the "younger generation" is 71. (72 in December, but who's counting 🤷‍♀️) jokes aside, the succession design here is pretty interesting. Berkshire split the inheritance into 3 different jobs: 1 | operations → Greg Abel, CEO since January. a professional, not family 2 | culture → Howard, chairman as of last week. in Abel's own words, the "guardian" of Warren's values. not the operator 3 | the fortune → mostly nobody's. Warren pledged 99%+ to philanthropy Howard's CV is the tell: Illinois corn farmer, runs a foundation that's reportedly among Ukraine's biggest private donors, and once served as an actual county sheriff. he wasn't groomed to run Berkshire. he was groomed to say no to anyone who tries to change it. Warren's been saying so since 2013: the chairman's job is not to run the business, it's to make it easy to swap out a wrong CEO. Singapore ran the same play. LKY didn't hand the PM seat straight to his son: Goh Chok Tong governed in between, and LHL only took over 14 years after his father stepped down. then handed it on to Lawrence Wong at 72, the exact age Howard is clocking in. put a professional between father and son (really tough job!), and give the family the values seat instead of the steering wheel. another way empires survive their founders.