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Yona Sahar, founder of Locksmith Girl of NYC, spent two years learning the trade. Now, she runs her own business while working around the clock. View More

Every night, 27-year-old Sahar Yona sleeps next to two phones and a laptop with the volume turned all the way up, so she can hear potential clients call at any time, she says.Yona is a residential and commercial locksmith based in New York City who's available 24 hours a day because as a self-employed business owner, "every job counts," she says. She wants to earn as much money and build her clientele at Locksmith Girl of NYC, which she launched under its current name in July 2025, as quickly as she can, she says.She has momentum on her side. In January, when business was slow, a video she posted on TikTok — where she told women in New York to call her if they felt unsafe asking men locksmiths to pick their locks at night — amassed over 600,000 views. Since then, she's landed more jobs than ever, from men and women, up to 60 per week, she says. On her busiest day so far this summer, she worked from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. the next morning, she says.Yona isn't an online influencer. Her account only has nine videos, as of Friday afternoon. But her message clearly resonated: Yona declined to share her personal income, noting that she charges varying rates based on the difficulty of each job, but says she now earns more money as a business owner than she previously did as a subcontractor working for larger locksmithing companies. The average annual salary for a locksmith in New York is $76,745, according to job site Indeed.Yona, as a female locksmith, isn't alone. Women make up less than 1% of the country's over 5 million installation, maintenance and repair workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, more women than ever before are becoming locksmiths, according to anecdotal information provided by a spokesperson for the locksmith trade organization ALOA Security Professionals Association.Locksmithing can feel tailor-made profession for "mechanically inclined" women who want to own their own business, says Jennifer Richards, a fourth-generation locksmith who's run her family's business in Hickory, North Carolina, for the last 31 years. Her six employees, including her sister-and-law and niece, are all related to her."Female locksmiths can think through problems and have a gentle touch," says Richards, an ALOA member and instructor who notes that more women have taken her classes over the last three years. "Being light-handed is actually a benefit ... you can feel the movement [of the pins within the lock] a lot easier." $7,000 and a 'go-getter' personality A majority of locksmiths work solo, Richards estimates. While the equipment — like locks, drills and key-cutting machines — is costly, it's a relatively attainable blue-collar business to start, considering you often only need a van, rather than a storefront and a team of employees, she says.Yona spent $7,000 to buy her starting set of tools, she says. She got into the industry somewhat by happenstance: In 2021, she landed an interview for a receptionist position in a locksmith office. Her interviewer suggested that she had the temperament to work in the field, and that she should get her locksmith license, Yona says. "I'd never held a screwdriver in my life," she says. But she has a strong "go-getter" personality, and decided that being a female locksmith could give her a leg up in the male-dominated industry, she says. She spent two years training, applying for her license and buying her tools, she says. Then, she worked for subcontractors around the city to gain experience. Yona in New York.Sahar Yona As a subcontractor, her work hours and income were relatively consistent and predictable throughout the year, she says. But all her co-workers were men, and she experienced misogyny from customers, peers and bosses, she says.She decided to become her own boss in November 2024. The people who find Yona on TikTok know she works alone and are generally more patient, she says. Generally, she abides by the same strict boundaries with clients that she learned as a subcontractor, she says: She needs to see a photo or video of the lock and speak with the person on the phone before she accepts a job.Still, she feels guilty when she takes an hour to relax in a bathhouse, play pool in a local bar or walk her dog, a German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix, in Central Park, she says. "The fear is that I can't go too far from my car. My car is my legs," she says, adding: "I'm supposed to be available."If Yona gets a call while out to dinner with a friend, the friend will often hop in Yona's car and go with her to the job, she says. Those moments are becoming rarer, she says. She's always thinking, and feeling a little paranoid, about work, and has begun scoping out a physical storefront for the Locksmith Girl of NYC in her downtime, she adds.In other moments of free time, Yona practices picking locks. "I like the defiance" of the job, she says, legally getting into places intended to keep people out.Correction: This story has been updated to clarify an inaccurate characterization of Sahar Yona's job status when she interviewed for a position at a locksmith's office in 2021. She was unemployed at the time.Want to get ahead at work? Then you need to learn how to make effective small talk. In CNBC's new online course, How To Talk To People At Work, expert instructors share practical strategies to help you use everyday conversations to gain visibility, build meaningful relationships and accelerate your career growth. Sign up today! Take control of your money with CNBC Select CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.The new housing bill won't provide fast relief. These mortgage tools can help you right nowAre rewards debit cards the new credit cards? A brief history and the best options to considerThe best way to pay off debt is situational. Use this flowchart to find the right tools for youThe maximum Social Security benefit in 2026 — and other ways to fund your retirementWhen do you pay back a reverse mortgage? Plus, best lenders to consider VIDEO7:2807:28I make $43,000 a year as an electrician — and I couldn't be happierMake It

Morgan Stanley forecasts that K-beauty sales in the U.S. can reach approximately $4 billion in 2026. View More

Shoppers during the grand opening of an Olive Young store in Pasadena, California, May 29, 2026.Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images When Olive Young opened its first U.S. outpost in late May, shoppers were already camping out, and the line spanned multiple blocks.On opening weekend, the leading South Korean beauty retailer's new store in Pasadena, California, had 6,000 customers move through its doors, and it currently sees an average of more than 1,600 visitors per day, the company said. It has since opened another location, in Century City, California, and said it plans to open more stores in the U.S. Shoppers wait in line to enter the first U.S. location of Korean beauty retailer Olive Young during the store's grand opening, in Pasadena, California, May 29, 2026.Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images That popularity is a microcosm of a bigger trend playing out in the U.S.: Consumers can't get enough of beauty products from a country thousands of miles away — positioning some companies to get ahead."The U.S. is not only the world's largest beauty market, but also one of the most influential in shaping global beauty trends, content, and consumer behavior," Olive Young global communications lead Rena Kim said. "It was a natural and strategic next step in our global expansion." Glowing up Consumption of Korean cosmetics, otherwise referred to as K-beauty, has been on the rise in the U.S. for years, with the "first wave" taking place in the 2010s and continuing into the Covid-19 pandemic."People were home. They had time to kind of learn about a 10-step skin care routine. They learned about what specific ingredients did, how to layer products together," said Anna Mayo, a NielsenIQ beauty thought leader. "We saw the rise of this 'glass skin' look, and this real emphasis on healthy and glowing skin that looks great every day versus the need to kind of cover it up with cosmetics.""Consumers have already been primed in this skin care-first philosophy that they're kind of living in," she added.Now, the "second wave" has taken hold, Mayo said, as K-beauty brands successfully take advantage of this appetite among U.S. consumers for skin care. According to NielsenIQ, U.S. K-beauty sales reached $2.8 billion in early 2026, representing a roughly 48% increase from a year ago. That's faster than the nearly 45% growth rate seen in the prior-year period — an unusual acceleration, Mayo said. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); K-beauty is also penetrating more U.S. households, climbing to 28.7% over the latest yearly period — a sign that it's becoming stickier in the country. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman said he expects K-beauty's growth trajectory to continue. In a note dated March 11, the analyst forecast that K-beauty sales in the U.S. can reach approximately $4 billion in 2026, citing "the rising popularity of K-culture and U.S. consumer demand for functional skincare products" as catalysts.Gutman later confirmed to CNBC that those views are current.Even if those projections don't come to fruition, K-beauty popularity will have a lasting impact on the U.S. consumer. Cassandra Bankson, a medical aesthetician and skin care educator, believes such popularity has paved the way for cosmetics products from other countries to follow suit, even in the U.S., so long as information and trade channels are open."I think it's coming, and I think people don't see it coming," Bankson said, adding that she thinks products from China and Japan will be next, then from Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand."The U.S. now has these underground groups in a lot of the beauty groups that I'm in, saying, 'You guys, look at what I got from Judydoll,' or 'I just went to China, I just went to Vietnam, look at this Thai sunscreen that I got that we can't get anywhere else,'" she said. "I think that there's a lot more room for that."The American mall has started to be reshaped as a result. At Westfield Garden State Plaza in New Jersey, the lineup of Asian retailers has expanded over the past 12 months, seeing new additions such as Sukoshi — a top destination for K-beauty as well as Japanese beauty, or J-beauty, and Asian lifestyle products."Consumer discovery has fundamentally changed," said Kate Sabbag, vice president of leasing at Westfield Garden State Plaza. "People aren't just finding brands in malls anymore — they're discovering them on TikTok, Instagram and through international travel. And once they connect with a brand, they want to experience it in real life. We're seeing that play out across our portfolio." Who could benefit? While a huge chunk of K-beauty sales comes from platforms such as TikTok Shop and Amazon, according to NielsenIQ data, there's room for retail to take up more market share."There is a huge opportunity to kind of move this segment offline and into stores and reach people that way," NielsenIQ's Mayo said in an interview.Earlier this year, Sephora partnered with Olive Young to bring K-beauty products to Sephora customers in stores as well as online, and Morgan Stanley's Gutman said Ulta Beauty is also set up to benefit from rising K-beauty popularity in the U.S.In its latest earnings report, Ulta CFO Christopher DelOrefice said "the skincare and wellness category delivered low-single-digit comp growth this quarter," with prestige skin care, including Korean brand Medicube, continuing to "perform well." He said K-beauty brand Peach & Lily was among those driving "healthy guest engagement," while mass skin care's "solid" growth in the period was supported by the in-store expansion of Anua."I would expect them to continue to lean into this trend within the market," said Anna Glaessgen, a research analyst at B. Riley Securities focusing on consumer products. "Clearly with the really successful launch of the Olive Young store, there's a ton of demand for K-beauty, and they need to be there where the consumer is."Ulta did not respond to CNBC's request for comment. The company's Q2 figures could give investors more clarity on this. The report is scheduled to be released Aug. 5.However, Glaessgen highlighted that K-beauty's popularity poses a risk: Overall average selling price in the category could be affected given that K-beauty typically carries a lower price point than prestige skin care."If people who normally would have been a prestige skin care shopper spending $30 to $60 on something are now spending in the teens to in the 20s, obviously that carries downward pressure to the average spend in the category," she said.She sees that risk coming more from the younger generations who are just now entering prestige skin care. "If they are finding efficacy in a $20 or $30 product, it might be more difficult to get them to trade up to something running in the hundreds," the analyst said. Other retailers such as Target, Costco and Walmart further increasing their K-beauty market penetration could also be a way to help attract a broader audience to the category.Target has already made significant strides in that area. The retailer quadrupled its K-beauty items in the spring, offering more than 150 new products and more than 10 new brands across skin care, makeup and hair care, a spokesperson told CNBC. The company plans to introduce more products."Beauty is an incredibly important and deeply personal category for our guests, and our team is always looking to flex our merchandising authority by bringing them the brands and trends they want most," Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of merchandising, essentials and beauty at Target, told CNBC. "K-beauty is a great example."Raymond James analyst Olivia Tong underscored that products from brands such as The Ordinary, which is based in Canada and owned by Estee Lauder, have incorporated ingredients that have become popularized by those in the K-beauty space, such as centella asiatica. "It's a very different way of looking at the category — more about maintenance, very ingredient heavy, and there's obviously a certain speed to market that they're bringing too," she said to CNBC. "We don't think this is just a trend per se. We think that this is a bit of a shift in the market." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Investment firms are readying for an era with less public commentary from the U.S. central bank. Some are relying on AI for an edge. View More

