29 March 2025, 08:50 AM
In the financial jungle of Manhattan, traders in suits stare at bouncing share price figures, while in Omaha, 2,000 kilometres away, a 94-year-old man in a rumpled suit sits in an office stacked with annual reports, eats a cherry Coke with a burger and directs a $1.13tn business empire. This is Berkshire Hathaway - a company that Buffett calls "the Shaolin Temple of the investment world," where there is no noise of Wall Street, but hidden the power to make global capital tremble.
A $500,000 "Faith Ticket"
Berkshire's stock is the most expensive "ticket to faith" in the capital markets. In March 2025, the price of its Class A shares exceeded $790,000, equivalent to 8.27 kg of gold. Behind this figure is the legend of 60 years of not splitting: Buffett took over in 1965 when the stock price was just $19, if held today, the wealth would have swelled 41,000 times. Even after the split, the Class B shares (BRK.B) are as high as $525, which is still a height that ordinary investors cannot reach.
This "sky-high price" stems from Buffett's careful design of the shareholder structure. When he launched Class B shares in 1996, he deliberately kept 1/200 of the voting power and banned participation in endowment plans to filter out short-term speculators. As Munger says, "If you want to swim with an alligator, don't complain about being bitten." Berkshire's shareholder register is composed of pension funds, family trusts and long-term holders who have witnessed the miracle of snowballing over decades.
25 "Shadow Cabinet" and 360,000 "Invisible Army"
On the 14th floor of Omaha's Kiewitt Building, 25 headquarters employees manage 360,000 "invisible armies" - Berkshire's most powerful business code. They don't have fancy conference rooms, complex KPIs, or even fixed workflows. In Buffett's office, an IBM computer from the 1990s faces off against a Coca-Cola machine, and signed pictures of baseball stars hang on the walls, as if it were the 1950s.
This "minimalism" permeates every corner. Employees at its BNSF rail company enjoy a 3.5 per cent annual pay increase and flexible leave without reporting to head office on day-to-day operations; Nessley, CEO of GEICO Insurance Company, missed the headquarters meeting for 18 years in a row, but increased the company's market value 12 times under Buffett's "big umbrella." As Buffett put it in his 1998 shareholder letter, "Our headquarters is the quietest place in America because people are too busy thinking, not meeting."
Three, "tap dancing to work" "Shaolin disciples"
Berkshire's employee handbook is just two pages long: "Do the right thing and time will do the rest." This philosophy has created a class of managers who "tap dance to work". Dairy Queen's CEO still Tours stores in his work clothes after the acquisition, BNSF's train drivers make their own scheduling decisions, and the 25-person team at headquarters doesn't even have exclusive parking Spaces - they share Omaha's streets with cleaning aunts.
Even more legendary are the incentives. GEICO's employee bonuses, which are tied to the number of policies and underwriting profits, were $191 million per person in 2004, a strategy that allows the company to underwrite costs by 15 percentage points compared to the industry. Buffett even allowed the ceos of subsidiaries to "trial and error" : after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Gaico credit card business he launched against the public's will, he publicly apologized in his annual report: "I'm just older, not wiser."
Fourth, the inheritance of "old school wisdom" and "new masters"
When Buffett announced at the shareholder meeting that Abel would take over investment decisions, there was thunderous applause. The 62-year-old energy expert, who spent a decade boosting Berkshire Energy's market value by 400%, still has the simplicity of an engineer -- his office has no stock screen and the Railroad Engineer's Manual hangs on the wall.
This "old school wisdom" is colliding with the new era. Abel-led Occidental has taken a 28.3% stake and, despite a $2.2 billion paper loss, has built a "safety cushion" through preferred dividends and warrants. His strategy is much like Buffett's "pick up the cigarette butt" philosophy: in the wave of the energy transition, find undervalued traditional assets and trade time for value.
5. The business philosophy behind the Giving Pledge
Berkshire's annual reports always end in small print: "Our purpose is to make the world a better place." The Giving Pledge, launched by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, has attracted 114 billionaires who have pledged to give away half their wealth. This philosophy permeates business practice: Berkshire Energy is investing $20bn in wind power projects, the BNSF railway is reducing carbon intensity by 30 per cent, and behind Coca-Cola's holdings is Mr Buffett's adherence to "happiness economics" - he drinks five cans of Coke a day and puts "investing in love" into action.
