Advertisement

Warren Buffett's Investment Dynasty

45:57
Download Audio
Resume

Scandal, succession, and investment icon Warren Buffet at 80.

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett speaks to a reporter before the 2010 annual shareholders meeting, in Omaha, Neb. (AP)
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett speaks to a reporter before the 2010 annual shareholders meeting, in Omaha, Neb. (AP)

“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it,” Warren Buffet once said. Now Buffet himself — at 80, the grand old man of American investor capitalism — has hit a bump in the reputation road.

His likely successor is out after making a trade that’s raising eyebrows all over. After some hard years for the national economy that have raised big questions about investor capitalism itself, and how it’s working.

Buffet has been its most respected face — the straight-shooting “Oracle of Omaha.” What now?

This hour On Point: Warren Buffet at 80, and his world.
- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Roger Lowenstein is contributing writer to the "New York Times Magazine" and a columnist for Bloomberg News. He's author of "Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" and "The End of Wall Street," just out in paperback.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Labor Secretary for President Clinton, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future."

Extra: Read Warren Buffett's press release announcing the resignation of David Sokol

This program aired on April 5, 2011.

Advertisement

More from On Point

Listen Live
Close