Longtime Berkshire Hathaway shareholder Ann Winblad on Warren Buffett's legacy

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For more on Buffett's legacy and what's next for the company is is Ann Winblad. Hi Ann, managing director at Hummingbird Blood Venture Partners and a longtime Berkshire Hathaway shareholder. It's good to talk to you today. I'm just wondering do you remember when you bought into

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Berkshire Hathaway?

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 00:20.720

It seems a long ago. I can hardly remember probably about 35 years ago for me, not as long as many of the Berkshire shareholders.

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Do you think think that having Buffett at the helm as chairman will continue to keep his presence and a steady rain on the company, or do you expect to see some real changes in the strategy and the way that Berkshire operates?

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 00:46.320

Well, Warren as chairman will be an advisor to Greg, a cultural anchor, and a real long-term thinker, which is Warren's one of Warren's many strengths. So Greg is very fortunate to have him around. Definitely, the company will operate differently because there will be a new

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 01:07.000

person as the CEO, but will the company fundamentally change in its strategies? No.

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In what way do you think that Berkshire Hathaway could evolve that would be a benefit for shareholders like you?

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 01:25.880

Well, certainly with over $300 billion dollars in cash available. It gives Greg the chance to sit back and be patient like Warren has always been or to pounce when he can. So we'll learn a lot more over time with Greg. And Warren said he's going to be mostly quiet, but we can

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 01:49.400

assume that Warren will still be going into the office as he does every day and that Warren will always be thinking about long-term strategies. So the culture of Berkshire Hathaway, which is what I've invested in, which is patient, long-term, careful, but decisive investing will

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 02:12.120

probably still remain.

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It was interesting when you apply Warren Buffett's questions about the investments that you're making. And And as I understand it, the questions are, do I understand the business? Does the business have a durable moat? Do I think highly of the leadership? Does the company have

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have a consistent and efficient financial engine and is there predictability versus the constant need for reinvention? Given that criteria, what do you make of the push toward AI?

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 02:44.680

Well, definitely, the recent investment in Google stands up to all that criteria. If you look at Google as a company, they do have a mode, they do have a predictable business, they do have strong leadership. are not needing to reinvent themselves. They're leveraging expertise

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 03:04.800

and building on their innovation culture and they are a predictable cash machine. So that is Berkshire Hathaway's definition of value investing. They decided to invest at a time where the multiple was not low because it's a good company and it had a long-term benefit to

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 03:27.480

Berkshire shareholders. These are the same criteria we apply when we're building companies from scratch. We look at these day after day, year after year to say, are we building real companies? Have they established a mode? Does the business have have great leadership or do we

Ann Winblad (Managing Director) 03:45.720

need to fix that? Does the company have a consistent and efficient and definable business model? And do I really, really understand where this company is going? This is a great benefit that Berkshire has brought to shareholders, is they really understand these companies when

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they invest in them.