Greg Abel on Long Runways, Finding Balance, and Replacing a Legend || Q&A Transcript (2026)
“I love Berkshire,” said Abel, “and I see myself in this role for a long time.”
In the days leading up to this year’s annual shareholders meeting, new Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel sat down with Becky Quick on the show floor for a quick chat before the festivities kicked off in earnest. Enjoy!
Becky Quick: First of all, thank you for having us here at what is the first meeting of the new Berkshire. The first time in sixty years that it has a new CEO who’s heading up this meeting. What is this like for you, this first time out?
Greg Abel: Thank you for being here. We’re so excited to be here in Omaha. It is a great tradition. And, yes, [it’s] the first time in sixty years [without Warren Buffett]. Fortunately, Warren will be a part of it — and we’re excited by that.
We have our owners here. And these couple days — and especially on Saturday — it’s owners’ day. It’s their day. Warren brought this amazing commitment to Berkshire and deep understanding — and I want them to know that remains. That there’s a team, myself included, that are absolutely committed and have a deep understanding of Berkshire and we bring that same passion every day.
What’s going to be different at the meeting this year?
There is some evolution that, hopefully, our owners/shareholders enjoy.
One of the things we’ll be doing is introducing some other managers — and that was very purposeful. When you walk around here and [see] all these businesses, we have exceptional leadership in the businesses and we very much operate it with this ownership mentality. It’s their businesses.
What we want is to, on stage, let all the owners, all the shareholders, those watching CNBC, start to see the depth of management in Berkshire.
How did you pick the managers [that will be on stage]? I understand Adam because he’s obviously in this new management role.1 Katie Farmer is going to be on stage, too. What made you get to those people that you will be bringing up [on stage]?
It started with the thought that, on the insurance side, we have Ajit [Jain]. But, someday, we will add in an insurance manager [on stage] and things like that. The idea was, if you think of insurance, there is no one better than Ajit — and the world needs to hear him and see him. But, equally, we have a deep team now. And that’s something I’ve been so excited by.
When Warren made the announcement last May, as we all know, the first thing he did was pull together the senior leaders on the insurance side. It was a small meeting in Omaha — Warren, I, Ajit, and, say, five other of the senior leaders in insurance.
Warren was very open about, “Okay, this is our new team.” I was the first to say that I’ve [still] got a lot to understand and learn. I had some knowledge on it from spending a lot of time with Ajit and being on certain boards, but that was really exciting to see the depth of that team. It felt really good to know who was behind Ajit.2