There's a scene in The Godfather Part III that haunts me every time I see a power transition at a giant company. Michael Corleone, old now, exhausted, trying to legitimize the empire, stares at the horizon and mutters that every time he tried to get out, they pulled him back in.
Greg Abel is not Michael Corleone. But the shadow he inherits is just as heavy.
The letter nobody read (because Google blocked it)
Oh, the irony: the most important news in the value investing universe — Greg Abel's first annual letter as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway — ended up stuck behind a Google cookie consent paywall. Literally. The original content that reached us was a privacy consent page. No substance. No meat.
That alone says a lot about the state of financial journalism in 2025. But let's get to what matters.
Greg Abel, the 62-year-old Canadian whom Warren Buffett anointed as successor, published his first annual letter to Berkshire shareholders. The core message? "We will maintain the culture of disciplined investing."
What a shocker, right.
The weight of replacing God
Let's be honest: replacing Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway is like replacing Guardiola as coach in the middle of a Champions League run. Everyone knows the system, everyone knows the philosophy, but the magic is in the guy who makes the calls when the shit hits the fan.
Buffett wasn't just a CEO. He was an oracle. A man who turned the annual shareholder letter into a kind of Bible of value investing. Every metaphor about cheap hamburgers, every joke about Wall Street, every jab at derivatives — all of that built a mystique that no promise to "maintain the culture" can replicate.
Abel knows this. And that's why his letter is, at the same time, necessary and insufficient.
Necessary because the market needs to hear that the adult is still in the room. That nobody's going to start buying AI startups at 200x revenue with Berkshire's cash pile. That the capital allocation discipline — that boring, slow, almost monastic discipline that turned a failing textile mill into a $1 trillion conglomerate — remains intact.
Insufficient because words are not skin in the game.
Taleb would laugh at this promise
Nassim Taleb has a simple rule: don't trust anyone who talks about risk without being exposed to risk. The question nobody's asking is: how much of Greg Abel's personal wealth is in Berkshire stock?
Buffett had practically 99% of his fortune in the company. That wasn't corporate loyalty — it was the most brutal demonstration of conviction possible. When the market tanked, Buffett wasn't watching from a skybox. He was bleeding right alongside everyone else.
Abel needs to show this. Not in a letter. In practice.
What actually matters now
Berkshire is sitting on more than $300 billion in cash. That's more than the GDP of many countries. The big question isn't whether Abel will "maintain the culture" — it's what he's going to do with that money.
In recent years, Buffett was visibly frustrated with the absurd valuations in the American market. He was selling Apple, piling up cash, waiting. The patience of a predator.
Will Abel have the same discipline when the market drops 30% and everyone's screaming that the world is ending? Will he have the stomach to buy when there's blood in the streets? Or will he play it safe, do predictable buybacks, and become just another generic Fortune 500 CEO?
That's the difference between inheriting a culture and living a culture.
The market is going to test this guy
Mark my words: the first serious crisis that hits Berkshire under Abel's command will be the real test. Not the annual letter. Not the speeches in Omaha. The moment he has to go against the consensus, buy what nobody wants, and take a beating from the media for months.
Buffett did that in 2008. In 2011. In 2020.
The question that remains is simple and brutal: Is Greg Abel the rightful heir or just the caretaker of the temple?
Only time — and a good crisis — will answer that.
