourself up for success. You don't have to worry about this problem again for a long time. And it sounds like that will be the case. And I think, I mean, when you look at Mr. Jane versus Mr. Able, I mean, I was, I was reading something earlier in the Wall Street Journal on this that it sort of described the differences between the two and kind of what they do and how they think.

And what they're focused on in regard to the business itself, Mr. Jane, who oversees the insurance business, doesn't, he's not, he's not reading 10Ks. He's focused mainly keeping up on the insurance industry and analyzing the insurance side of the business, which is obviously a big part of Berkshire Hathaway. But it's not all of it, right?

I mean, there are plenty of other aspects to the business. And that's where I feel like maybe Able is the better person for this job because of the fact that he spent so much of his time focused on the bigger picture, it seems, not just insurance, but really focused on the competitive threats that are out there that Berkshire Hathaway is facing, not just from an insurance perspective, but from a sort of conglomerate perspective, right?

I mean, this is a big business that does a lot of different things. And so it sounds like, it sounds like Able is a bit more focused on that big picture landscape. And that, I think, probably benefits the company. And then the bonus there is it keeps Ajit Jane in place doing something that he's really good at, right? I mean, we have a long track record of Mr. Jane's performance there in what he's been doing for the insurance side of that business.

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