The Warren Buffett CEO

Miles interviewed roughly twenty chief executives of Berkshire Hathaway operating subsidiaries and built the book around what they said about running businesses under Buffett's ownership. The subjects include managers at See's Candies, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Borsheims, GEICO, General Re, Executive Jet, Star Furniture, Justin Industries, Shaw Industries and others.

The consistent finding is about what Berkshire does not do. Subsidiary chief executives report no budget submissions to headquarters, no strategic planning process, no head office staff functions, no imposed capital expenditure approvals below large thresholds, and no interference in hiring, pricing or product decisions. What they do report is a requirement to send cash to Omaha rather than reinvest it, direct access to Buffett by telephone, and compensation arrangements negotiated individually and tied to the specific economics of their business rather than to Berkshire's share price.

Miles draws the conclusion that Berkshire's structure works because it selects managers who would run their businesses the same way whether or not they were being watched, and then removes the reasons such people leave. Several subjects had sold family businesses and stayed on for decades afterward, which is the evidence he emphasises.

The book is admiring and the access was granted, so it has the limitations of authorised material. It reports no failures, and Berkshire has had them. The interviews are also now more than twenty years old and many of the subjects have died or retired, though the structural description of how the holding company operates remains accurate.