The massive capex at Alphabet (and many others) can be put into some perspective by comparing it to the capex of BNSF and BHE. Those subsidiaries spend massively on capex each year but are totally dwarfed by the AI buildout. I’m a skeptic of how this all turns out but I don’t mind Berkshire’s Alphabet investment at its current size. It’s still a small bet in the context of Berkshire as a whole (although large as a percentage of publicly traded portfolio).
I’m a little scared to see what Alphabet’s cap-ex number for next year (which management has already said will increase significantly over this year’s) will be.
Great summary. One interesting question to me is how Warren views the media/news landscape at the moment, in light of the NYT position. It's his biggest move in papers in over 10 years, and his only attempt at a position with a big news organization for 25 or so years (?).
I’ve been meaning to write more about NYT because it’s pretty interesting how their games app (like Crossword and Wordle) has become a key driver of digital subscriptions.
The problem with brka and buffett there is NO Munger to tell that him that he is acting like a horse's ass. Buffett does not like to criticize people whereas Munger did. Munger is really missed now with a new ceo running brka.
The massive capex at Alphabet (and many others) can be put into some perspective by comparing it to the capex of BNSF and BHE. Those subsidiaries spend massively on capex each year but are totally dwarfed by the AI buildout. I’m a skeptic of how this all turns out but I don’t mind Berkshire’s Alphabet investment at its current size. It’s still a small bet in the context of Berkshire as a whole (although large as a percentage of publicly traded portfolio).
I’m a little scared to see what Alphabet’s cap-ex number for next year (which management has already said will increase significantly over this year’s) will be.
Great summary. One interesting question to me is how Warren views the media/news landscape at the moment, in light of the NYT position. It's his biggest move in papers in over 10 years, and his only attempt at a position with a big news organization for 25 or so years (?).
Thanks Frank! Much appreciated :)
I’ve been meaning to write more about NYT because it’s pretty interesting how their games app (like Crossword and Wordle) has become a key driver of digital subscriptions.
The problem with brka and buffett there is NO Munger to tell that him that he is acting like a horse's ass. Buffett does not like to criticize people whereas Munger did. Munger is really missed now with a new ceo running brka.