He's honest enough to admit as much. From the article:

"after I started buying [Oracle], I felt I still didn't understand the business. I actually changed my mind in terms of understanding it, not in terms of evaluating it. Oracle is a great business, but I don't think I understand exactly where the cloud is going."

at the same time he is extremely convinced that something he doesn't understand (Bitcoin) is going to fail but he doesn't short it either. He is just old.

Missing on investments you don’t understand is not strike against Buffett, that’s just good investing. A good investor is going to own only a few shocks at a time. What you buy is far more important than what you miss.

He’s up about 50% on his Apple investment.

IBM is probably Buffetts biggest mistake of the last decade or so, and he made money on it. He bought shares at $173, sold them for between $150 and $170, but also made close to $30 a share in dividends.

> he bought Apple at the absolute top

He started buying Apple in 2016 at a little over $100 per share. He’s done well with that investment.

Long bitcoin in 2019? Brave.

He’s wrong about Bitcoin? Not a lot of evidence to support that theory at the moment.

Buffet and Munger have been ragging on bitcoin since it was less than $100.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=198578.msg2065800#ms...

Cost basis for Apple is in the $140s. Absolute top is $220+.

I agree in general with your sentiment. He not only missed those, but he comes off as ignorant versus unlucky regarding technology. His first Apple purchase price was around $90 so it was far from the top. Apple is more about consumer and brand though so I think it better fits his skill set than an enterprise software company. He did buy Verisign at $90 though too, which seems to have a pretty impressive regulated moat.

Regarding VRSN, keep in mind the distinction that not all of these buys are Warren Buffett.

For example one of Buffett's investment chiefs made that AAPL purchase in the first quarter of 2016, either Ted Weschler or Todd Combs. They bought ten million shares initially.

Whether or not they mean anything theyre signals and market making moves.

Thats a good think. Theres no issues getting out