Berkshire’s Alphabet Buy Sure Doesn’t Sound Like Buffett
Near the finish line.
Photographer: Dan Brouillette/Bloomberg
One of the highest-profile bets on artificial intelligence just came from a most unlikely place. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., led for six decades by value-conscious investor Warren Buffett, disclosed last week that it had taken a sizeable stake in Alphabet Inc. in the third quarter, despite all the handwringing about an AI bubble.
It’s a decidedly un-Buffett-like move to buy a company, even one as well established as Alphabet, whose future relies on yet unproven technology. Never invest in a business you cannot understand, Buffett often warns, a principle that shielded Berkshire from the internet bubble in the late 1990s, and the resulting crash. AI is orders of magnitude more complicated than selling books or pet food online.