Christina Locopo | CNBC F/m Investments' Washington, D.C., office is just a short drive from the Federal Reserve's headquarters. But under the central bank's new leadership, CEO Alexander Morris has found the distance feeling far greater.Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh embarked on an overhaul of the central bank's forward-looking communication since taking the post in May. That move sounded the alarm for market participants like Morris, whose investing theses rely in part on predicting what the Fed will do with interest rates."We've made a pretty good business out of decoding Fedspeak," said Morris, referring to the jargon-heavy communication preferred by central bank leaders. "And he just said he was going to go quiet on us."This week, Morris' firm, which manages exchange-traded funds tied to inflation and U.S. Treasurys, released "WarshGPT." It's an artificial intelligence-powered tool that parses nearly 1,800 documents and transcripts from Warsh, with the goal of helping users understand how he may analyze issues related to the economy or monetary policy.F/m Investments is one of many financial institutions readying for an era with less public forecasting from Warsh's Fed. In some cases, they're turning to AI models to gain an edge in investing."Whether the Fed is providing a lot of information or a little information, investors have to understand what the Fed is likely to do in the future," said Gary Richardson, a former historian at the central bank who's now a University of California, Irvine, economics professor. "With limited information, people are going to try to do anything they can to figure out what the Fed is thinking." US Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh speaks during his first news conference since taking the helm at the central bank on June 17, 2026 in Washington, DC.Chen Mengtong | China News Service | Getty Images Greetings and briefcase sizes Investors and Fed watchers have wondered if former Chairman Alan Greenspan's communication style can serve as a baseline for what to expect under Warsh.In that era, Richardson said people joked that Greenspan simply saying "good evening" could cause a market decline. Financial media tracked a so-called briefcase indicator, which operated on the theory that Greenspan carrying a bulkier bag meant he accumulated evidence for why borrowing costs should be altered.  Alan GreenspanAnjali Sundaram | CNBC Already, Warsh has made expectations clear for a shift in how the Fed publicizes information. One of his task forces aimed at reshaping the Fed's operations is focused on how the central bank communicates.June's Federal Reserve meeting statement — the first such release under Warsh — contained around 130 words, down from figures above 300 words seen in prior publications, a CNBC analysis found. Warsh, who acknowledged the statement was "shorter" and "simpler," said it purposefully excluded forward guidance.In his first post-decision press conference as chairman, Warsh allocated 5% of sentences to policy-relevant topics, according to UBS. That number came in at 27% for an average meeting under predecessor Jerome Powell, the bank said. 'One word can move dollars' F/m Investments' WarshGPT chatbot cost less than $1,000 to build with Anthropic's Claude model, despite the name being a riff on rival OpenAI's ChatGPT. It took roughly two weeks to create from inception to release, a timeframe that included pre-rollout testing by a group that included Fed alumni and newsletter writers. In addition to Warsh's communications, the product also taps into economic and political history to ensure its responses have context. But F/m set limits to what WarshGPT can do: The bot doesn't talk as Warsh and will not offer forward statements or forecasts.F/m isn't the only large firm reconsidering its strategies and tools for understanding a Warsh-led central bank. UBS runs an interactive dashboard for clients to track the Fed's policy tone. It allows users to have an unbiased assessment of Warsh's commentary during meetings, according to Elena Amoruso, a strategist at the Swiss bank.Following Warsh's debut policy meeting as chief last month, Amoruso told clients that Warsh's policy-relevant comments were "overwhelmingly hawkish." The central bank leader's stance was driven by his views on the labor market and growth, she said, in addition to the state of inflation."Arguably, this is the most high-value data set … in terms of how much one word can move dollars," Amoruso told CNBC.At JPMorgan Asset Management, chief global strategist David Kelly has some backup plans if the Fed stops putting out key releases. If the central bank does away with the "dot plot," for instance, Kelly said his team will more closely mull over speeches by members of the Federal Open Market Committee — the group tasked with setting interest rates — to get a sense of how they would next vote.To be sure, Kelly said major changes to Fed communication would likely take several months to announce and implement. He said the final decisions may not be as drastic as some expect."Just like the Federal Reserve says it can be patient in adjusting interest rates to the economy, we can be patient in adjusting our resources," Kelly said. 'Less clarity' Still, investors anticipate having less forward guidance from the Fed could result in bigger market swings after policy decisions or members' public appearances. Some traders see a chance to rake in larger returns in this environment."If there's less communication about the reaction function, I actually think that's a negative for the economy," said Steve Friedman, a New York Fed alum who's now senior macroeconomist at MacKay Shields. However, "less clarity about what the Fed may do can actually be a source of alpha for investors if you have a robust framework for thinking about the economy and monetary policy."If Warsh dials back public speaking engagements, Friedman said he would more closely monitor speeches from Fed Governor Christopher Waller. Friedman described Waller as a "bellwether" for the broader committee.Waller said this week that the Fed shouldn't be focused on "fighting the last war" with inflation, but that interest rate hikes could still be on the table.  Christopher Waller, governor of the US Federal Reserve, during the Federal Reserve's Payments Innovation Conference in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | Getty Images Retail traders may need to further diversify their portfolios to account for added policy uncertainty under Warsh, according to UC-Irvine's Richardson. Investment firms looking to get ahead, meanwhile, will be spending big to hire Fed alumni who can help make predictions in a lower-transparency environment, Richardson said.There are already differing expectations forming for how the Fed will proceed with policy in the coming months.Fed funds futures traders are pricing in an almost 59% likelihood that the central bank increases interest rates in September, according to CME's FedWatch tool. On the other hand, Kalshi traders think it's most likely that the Fed will keep rates unchanged at that meeting."For ordinary investors, it's already really hard for them to figure out what's going on," Richardson said. "It's going to become much harder." watch nowVIDEO6:4606:46Fed Chairman Warsh promises inflation will be a ‘thing of the past,’ cites ‘mistake’ of prior policySquawk on the Street Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The Supreme Court, however, upheld the man's conviction for causing grievous hurt after finding that he had fractured the complainant's nasal bone with a billhook. At the same time, it reduced his sentence to imprisonment till the rising of the court and ordered him to pay a fine of ?50,000. View More

The AI trade dominated the market once again this week, upstaging an impressive start to the second-quarter earnings season. View More

