For more than half a century, Warren Buffett has been inseparable from Berkshire Hathaway. On Wednesday, that chapter officially closed. After six decades running the company he once bought with what he famously called the “dumbest” investment of his life, Buffett served his final day as CEO.

What followed that decision is now business-school canon. Buffett took a struggling New England textile mill and transformed it into a $1 trillion conglomerate by mastering the use of insurance “float” (premiums collected today, paid out later) and redeploying that capital into stocks and entire companies. The result made him one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, with a net worth north of $150 billion, while also reshaping how generations of investors think about capital allocation and patience.

To be clear, Buffett is not disappearing. At 95, he will remain chairman of the board and plans to continue working out of Berkshire’s Omaha headquarters. He has described his future role as “going quiet… sort of,” leaving day-to-day decision-making to his successor, Greg Abel. Abel has been vice chairman of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations since 2018 and joined the company back in 2000 through the MidAmerican Energy deal.

In practice, the transition has been underway for years. Abel has effectively been running large portions of Berkshire’s operating businesses for a long time, handling issues Buffett preferred to avoid and ensuring operational discipline across dozens of subsidiaries. Buffett’s continued presence (along with his roughly 30% voting control) is expected to act as a buffer against critics who might question the new leadership.

That said, Berkshire is already evolving. Abel has taken a more structured approach to overseeing wholly owned businesses, contrasting with Buffett’s famously hands-off style. Buffett once described non-interference as a competitive advantage, freeing managers to focus on running their companies. More recently, he acknowledged that while managers value autonomy, they also benefit from added structure… something Abel has leaned into. Earlier this month, Berkshire added a new management layer by appointing the NetJets CEO to help coordinate its 32 consumer, service, and retail businesses.

Change, however, is likely to be minimal. As shareholder Ann Winblad put it, Berkshire may “operate differently,” but its core strategy is unlikely to shift overnight. Still, some long-standing questions remain unresolved. Writing in Barron's, Andrew Bary noted that issues like a potential dividend, stock buybacks, and how to deploy Berkshire’s $350+ billion cash pile could linger as long as Buffett remains involved.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.