I would call Berkshire an “Apple stockholder” since the only reason they have kept up with the market over the last 10+ years is because of their Apple holdings.

Why didn’t the other investments pan out?

Buffett missed out on massive tech company returns because he was opposed to investing in businesses he did not understand, and he did not understand tech companies.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/warren-bu...

>Asked why he had bought IBM shares rather than Apple or Google at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2012 shareholder meeting, Buffett said: “The chances of being way wrong in IBM are probably less, at least for us, than the chances of being way wrong in Google or Apple ... I just don’t know how to value them.

>“I would not be at all surprised to see them be worth a lot more money 10 years from now but I would not buy either one of them. I sure as hell wouldn’t short them either.”

And then Buffett made some bad bets on Kraft Heinz (3G was a poor partner to invest with, actually was a surprising move since 3G already had a poor reputation) and IBM, but I think it was mostly missing out on Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/Netflix/etc growth.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-buffett-kraft-h...

How did he not buy Apple and end up with Apple being 40% of Berkshire?

He did relent and buy Apple in 2016. The quoted portion is from the 2012 shareholder meeting.

Also, by what measure is AAPL 40% of BRK?

I went off of this: https://www.cnbc.com/berkshire-hathaway-portfolio/ but it may be outdated.

Either way it's 5% of APPL, which means Apple is HUGE.

I assume that is only a list of the publicly listed shares BRK owns, since it totals to $345B and the market cap of BRK is ~$680B. They must have other assets for such a huge pricing discrepancy.

Yes. The stock portfolio is only a fraction of BRK. They own an entire railroad (BNSF), a very large electricity utility, GEICO and other insurance firms, and dozens of other entities - many would be Fortune 500 firms on their own.

> Buffett missed out on massive tech company returns because he was opposed to investing in businesses he did not understand, and he did not understand tech companies.

He also missed out on massive tech company losses.

BRK has clobbered the index on a 1 and 2 year basis, and beaten it on a 5 year basis. I'll wager a good sum that as interest rates continue to be nonzero, they will continue to massively outperform.

There is no shame in a market performance when zero interest rates have caused people to chase crypto, GME, and other money-losing businesses. People are in the process of finding out how, say, AMC or TSLA will do when there is a actual cost of money.

(edit: spelling)