The AI trade dominated the market once again this week, upstaging an impressive start to the second-quarter earnings season. Cooler-than-expected June reports on consumer and producer prices offered encouraging signs that inflation continued to ease, while earnings from the nation's largest banks reinforced the strength of capital markets. At the same time, investors kept one eye on the Middle East as the U.S. and Iran traded airstrikes again, adding to uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz. West Texas Intermediate crude spiked 15.5% last week to above $82 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude jumped nearly 16% to just above $88. While those are big one-week moves, they finished well off their peaks at the height of the war as hopes for diplomacy persisted. We'll have to watch future economic reports to see if the renewed rise in oil prices stokes inflation. Beneath the surface last week, however, there was another sharp rotation within the artificial intelligence trade. Investors shifted away from many semiconductor names and toward hyperscalers. Friday's market downturn left the S & P 500 off nearly 1.6% for the week, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fared worse, losing almost 3% last week. Here's a closer look at what drove the trading action. IBM warning ripples IBM shocked Wall Street on Tuesday by pre-announcing disappointing second-quarter results , sending the stock down 25% for its worst day on record. CEO Arvind Krishna chalked up the softness to customers increasingly redirecting technology budgets toward cybersecurity, hardware, and AI tokens. That left less money for traditional software and consulting projects and pushed several large deals into future quarters. Jim didn't recommend buying the massive dip. No real recovery materialized. IBM stock lost more than 26% for the week. The market quickly rewarded the beneficiaries of that shift in corporate spending. Club stocks CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks rallied roughly 12% and 7%, respectively, on Tuesday — and so did hardware and memory names such as Dell and Micron . Earlier this year, cybersecurity stocks came under pressure due to concerns that AI would disrupt the industry. IBM's commentary reinforced our view that the opposite is happening: AI is driving incremental demand for cybersecurity as companies work to secure increasingly complex AI infrastructure and applications. Palo Alto and CrowdStrike were our two best performers in the Club portfolio this week. On the flip side, Club name Salesforce dipped 2% on Tuesday, and fellow software-as-a-service (SaaS) name ServiceNow slid nearly 6% as the news showed more traditional software spending is increasingly being pushed aside. While Salesforce did manage to gain nearly 4.6% for the week, the stock is still down 35.5% year to date. The great AI rotation Investors spent the week moving money from the AI builders to the buyers. The selling started Monday following SK Hynix's blockbuster U.S. debut on Friday, July 10. The South Korean memory giant fell 9%, sparking a broad sell-off across the AI infrastructure trade. Sandisk tumbled 12%, Intel lost 6%, and AMD declined 4% to start the week. The pressure persisted throughout the week, easing only briefly on Tuesday after IBM's preannouncement highlighted where enterprise technology dollars are flowing. Even bullish updates from AI infrastructure leaders failed to reverse the trend. ASML raised its full-year sales outlook for the second time this year on Wednesday, and Taiwan Semiconductor boosted its capital spending forecast Thursday. Investors, however, largely looked past those demand signals. Instead, the focus shifted to the soaring cost of the AI buildout and whether semiconductor stocks had climbed too far, too fast. Adding to the cautious sentiment, Chinese startup Moonshot AI unveiled a new model Friday that it said narrows the gap with leading U.S. offerings. For the week, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) dropped nearly 9%, extending its recent pullback with a third weekly decline in the past four. Much of that capital flowed back into the hyperscalers. Alphabet rallied 3% Wednesday after Warren Buffett revealed to CNBC's Becky Quick that he personally approved Berkshire Hathaway's investment in the Club stock. The disclosure eased concerns that Buffett might be worried about Alphabet's heavy AI spending and related debt financing. The stock later surrendered those gains after Bloomberg reported Google is months behind in delivering its latest Gemini AI model. Alphabet shares lost almost 3% last week. Apple was one of the Club's biggest winners this week, climbing to record highs after receiving approval to bring Apple Intelligence to China . CNBC confirmed the company will use Alibaba's AI models to power the features on Chinese devices. The rollout gives consumers another reason to upgrade because older iPhone models lack the processing power to run Apple Intelligence. On Friday, Apple also briefly surpassed Nvidia to reclaim the title of the world's most valuable company by market capitalization. Despite a late-week pullback across much of Big Tech, Apple, Amazon , and Microsoft all finished the week higher. Jim said this week's rotation doesn't change the AI story . Unlike prior boom-and-bust semiconductor cycles, today's AI buildout continues to be defined by supply constraints, long-term customer commitments, and relentless demand for compute. We view the pullback as largely a function of profit-taking after many AI infrastructure names went parabolic , following enormous gains this year. That's why the Club recently exited its remaining Arm position on July 8, locking in roughly a 75% gain, and trimmed 150 shares of Corning in June at prices well above current levels. On Thursday, during our July Monthly Meeting for Club members , Jim said he would have bought back some 25 of those shares if not restricted. Wall Street's biggest banks deliver Banks kicked off a strong start to the second-quarter earnings season. Five of the six major U.S. banks reported on Tuesday. Club holding Goldman Sachs led the group, delivering standout results fueled by strength across investment banking and trading. Jim called it the best quarter of the bunch and said the firm's business appears more durable than in prior dealmaking cycles. Shares closed at a record high Tuesday and finished the week up nearly 1%. Club name Wells Fargo exceeded earnings and revenue expectations as CEO Charlie Scharf continued to shift the bank beyond its traditional lending roots toward underwriting and M & A advisory. While the quarter was strong enough to keep us invested , we want to see more consistency from the management team before making any moves to upgrade the stock or boost our price target. Shares initially dropped 2.7% after earnings as investors focused on weaker net interest income, but rebounded in subsequent sessions and finished up 0.4% for the week. Looking ahead, Club stock Capital One reports earnings after Tuesday's close. We will be watching to see whether the company can deliver its first earnings beat in three quarters and begin showing the benefits of its Discover acquisition. For the week, Capital One rose more than 3%. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Fanatics has become one of the most influential companies in sports, building out a massive merchandise, collectibles and sports gambling platform. View More

Michael Rubin, Founder and CEO of Fanatics, speaking at the CNBC Game Plan Summit in New York City on July 16th, 2026. Shea Kastriner | CNBC Since founding Fanatics in 2011, Michael Rubin has built the company from a small online retailer of sports merchandise and apparel into a massive global sports platform.Not only is Fanatics by far the largest player in sports apparel, with deals with nearly every major league on the planet, but it also now has a substantial footprint in collectibles, sports betting, and prediction markets. The company is even launching its own branded credit card this year.Fanatics' wide net across sports and sports fandom came to life this week at the annual Fanatics Fest, the company's effort to create a Comic Con-style event for sports fans that is now in its third year.Rubin, speaking with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on Thursday, held alongside Fanatics Fest in New York City, said that the company expected more than 200,000 people to attend the event over its four-day run.That is on top of the more than 150 million fans that are now customers of Fanatics somewhere across its various sports-focused businesses, whether that's from buying a jersey, trading cards, or placing a bet. Get the CNBC Sport newsletter directly to your inboxThe CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media, delivered weekly to your inbox.Subscribe here to get