In this era of speed, Berkshire is like a Shaolin Temple of finance, honing the art of "slow" for 60 years. While Wall Street was obsessed with algorithmic trading and ESG concepts, Buffett continued to believe that "it's easier to make money with your ass than your head." The 1950s desk in his office bears witness to the truth that the real wealth always belongs to those "old school warriors" who can travel through the cycle.
A $500,000 "Faith Ticket"
Berkshire's stock is the most expensive "ticket to faith" in the capital markets. In March 2025, the price of its Class A shares exceeded $790,000, equivalent to 8.27 kg of gold. Behind this figure is the legend of 60 years of not splitting: Buffett took over in 1965 when the stock price was just $19, if held today, the wealth would have swelled 41,000 times. Even after the split, the Class B shares (BRK.B) are as high as $525, which is still a height that ordinary investors cannot reach.
This "sky-high price" stems from Buffett's careful design of the shareholder structure. When he launched Class B shares in 1996, he deliberately kept 1/200 of the voting power and banned participation in endowment plans to filter out short-term speculators. As Munger says, "If you want to swim with an alligator, don't complain about being bitten." Berkshire's shareholder register is composed of pension funds, family trusts and long-term holders who have witnessed the miracle of snowballing over decades.
25 "Shadow Cabinet" and 360,000 "Invisible Army"
On the 14th floor of Omaha's Kiewitt Building, 25 headquarters employees manage 360,000 "invisible armies" - Berkshire's most powerful business code. They don't have fancy conference rooms, complex KPIs, or even fixed workflows. In Buffett's office, an IBM computer from the 1990s faces off against a Coca-Cola machine, and signed pictures of baseball stars hang on the walls, as if it were the 1950s.
This "minimalism" permeates every corner. Employees at its BNSF rail company enjoy a 3.5 per cent annual pay increase and flexible leave without reporting to head office on day-to-day operations; Nessley, CEO of GEICO Insurance Company, missed the headquarters meeting for 18 years in a row, but increased the company's market value 12 times under Buffett's "big umbrella." As Buffett put it in his 1998 shareholder letter, "Our headquarters is the quietest place in America because people are too busy thinking, not meeting."
Three, "tap dancing to work" "Shaolin disciples"
Berkshire's employee handbook is just two pages long: "Do the right thing and time will do the rest." This philosophy has created a class of managers who "tap dance to work". Dairy Queen's CEO still Tours stores in his work clothes after the acquisition, BNSF's train drivers make their own scheduling decisions, and the 25-person team at headquarters doesn't even have exclusive parking Spaces - they share Omaha's streets with cleaning aunts.
Even more legendary are the incentives. GEICO's employee bonuses, which are tied to the number of policies and underwriting profits, were $191 million per person in 2004, a strategy that allows the company to underwrite costs by 15 percentage points compared to the industry. Buffett even allowed the ceos of subsidiaries to "trial and error" : after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Gaico credit card business he launched against the public's will, he publicly apologized in his annual report: "I'm just older, not wiser."
Fourth, the inheritance of "old school wisdom" and "new masters"
When Buffett announced at the shareholder meeting that Abel would take over investment decisions, there was thunderous applause. The 62-year-old energy expert, who spent a decade boosting Berkshire Energy's market value by 400%, still has the simplicity of an engineer -- his office has no stock screen and the Railroad Engineer's Manual hangs on the wall.
This "old school wisdom" is colliding with the new era. Abel-led Occidental has taken a 28.3% stake and, despite a $2.2 billion paper loss, has built a "safety cushion" through preferred dividends and warrants. His strategy is much like Buffett's "pick up the cigarette butt" philosophy: in the wave of the energy transition, find undervalued traditional assets and trade time for value.
5. The business philosophy behind the Giving Pledge
Berkshire's annual reports always end in small print: "Our purpose is to make the world a better place." The Giving Pledge, launched by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, has attracted 114 billionaires who have pledged to give away half their wealth. This philosophy permeates business practice: Berkshire Energy is investing $20bn in wind power projects, the BNSF railway is reducing carbon intensity by 30 per cent, and behind Coca-Cola's holdings is Mr Buffett's adherence to "happiness economics" - he drinks five cans of Coke a day and puts "investing in love" into action.
In this era of speed, Berkshire is like a Shaolin Temple of finance, honing the art of "slow" for 60 years. While Wall Street was obsessed with algorithmic trading and ESG concepts, Buffett continued to believe that "it's easier to make money with your ass than your head." The 1950s desk in his office bears witness to the truth that the real wealth always belongs to those "old school warriors" who can travel through the cycle.