The Berkshire Beat: June 13, 2025
All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!
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Apple remains the largest holding in Berkshire Hathaway’s massive stock portfolio — with 300 million shares currently valued near $60 billion. And, considering Warren Buffett did not sell any more of it over the past two quarters, it looks like Apple will hang on to that crown for the foreseeable future.
As such, I try to keep a close eye on what Tim and co. are cooking up out in Cupertino.
Each June, Apple hosts its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to unveil the upcoming version of iOS and other operating systems. Basically, it’s the much-anticipated moment when the software and services that will power billions of Apple devices in the coming year take center stage.
This year’s WWDC introduced a new visual interface called Liquid Glass — the first major design overhaul since Jony Ive’s iOS 7 more than a decade ago. Liquid Glass marks a bold return to skeuomorphism, but this time with glossy, layered visuals that mimic transparent, shimmering glass. (If you’re feeling brave, there’s even an option to go whole hog with a new see-through design, as seen below.)
Not everyone is sold. As with any daring visual refresh, reactions are mixed — with critics questioning the readability of iOS 26’s glass-like icons and typography. Time will tell whether Liquid Glass can reignite iPhone sales or not, but it’s undeniably an eye-catching departure from the “samey” updates of recent years.
I was happy to see that among the WWDC attendees was Emily Sundberg of Feed Me. She’s a great writer — and I’m impressed that Apple is now inviting Substack notables to cover its flagship event. Emily’s dispatch captured the buzz around iOS’s new look: “During demos of the new interface, several journalists asked whether Liquid Glass was a physical material. It looks and feels touchable, but it’s just an illusion. A cool vibe. Something beautiful, which is what sets Apple apart from every other tech company.”
Buffett famously views Apple as more of a sterling consumer brand than a typical tech company. The halo effect that Apple creates around its products and ecosystem makes for especially sticky customers who cannot imagine life without the latest iDevice.
On that front, I found Emily’s perspective quite telling. A loyal iPhone user since 2008, she represents the kind of long-time customer who might be growing jaded after years of iterative updates. Yet she wrote, “I have the same delight opening my iPhone today as I did when I was 13 years old.”
That enduring spark of joy is Apple’s secret weapon. And what led it to become the cornerstone of Berkshire’s portfolio.
And, now, on to the latest news and notes out of Omaha…
Warren Buffett’s immense philanthropic efforts can sometimes steal the spotlight, but the wealth he created for Berkshire Hathaway’s employees and shareholders has made a big difference, too. This month, Cheryl Goldberg — widow of the late Mike Goldberg — donated $20 million to the Music Academy of the West for a new music education center. Mike oversaw Berkshire’s insurance operations for many years and, most notably, was the one to recruit Ajit Jain to the company. For this, Buffett began calling him “Saint Mike”.
Buffett provided a brief statement to the Academy in honor of Goldberg’s gift. “Mike’s role at Berkshire was monumental,” he said. “I had made many mistakes in staffing the insurance business and he not only corrected them — he singlehandedly created the world’s best team. Berkshire would be nothing like it is today without Mike.”
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was in rare form at the Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials Conference this week. He blasted the state of annual letters to shareholders — “Some CEOs, they’re pretty good. But others are just constant corporate pablum, so I don’t read them.” Though Dimon did add that he always makes time to read those from Buffett and Amazon’s Andy Jassy (and Jeff Bezos before him). He was even more scathing about 10-Ks. “No one reads them anymore because they’re so full of crap.” Can’t argue with that.
At the Fortune COO Summit, Brooks Running’s Dan Sheridan shared some advice he received upon becoming CEO. “When I moved into this role,” he said, “one of the best [pieces of] advice I got was to understand your biases as you move into new roles. I grew up at Brooks — 27 years here — and had many different roles, so I have a lot of biases in what I think I know about each function. And, as CEO, you have to hold balance in your frameworks and mental models so you don’t lean on past experiences from years ago. So it’s understanding your biases and then really thinking long-term as you move into the CEO role.” Speaking of long-term, Sheridan reiterated his goal to grow Brooks from its current $1.6 billion in revenue to $4 billion.
Fortune also released a short video about how Berkshire-owned NetJets became “the Uber of private jets” through its fractional ownership model. “Today, we operate nearly 1,100 aircraft,” said NetJets president Patrick Gallagher, “which if you were comparing us to a commercial airline, would make us the second or third largest on the planet.” He added that the average NetJets customer books about 75-100 hours each year. “We have something like 40% of the Fortune 500 are NetJets customers.”
“You see in the luxury travel segment,” said Gallagher, “people are making more of an investment in experiences than in things. That certainly has been a tailwind for us. You know, if I’m being honest, the commercial experience has not gotten better over the last several years and that has driven more people to fly NetJets.”
The pandemic provided another boost. “Only about 10% of the people who met the financial norms or averages of private aviation were actually flying privately — and Covid certainly unlocked some portion of that addressable market.” And those new customers mostly stuck around after the craziness subsided. “We’re operating at 40-45% larger than we were in 2019,” said Gallagher, “so we’ve maintained record retention rates.”
While on the WWDC media circuit, Apple senior vice president Craig Federighi pushed back on the idea that his company lags in artificial intelligence. “AI is one of those massive technological waves,” he told Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal, “like the internet [or] mobility. When you look at the internet, I don’t think anyone was saying, ‘Gosh, Apple, I use Amazon.com a lot — why don’t you have one of those? I find this web search thing really useful. Why is this not in your product?’ Well, of course, the internet was a vast opportunity for many, many companies and for users to do a wide variety of things. It was also a huge enabler for Apple. I think Apple made the internet accessible in a lot of ways — more than anyone — but that doesn’t mean every experience you might take on necessarily is going to happen inside of Apple.”
And a few odds and ends to finish off the week…
On Tuesday, Berkshire collected $202.8 million in quarterly dividends from top-five holding Chevron.
In possibly troubling news for Berkshire’s stock price, CNBC’s Jim Cramer gave the conglomerate a vote of confidence on Wednesday. 😜 “I like it,” said Cramer. “I know that Warren’s retiring. I get that. But you know what? He has a big bench. He has terrific people. And I know that we should all love and appreciate Warren, but I am also going to appreciate him for what I think is going to be a consistent way to have a new CEO.”
According to initial reports on the invite list, Buffett will not be attending the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference this year.
BNSF Railway is teaming up with J.B. Hunt and GMXT (the largest rail provider in Mexico) to bring its Quantum intermodal service south of the border. This collaboration will aim to deliver fast and reliable service — with a 95+% on-time rate — to win back business from the trucking industry.
Jim Cramer is going to help Berkshire’s stock get back into repurchase territory! 😂
Thank you.