access today. Rubin, in an appearance on CNBC in May, said that the company will approach $14 billion in revenue this year. By comparison, the company had about $8 billion in total revenue in 2024, according to previous CNBC reporting."We believe we have probably the biggest opportunity in sports because it's not like we're in one specific business," Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan. "I think of us really as a platform that gives a digital sports fan everything they want."Fanatics, with its three revenue focuses of merchandise, collectibles, and betting and gaming, "should create the most important company in sports," Rubin said. "We think that could be the most valuable company in sports."The company's last public funding round was in December 2022, when it raised $700 million, valuing it at $31 billion. The company, which has made the CNBC Disruptor 50 list three times, has been rumored to be interested in going public in recent years, but Rubin said on CNBC last year that "There's no rush to be a public company." But even with all of that success, Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan that, "We think there are several opportunities to create new businesses that we're not in, leveraging the relationships we have with customers, with sports properties, with the athletes.""We think there's a lot of growth for us," Rubin said. "I'd say a decade from now, I bet you we have a few businesses that are equally as important to the three that we have today." watch nowVIDEO4:3804:38Fanatics’ Michael Rubin on taking the sports platform to the next levelCNBC Sport Events Rubin declined to say what businesses those might be. However, he did say what Fanatics is not pursuing: ticketing and live sports broadcasting.Ticketing is "a hard business … it's a complicated business; lots of competitors," Rubin said. "The content providers, the teams and artists, keep all the money, which is the way it should be. So that's a business we're never going to get into."When it comes to becoming a sports broadcasting platform, Rubin said, "There are so many big companies … that's a business where we want to get the popcorn out and watch.""But there are other businesses that I think we can make it better for the fan," he said. "We can do something different and better for them than what's currently being done."That strategy is now being driven by two recent situations where Rubin said he and Fanatics "got punched in the face by a couple of things."The first one was when Fanatics announced it would be making the on-ice jerseys for the NHL starting in the 2024-2025 season. "There were like 10,000 really vocal hockey fans [saying] we don't want you to take over the hockey jersey," he said.Fanatics faced an even bigger jersey-focused controversy in 2024 when it started to produce a new MLB jersey template in conjunction with Nike. Following significant criticism over the quality and look compared to previous jerseys due to a Nike redesign, the jersey was significantly overhauled."That was actually the best thing that has ever happened to me because we got our team together and said, 'Wait a second, what are we going to do about this?'" Rubin said. "We never had a brand purpose, and I always thought it was strategic bullsh-t. [But] that was our time [to say] what's our brand purpose. We said it's to relentlessly enhance the fan experience."Rubin said, "Five years ago, we take the money. Now, we won't take the money if it's not relentlessly enhancing the fan experience.""You ask me why I won't get into the ticketing business. Nobody likes the ticketing business, even if you're talking about how you can make billions of dollars a year," he said. "I don't want to be in that business; I want to be in a business where we can celebrate fandom like we're doing here."Rubin said that moment was "the greatest thing that ever happened to us because it made us really think.""We don't want to be big; we want to be beloved," Rubin said. "How we be beloved is by relentlessly enhancing the fan experience." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Warren Buffett tells CNBC that Bill Gates' ties to Jeffrey Epstein didn't drive his termination of donations. View More

In this articleBRK.BGOOGLAMZNIBMBRK.BFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Two unexpected revelations in Buffett's CNBC interview Warren Buffett sits down with CNBC from Omaha, Nebraska on June 14th, 2026. David A. Grogan | CNBC In a nearly one-hour interview with CNBC's Becky Quick on the day he publicly revealed he is cutting off the Gates Foundation from future donations, Warren Buffett downplayed the role Bill Gates' association with Jeffrey Epstein played in that decision.He also revealed he initiated Berkshire Hathaway's now $30 billion position in Google-parent Alphabet, which many had thought was Greg Abel's first major investment decision as CEO. Buffett: Gates-Epstein ties 'distasteful' but everyone makes mistakes While Warren Buffett found Bill Gates' ties to notorious sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein "distasteful," he says his decision to end future contributions to the Microsoft co-founder's foundation was driven by his three children demonstrating they are now able to responsibly give away "vast sums of money."Over the same 20 years he gave the Gates Foundation nearly $48 billion in Berkshire shares, as valued at the time of the donations, he also donated almost $18 billion to Susie Buffett's Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Peter Buffett's NoVo Foundation, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late first wife.He told Becky, "I'm impressed by the fact that my kids really want to give the money away" efficiently, without constructing huge buildings or holding conferences "at esoteric places and all kinds of things."Buffett said he didn't have that same confidence in his children in 2006 when he started his donations to the Gates Foundation.  watch nowVIDEO9:4309:43Warren Buffett: Ended Gates donations to give more to my children, not because of Epstein tiesSquawk Box In a March interview with CNBC, Becky asked if he would continue his "lifetime" commitment to make annual donation to the Gates Foundation in light of revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein files about his connections to Gates.At that time, he replied, "I'll wait and see what unfolds ... I don't have to make that decision today. And I haven't made it today." "I've learned things I didn't know about something for all these years."Now Buffett says he's read a "great deal" about the matter, including Gates' congressional testimony last month, and presumably, the February Wall Street Journal report that in a meeting with foundation staff members, Gates "acknowledged that he had two affairs with Russian women that Epstein later discovered, but that they didn't involve Epstein's victims."Buffett's assessment: "While it's distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people or choosing friends and then finding out later that they — that one way or another, they weren't what I thought they were. And so, I found nothing in there that that was beyond what I could see — I could picture myself doing."  Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, in an interview on May 5, 2015CNBC In March, Buffett said he had not talked with Gates "at all since the whole thing" with the Epstein files "was unveiled."That's no longer the case. Buffett told Becky that Gates came to Omaha within the last several weeks "and we spent three hours talking together" and "he intends to call me" to maintain contact.Buffett said that "at some point" he told Gates he is ending his annual donations before announcing the move this week and Gates is "OK" with the decision. "It's been a wonderful friendship."In a statement emailed to CNBC by a representative, Bill Gates said, "Warren is one of the greatest philanthropists of all time, and a dear friend. His wisdom, generosity, and deep sense of purpose have defined both his life and his philanthropy."Gates credits Buffett's "unprecedented support" with helping to save millions of lives. "My gratitude to Warren is immeasurable, and I cherish the time we spend together. I hope we have much more of it ahead." Why Buffett is picking up the pace of his stock donations At the same time, Buffett is shifting where his philanthropic donations will be directed, he is also speeding up the pace of those gifts.In his previous philanthropic plans, for both the Gates Foundation and the four family foundations, the number of shares donated each year decreased, although the value of the gifts usually was higher than the year before as the price of Berkshire's stock increased.Starting now, he is going to give away more shares each year so he can "dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years," in part because his children, who will be deciding what to do with the money, are "unfortunately growing older."Buffett does acknowledge his children have a tough job ahead of them: watch nowVIDEO3:4403:44Warren Buffett speeds up pace of annual donations, will leave it to his kids on how to manageSquawk Box He also said having Greg Abel at the helm of Berkshire makes him feel comfortable about giving up his, and the family's, control of the company sooner rather than later and explained why the foundation named after his first wife will be getting more shares than the foundations run by his three children: watch nowVIDEO10:3910:39Warren Buffett on the timeline and distribution of his annual stock donationsSquawk Box Berkshire Hathaway shares initially fell on Tuesday's news that Buffett will be accelerating his sales but then recovered to end the week slightly lower. Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Buffett 'initiated' big Alphabet investment, with Abel's approval The biggest surprise in Tuesday's interview was Buffett's revelation he is responsible for Berkshire's big investment in Alphabet, Google's parent.After purchasing roughly $4.3 billion of shares in last year's third quarter and adding $11.5 billion in this year's first quarter, Berkshire invested another $10 billion in Alphabet by purchasing shares directly from the company as part of its larger plan to fund its AI ambitions.Given Buffett's long-standing practice of almost always avoiding tech stocks, many observers, including me, thought making Alphabet one of Berkshire biggest stock holdings was the result of new CEO Greg Abel flexing his investing muscles.Wrong, said Buffett: "I initiated it."He did go on to say, "I am not doing anything that [Abel] doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time... but he is the decider."Even though Alphabet is "putting out huge amounts of money" on AI infrastructure and he doesn't "like [the stock] as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own," Buffett said, "I think they're more likely to be a winner, based on their record, than — than probably 90 percent or — or 95 percent of what gets merchandised through Wall Street, because Wall Street is just interested in whether they can sell something."  watch nowVIDEO11:2711:27Warren Buffett: I initiated Berkshire Hathaway's investment in AlphabetSquawk Box Buffett again acknowledged in Tuesday's interview he made a "mistake" by not adding Alphabet to Berkshire's portfolio earlier.In a 2017 CNBC interview, Buffett admitted he should have known about Google's profit potential because Berkshire's GEICO had been buying a lot of advertising from the company. Buffett remains bullish on Apple Buffett is disappointed Tim Cook will be stepping down as the CEO of Apple, Berkshire's largest equity holding at $76 billion, but he's still happy with the stock. watch nowVIDEO4:5504:55Warren Buffett: America's been a wonderful place to invest moneySquawk Box Warsh will 'do the best he can' as new Fed chairman Buffett thinks Kevin Warsh is a "good choice" to be the new Federal Reserve chairman, although he "can't be perfect at it, just like I know I couldn't be perfect at taking people's money and earning super returns on it."Still, "I think he will do the best he can at achieving the job he was assigned to do, which is 2% inflation and maintaining maximum employment." watch nowVIDEO2:1502:15Warren Buffett: Kevin Warsh was 'a good choice' to lead the Federal ReserveSquawk Box Buffett again sounds alarm on 'gambling' in financial markets  Buffett is still worried there is too much "gambling" in financial markets."It's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling," he said."Since humans love to gamble so much, there's more money in — in actually cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors." watch nowVIDEO2:4102:41Warren Buffett on the market today: It's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gamblingSquawk Box 'I broke a leg' As the interview was ending, Becky asked Buffett how he was feeling that day."I broke a leg ... a few weeks ago," he replied, without elaborating on exactly what happened.It is his first broken leg "in my life until now" so "I've been very lucky on that sort of thing." Berkshire buybacks are really back It appears Berkshire's relatively small, and publicly previewed, $234 million of share repurchases in the first quarter was not a one and done resumption after a two-year hiatus.Barron's estimates Berkshire bought between $5 billion to $11 billion of its shares in the second quarter.That's based on a rough calculation derived from Buffett's SEC filing this week on his foundation gifts that disclosed his 188,920 Class A shares, after the contributions, is 13.2% of all of Berkshire's outstanding shares.Barron's says the estimated buyback range is fairly large because it doesn't know yet exactly when the buybacks were made and because Buffett's ownership percentage is presented with just one decimal point.We'll get the exact number when Berkshire releases its Q2 earnings early next month. The complete 1-hour interview watch nowVIDEO59:5659:56Watch CNBC's full interview with Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren BuffettSquawk Box 1. 00:00 - Buffett on his decision to stop donations to Gates FoundationBECKY QUICK: Warren, first of all, thank you for sitting down and talking with us today. I appreciate it.WARREN BUFFETT: It's always good to sit down. (Laughs)BECKY QUICK: Yes, I find the same thing.The last time we sat down and spoke with you, or I guess it was two times ago in March when we sat down with you to talk about what you were doing with your charitable giving, you said that you were going to be watching and waiting, that you were kind of waiting to see what came out about Bill Gates and the Epstein files and what had happened.You said you hadn't determined what you were going to do.Today you put out a release saying that you will be increasing the amount of money that you give to the Susan Thomas Buffett Foundation, your three children's foundations, but there will be nothing given right now to the Gates Foundation. Is that your decision?WARREN BUFFETT: That's correct. That's correct.But — but in interpreting that, I would point out that I've read a great deal since January 1 in terms of what happened with Bill and Epstein, and I've read his remarks to Congress given under oath, and I've read cross examination, and while it's distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people or choosing friends, and then finding out later that they — that one way or another, they weren't what I thought they were.And so I found nothing in there that that was beyond what I could see — I could picture myself doing.And, you know, he ended it. And I've had situations where I made mistakes about people or people may have felt they made mistakes about me.But they — you know — life goes on and — and no one — no one bats 1.000 in the business of choosing people,BECKY QUICK:  You're talking about hiring decisions, maybe who you're associating yourself with, and there were certainly some questionable decisions on that that came up in the release of these files, but there was also other, you know, personal information.