"If we had a good way to inject someone into some role that would make them a better CEO of Berkshire, we'd do it, but the candidates we have right now are running businesses, making decisions, getting experience. To bring them in to the Berkshire offices while I'm sitting there reading would be a waste of talent."
Berkshire Hathaway isn't a trading firm. What Buffett does is sit and think a lot. And that's not a process that can be shared.
But that makes it obvious how real the concern is about what will happen to the firm after he is gone. Value investors insist that the philosophy, consistently applied, should produce good results--but most value investors are no Buffetts. Either Buffett is, as some insist, simply a statistical fluke--or he really is a special, rare genius. Either way, it's not clear Berkshire's magic will outlast him.
There's more to Buffett's role than investing in publicly traded securities, and finding someone to replace him in that role wouldn't be that hard. Berkshire stock would probably jump on the news that someone such as, say, Tom Gaynor had been designated as the heir-apparent for this role (same if Buffett could lure Seth Klarman, who your colleague Jeff Goldberg interviewed recently). That's just one of Buffett's current roles though.
Another role is acquiring closely-held businesses (e.g., Iscar). This role could be filled by Byron Trott, the former Goldman investment banker who introduced Buffett to a few of these deals. Another role is negotiating the comp and annual goals for these wholly-owned businesses once they are acquired. Still another current Buffett role is allocating Berkshire's free cash flow among its various wholly-owned businesses, special situations, and its publicly-traded investment portfolio. I assume these last two roles would be performed by Berkshire's next CEO, and I assume one of the current CEOs of a Berkshire-owned company will be selected for this role. I believe Buffett's son Howard will assume the chairmanship of the company.
What Buffett does is sit and think a lot. And that's not a process that can be shared.
Sure it is. It's called brainstorming.
For that matter, he can simply pick X people, and assign them to decide how they'd solve certain problems he's thinking about. He can then compare their answer to his, and later on calculate who was in fact right (when tehy disagreed with him).
A proper leader is always grooming successors. If Buffet isn't, that's a damning indictment of him.
So take X number of people out of his current operations and have them do busy-work? Otherwise, he's dammingly indicted? I can't believe Buffett is the household name, and not Greg Q.