Not a very uplifting piece...

I don't see a big problem with the board.

What would concern me for the firm's future is this:

At its core, Berkshire's business is best described as buying businesses with material future owner earnings at decent valuations, then using the resulting free cash to repeat. That's about it. The core activity is investing. Public or private, makes no difference.

Mr Abel is not an investor.

As Mr Buffett has lectured at length, the key activity of any CEO is capital allocation, and even more so at Berkshire. On that front, the firm is bereft and adrift and likely to remain so.

The only prayer for future better-than-muddling results is a corporate culture tradition of avoiding the more obvious stupid choices, like transformative M&A for the sake of looking in control. And maintaining a great balance sheet. Pretty thin gruel.

Jim