Comment by postalcoder
2 hours ago
Warren Buffett is a great investor but nobody in finance buys his folksy image. Everybody knows he's an animal.
I heard from folks in the room that the way 3G and Buffett came in to do layoffs at Tim Hortons was one of the most cold blooded things they've ever seen.
He's donated, already, the equivalent of 210 billions USD (give or take 420M class B shares).
Say what you want, but the list of billionaires who have donated such large amounts of money while still alive is small.
Cherry picking events like layoffs, without truly knowing how much was he involved (Berkshire directors notoriously enjoy lots of autonomy) or if the layoffs made sense, etc, seems a stretch when we're drowned with sociopath world-ruling-ambitious CEOs, from Musk to Altman, through Thiele.
Warren Buffet is the definition of oligarchy. Dude runs a rail and insurance monopoly while buying large top stocks for yield. He maintains a persona of this traditional and nice family dude who is old and wise. But this is the US, and people are ranked/valued by how rich they are regardless of how it is acquired.
Still, he avoided political scrutiny (say comparing to Musk or Bezos) by maintaining this image. That was wise.
> Warren Buffet is the definition of oligarchy.
Find a better dictionary.