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. No. He — which he admitted to.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. No. And there again, I would say that, you know, I would — I've known some pretty wonderful people, and I still know some wonderful people.I don't think they've made every decision correctly.BECKY QUICK: So why, if that's your opinion on it, why are you no longer giving money to the Gates Foundation?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I reevaluated my whole situation.It's just like I've been doing since I was in my 20s, and we'd gotten married, Susie and I, and we didn't really have any money, but we did know that we intended to live fine, and we intended to have a family, and — but we did not have aspirations of, you know, having six houses or a 500-foot yacht or anything of the sort.So even then, we talked about what we would do philanthropically. But my idea, and conviction, was that I would compound money at a better rate than society generally, and that Susie would give it away better than 99.9 percent of the people that were giving it away, and she would get involved personally with the gifts, whereas I like to do things wholesale, and she liked to do things retail.So we had a plan, but we didn't have any money. And over time the money started to pile up, and she would say, "Are we rich yet?" And I would say, "No, but we're getting closer."But I was not in a hurry to do anything. We did some small things as we went along. I did it.I felt the most important threat to mankind was — was the — was the nuclear bomb.  And so I had sort of grandiose plans in my mind about how I could change the probabilities of that happening, and I finally came to the conclusion, after decades, that I could not have a 100th, or 1,000th, of 1 percent chance of succeeding in that.And, you know, it's nice to bet on long shots, but betting on things that are essentially —BECKY QUICK: So you've changed your plans?WARREN BUFFETT: So I changed plans.BECKY QUICK: Why did you change your plans?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we changed plans because of what I've set out here. The money began — the money began to pile up —BECKY QUICK: No, but you changed your — you changed your plan now. In 2024, you said it was a lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation.Now in 2026, you are saying that's not the case. What happened?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, what happened was that I gave the Gates Foundation a great deal of money —BECKY QUICK: Maybe 47 billion dollars in total?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And I had no — and I thought that was a good decision. I think it was a decent decision.But I did not think my kids were in any way ready to give away vast sums of money.We'd started — Susie and I started with them — I think we gave them — we may have given them a hundred thousand dollars each.BECKY QUICK: This goes back 30 years at this point, or longer?WARREN BUFFETT: That's about right. Yeah.But they were growing children. You know, they had children, you know, they had children of their own by that time.But still — they —they — I don't think they were ready for it. And I certainly wanted to treat them all equally. So that's always a problem — is — if they have unequal talents of something.Now, I can't turn them all into musicians, and I can't turn them all into baseball players or anything.But I really hoped in the charitable field that they would have common goals and be able to work out among themselves a way where, with vast amounts of money, that everybody felt there was plenty to do what they wanted to do. And I have the —BECKY QUICK: And you think that's the case today?WARREN BUFFETT:  Pardon me?BECKY QUICK: You think that's the case today?WARREN BUFFETT: I feel the probabilities of that are extraordinarily high.And — now — is — could something happen to this plan? Of course. I mean, I've got three children that are 72 and 71, and look at my age.I mean, things can happen in this world that cause you to change — to change.But I have no expectation of changing. I mean, as far as I'm as concerned, we've reached the ideal point.We — we kicked. Well, Susie died in 2004, so it's been more me kicking up the amount they receive annually. And clearly, they feel happy with the job, too.I mean, there's no sense sticking people in a job that they — they aren't fit for, or that — where they differ totally from you and your views.I mean that — that — I had different views in life than my dad, who I admired more than anybody in the world, but it still didn't mean that I joined his church or, you know, did — did anything identically. And — and he encouraged that view.He would — he would quote to me Emerson, which — where Emerson said something to the effect that the force in you is new in nature. You know, he's saying, you know, you're one of a kind. Find out what that one is.And I think I found it very young by luck, circumstance, and pretty purposeful pursuit myself.My kids did not. They behaved like — like most kids. They — they flirted with a lot of different ideas. And — but I feel 100 percent now about what I have seen them do.My son Howard just published a 100 page or so report explaining what he's doing, why he's doing, what it's costing.BECKY QUICK: An annual report for the Howard Buffett Foundation?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And it's better than I could write.He's — he — he has a sense of stewardship, and — and he also has enormous empathy for people he sees that don't have it as lucky as he has.BECKY QUICK: So then is it fair to say 20 years ago in 2006, when you made this decision, you trusted the Gates Foundation more than your children, and now you trust your children more than the Gates Foundation?WARREN BUFFETT: No, the amounts were different. It isn't to say that I trusted them differently, but I felt they were capable of handling —And I was certainly not going to turn something over to my kids and then pull it back from them. I mean, and —And the Gates Foundation has turned out to earn far more money than they expected to do. They spend more money than anybody in the world that I can think of.BECKY QUICK: Yeah. They have an endowment of — north of 90 billion dollars, I think it is.WARREN BUFFETT: It's around that figure, and Bill has very substantial resources outside, which he intends to give, and I believe — a hundred percent — I believe that they will go there.And I, you know — I've really done the same thing as Bill, in a certain sense. I'm — except I'm — when I put it in, I tell the three children that that it is theirs and it's their responsibility to get it done well.And — and you may find this hard to believe, but it's true. I've never looked at their Form 990s, which they file. I — I'm not judging each action as it takes place, because you take actions where you think there's only a 10 percent or 20 percent probability of success. It's not like investments.BECKY QUICK: But what are your goals for the money? And you kind of intimated that the kids have similar goals as to what you have.WARREN BUFFETT: There's — there are all kinds of ways in which the world is as unequal as you can possibly imagine. I mean, just imagine in health, or the luck of birth, or all of those sort of things. And the ultimate goal is to make life better for the people who get short straws.And there's a lot more people who get short straws than we'll ever be able to take care of, and — and my kids will have more insight into certain areas than I would. And I have more insight than — than they do just because of different