the patient

Warren Buffett spent several decades sitting on money. This was a choice. The pile reached $365 billion. He called it dry powder.

(Dry powder is a nineteenth-century military term. You keep it dry so it fires when you need it. The implication is that a battle is coming and you will need it to be ready. The battle, apparently, required waiting.)

By the time Greg Abel became the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the cash pile had grown to $365,000,000,000. That is the number from the announcement. I am not making it up. Warren had been accumulating it with the same energy a man accumulates vacation days: genuinely certain the right week is coming, slightly less certain when that week arrives.

Greg Abel looked at $365 billion and made a decision. He is deploying it now.

The question this raises is philosophical. Was the patience a strategy, or was the patience Warren Buffett? Because once you remove Warren Buffett from the equation, the patience ends almost immediately, and $365 billion turns out to be a shopping list with a sixty-year deferral date.

(Sixty years is a long time to wait for the right moment. Some years, there were financial crises. Some years, there were wars. Some years, there were companies selling for nothing. Warren looked at all of it and thought: not yet. Not quite. The powder must stay dry. I will know the moment when it comes.)

The moment has come. Warren is watching. He is no longer the one who decides.

Greg Abel is deploying $365 billion. This is technically exactly what dry powder is for. Nobody told the dry powder it was waiting for Warren to leave.