Warren Buffett credits Apple’s CEO Tim Cook

• At the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett praised Apple CEO Tim Cook for his leadership of the company. Berkshire Hathaway’s Apple investment was a rare foray into the technology industry for Buffett. Apple would finally become the most significant and lucrative investments in Berkshire.

When the investors in the world looked at Imacs, the iPod and the iPhone and saw technological advances, Warren Buffet saw something much easier: the products of everyone liked.

Buffett, which on Saturday announced his intention step From his role as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year, he has made billions in investing in Apple. Buffett made an exception for Apple. At a time of 2024 it was even Apple’s larger investor Out of ETFS.

Over the years, Buffett has treated Apple rather as a consumer goods company, not a technology company. He also fell in love with Apple’s ability to create and market products that consumers apparently couldn’t get enough. In that sense, Buffett seemed more to Apple Coca-Colaanother of its long -term investments.

At the Saturday meeting, Buffett sang the praise of Apple and CEO Tim Cook for the returns he had given to Berkshire Hathaway over the years.

“I am embarrassed to say that Tim Cook has made a lot of money in Berkshire that I have never done Berkshire Hathaway,” said Buffett.

Cook, according to Buffett’s estimate, had directed the admirable company since the co -founder of Apple and CEO Steve Jobs left in 2011, a few months before his death.

“I knew Steve Jobs Briefly and Steve, of course, did things that no one else could have done in Apple’s development,” said Buffett. “Steve chose Tim to succeed, and really made the right decision. Steve died young as you know, and no one else that Steve could have created Apple, but no one else that Tim could have developed it as he did. So, on behalf of all Berkshire, Thanks Tim.”

Jobs and Buffett had crossed paths sometimes on their career. In one case, Buffett remembered The jobs had called it to get advice about what to do with the huge Apple cash pile. Buffett suggested that Apple Buy Back Back Stock, both men, were being undervalued in their opinion. However, Jobs decided not, opting instead of keeping in cash.

“He just liked to have cash,” buffett I talked to CNBC in 2012. “It was very interesting to me because I later learned that he said I agreed with him to do nothing with cash. But he did not want to buy shares, although he thought his stock had a significant price.”

They would spend a few years after their telephone call with Jobs before Buffett became an apple investor. Berkshire Hathaway began investing in Apple in 2016. The movement was a significant change in the firm’s investment strategy. Until that moment, buffett and his Investment partner, late Charlie MungerThey had avoided investing in technology companies because they felt that they did not understand the industry enough to make informed decisions.

Several years before investing in Apple, Munger, Berkshire Hathaway then vice presidentHe acknowledged that it was not a typical investment for the company despite its strong performance over the years.

“The whole world admires the hits of the apple,” Munger said to Reuters In 2013, “on the other hand, you could hardly think about another business that is more similar to Berkshire than Apple.”

In 2016, Buffett and Munger would set aside and begin to build a massive participation on the iPhone-Maker. That year, an investment manager of Berkshire had made a relatively small investment (for Berkshire Hathaway) of a billion dollars in Apple shares. Later that year, another Berkshire executive identified Apple as a promising stock, which caused a streak of large investments.

Despite being relatively selfless in the technology itself, Buffett admired Pull Apple products to his consumers. “Warren could see what the dominant products were like,” Munger I talked to it Wall Street Journal In 2023.

From that moment, Bershire would continue to invest in Apple, which eventually became Berkshire’s largest investment. However, Berkshire has since decreased its participation. Last year, that Sold billions in Apple shares since he built a huge stack of cash, which he has to date.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com