The story

Warren Buffett retired from his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the start of the year but remains chairman and continues to sit on the board. During his six decades at the helm, Berkshire stock delivered a compound annual return of roughly 19.7%, meaning a $500 investment in 1965 would have grown to about $24 million by the time he stepped down at the end of 2025, according to The Motley Fool.

Buffett has long advised everyday investors to choose low-cost index funds over individual stock picking. He first named Vanguard specifically in a 2013 letter describing instructions in his will, telling the trustee to put 90% of his wife's inheritance into a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. He repeated versions of that advice in Berkshire's 2016 shareholder letter and again at the 2021 annual meeting. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF charges an expense ratio of just 0.03%, meaning an investor with $10,000 parked in it pays roughly $3 a year. The fund has grown to more than $950 billion in assets.

In a 2016 interview on Bloomberg's The David Rubenstein Show when he was 86, Buffett said money has no utility to him but time does. He said he gets to do what he loves everyday with people he loves, and views Berkshire Hathaway like a painter regards a painting, with the difference being that the canvas is unlimited.