Buffett too Old?

Gannon to Barron’s: Berkshire Fairly Valued…As a Buffettless Empire!

However, the age angle is overdone in most media reports. People look at Buffett (like Bill O’Reilly recently did) and say “this guy’s old; he’s going to be dead soon”.

There are a few problems with this logic when applied to Buffett’s future services to Berkshire. One, CEOs don’t usually die in office. Even great CEOs retire long before they reach 77 – and 86 is never even contemplated.

Buffett will work for as long as he’s able. Taking Barron’s actuarial life expectancy of nine years, it’s obvious that Buffett is still expected to last longer at Berkshire than the average public company CEO appointed today. CEOs don’t make it much more than five years on average; so, Buffett’s expected future service time is actually above-average not below average.