"It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities." — *Charlie Munger

Interesting anecdote and quote. Unfortunately it is not relevant to Berkshire under Abel who needs to allocate $370 billion not $20 million. The other point is that one of the reasons why Bekrkshire is sitting on so much cash is Buffett did not behave like Munger did with a much smaller company. He was only modestly active in 2008 and in 2020 he was selling rather than buying when the market was really stressed.

Any mediocre management of a conglomerate can defend the inability to deploy capital by saying they are just waiting for the ideal pitch and till they find it shareholders should let their capital build up as cash and trust them. With Abel rather than Buffett in charge, I expect him to treat disciplined capital return as a viable and rational capital allocation alternative. I would have to see his capital allocation in practice before building up trust in his ability to effectively compound the amount of capital he has to at Berkshire.