Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Holding companies and conglomerates

Business models

A parent that allocates capital across unrelated subsidiaries. Berkshire's own literature is filed under finance; these are the general accounts.

Books 6Experts 5Recommenders 24

Start here

  1. The OutsidersWilliam N. Thorndike, 2012
  2. Tap Dancing to WorkCarol J. Loomis, 2012
  3. The Essays of Warren BuffettWarren Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham, 1997
Concept of the CorporationConcept of the Corporation
T1 Concept of the Corporation
Peter F. Drucker · 1946
Open LibraryGoodreads

Eighteen months inside General Motors: the large corporation as a social institution.

The Essays of Warren BuffettThe Essays of Warren Buffett
T1 The Essays of Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Berkshire's shareholder letters arranged by topic: governance, valuation, mergers.

“The resource is as valuable as Larry Cunningham's The Essays of Warren Buffett, which similarly organizes by subject matter” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2024 Letter to Clients, 'Books and Tunes for Walking', p. 96

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Francois Rochon and 11 others

The OutsidersThe Outsiders
T1 The Outsiders
William N. Thorndike · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

Eight CEOs who beat the market by allocating capital, not by running operations.

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Dan Loeb, Francois Rochon and 12 others

The Go-Go YearsThe Go-Go Years
T2 The Go-Go Years
John Brooks · 1973
Open LibraryGoodreads

Wall Street in the 1960s: performance funds, conglomerates and the paperwork crisis.

“Both books are outstanding histories of Rockefeller and Standard Oil and then of the booming 1960s.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2022 Letter to Clients, 'Books and Stuff', p. 75

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Mohnish Pabrai

Tap Dancing to WorkTap Dancing to Work
T2 Tap Dancing to Work
Carol J. Loomis · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

Fortune's articles by and about Buffett from 1966 to 2012, with commentary.

“I hope many people, even those who think they know Warren well, will read it cover to cover.” — Bill Gates

Source: Gates Notes review of Tap Dancing to Work

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Guy Spier, Mohnish Pabrai and 2 others

Distant ForceDistant Force
T3 Distant Force
George A. Roberts · 2007
Open LibraryGoodreads

Teledyne from the inside; the conglomerate that actually compounded.

“This is a great history of Henry Singleton and the conglomerate, Teledyne... I've recommended this several times as well.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2023 Letter to Clients, 'Worldly Wisdom', p. 81

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Mohnish Pabrai

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