I never heard that Combs managed Gates' money- do you have any info on when?

My general take on today's news is that, there is no role for Todd at Berkshire. Taking Jamie's job, huge long shot IMO. He did a great job with GEICO, and we don't know anything about his investment performance, though internally at Berkshire they do.

I think that the huge equity portfolio will morph into an index fund, or mirror the SPX in some way. Huge dollars like this are not going to be able to outperform that index. Buffett has hinted in prior meetings that it is not a bad idea to keep cash in an index fund. Abel can simply be waiting around for better valuations.

I have posted long ago that the hardest part of the future is to hold through the inevitable changes and likely mistakes that Abel will make. Things like "Warren would have never done that..." etc.

Let's all remember that Warren has made many mistakes over the years, but, speaking for myself, I have held through them all because he was there. I will give plenty of rope to Abel, but it will be very difficult to sit through a large mistake he makes.

To be clear, today's news is not a mistake at all, just a changing of the guard.