interests and exposure.But the one thing I'm convinced of is that they will be attempting to do something, and they'll be better at it. And the probability is that they've got more years to live than I do.So, I mean, it really sneaks up on you when you get to be in the 70s or something like that.But I wouldn't — I can't think of a person in the world that — 30 or under, for example — I would trust to do it.I think there's all kinds of brilliant people that are 30 or under, and they may turn out to be leaders of society and — and terribly important writers, or whatever it may be. But I do think there's something to seeing how people behave under different circumstances.BECKY QUICK: The kids are going to come under pressure, and probably already have, from a long list of people who think that they should fund their ideas.I saw something today on X that Brad Gerstner put out suggesting that you give the money to Trump accounts, that there are other great things to do. What do you say to the lots and lots of people who will say this is where you should put that money, or what do you think they should say?WARREN BUFFETT: If you take 8 billion people in the world and feel that everybody should have an equal chance, I mean, you could — you could spend a thousand dollars or 10 thousand dollars, and you know, to solve everybody's problems. You're never going to solve everybody's problems.The idea of serving — solving a societal problem, which is what I started out as, with — with a nuclear weapon — I mean, everybody who worked on the nuclear weapon regretted the fact that they had to put together something like that. The most brilliant people in the world, but they never figured out how to put the [genie] back in the bottle.And, you know, that — that is not something that society in the first couple hundred million years of existence there — couple million —BECKY QUICK: Do any of those plans, though, like the Trump accounts, appeal to you? Do you think they appeal to the kids? Do you — or do you just leave it to the kids and say, you figure it out?WARREN BUFFETT: I leave it to the kids. But I do have this provision in my will, not in these gifts that I'm giving now, but in the — the bulk of my fortune is likely to be left upon my death, even though I'm stepping up the —BECKY QUICK: Yeah. I will say right now it's 140 billion dollars that you have left, based on yesterday's closing stock price, in terms of the Class A shares you have left.If — the money you gave out this year is 6 billion dollars.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It'll have to go up.BECKY QUICK: Right, it's 17 and a half billion dollars, at least, annually, and that's assuming that Berkshire doesn't go from here —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah —BECKY QUICK: — if you want this to be given out in eight years, as you've said.WARREN BUFFETT: — which is a terrible assumption, incidentally. I mean, that is not a realistic assumption.BECKY QUICK: To give 17 and a half billion dollars away, annually?WARREN BUFFETT: No. That — that an investment produces nothing.BECKY QUICK: Oh, correct. So —WARREN BUFFETT: I get about 5% Treasury bills, you know.BECKY QUICK: Right. How much did you have when you started making these donations in 2006? We were talking about less than a hundred billion dollars at that point, right?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah.BECKY QUICK: So you've given away 67 billion dollars, and now you have 140 billion dollars left to give as of today.WARREN BUFFETT: Which is the nature of compound interest.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: That's one thing I understand. (Laughs)I may not understand all these other things, but —and —BECKY QUICK: But 17 and a half billion dollars, even if it weren't to go up, is more money than anybody is giving away right now. And the Gates Foundation gave away, what, 8 billion dollars last year?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, that's — that's about right. And —BECKY QUICK: That's a lot.WARREN BUFFETT: And they did it — they did it employing, you know, a few thousand people, which almost any foundation would, that had that kind of money.And — and I — I'm impressed by the fact that my kids really want to give the money away rather than do other things with it as they go along. So they —BECKY QUICK: You mean rather than spend it on themselves?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, or buildings or anything of the sort.Now, when they're — they'll need more help as they go along. But I — I think — I think the foundations employ something between — there's three of them now —BECKY QUICK: Four of them, with the STB (Susan Thompson Buffett) Foundation.WARREN BUFFETT: Well, with STB.Well, let's take the kids first, because there they make the total decision as to what they're doing. And they have between 11 and 25 employees, and —BECKY QUICK: Total? Between the three foundations?WARREN BUFFETT: No, each.BECKY QUICK: Each. OK.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.  And — and they have expense ratios far below that of institutions that are much better known and —BECKY QUICK: Expense ratios closer to one percent or less?WARREN BUFFETT: What they've shown — they've shown — they've shown that they're not regarding it as play money.BECKY QUICK: Right. Right. Meaning that the bulk — almost everything they get goes back out the door.WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it really all goes out the door eventually, but —BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: But yeah — yeah. They — they're not going to build, you know, huge office buildings or hold conferences at esoteric places and all kinds of things.You know, there's nothing wrong with doing that. I mean —But the important thing is whether people that have, you know, a hundred times what they need and don't pass it along to somebody else for the next generation. And — and many parts of the world have been doing that for thousands of years.BECKY QUICK: Yeah, you're not a big fan of bureaucracy. Berkshire Hathaway was run here, in this office, with 25 people or something in the home office.WARREN BUFFETT: Twenty-five people. And we probably went up — we probably grew in size 10-for-one before we added the last two or three.BECKY QUICK: Uh huh.Before we move on, does  — does Bill Gates know about this? When we spoke with you in March, you said you had not spoken with him since any of these allegations started coming out.He said the same thing last month in — in June when he sat down with this congressional testimony, that he had not spoken with you since January.Have you spoken with him since? And does this come as a surprise to him?WARREN BUFFETT: No — no, it does not come as a surprise.And — and B), he came by Omaha, I don't know, three weeks ago — or — I kind of lose track on time — but certainly not three months — but three — since we talked. And we spent three hours talking together, and — and — and he's — he — he intends to call me. He's the one that initiates calls, just generally.And — and as you can see, I'm available anytime. (Laughs)But — he's — he's much more organized than I am, and — but he already proposed another one, and —BECKY QUICK: Another meeting?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And — and — he is — we have had an enormous number of good times together since we met — whenever it was — what was it, 1991?And he's always done more than his share of it — always more than his share. You don't see me doing the planning or doing —BECKY QUICK: In the friendship, you mean?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It's — it's — it's been a wonderful friendship.And — and Bill and I are interested in enough things that overlap that we find plenty to talk about, and then each of us has got his own specialty to some extent.BECKY QUICK: But you told him three — three weeks ago or so when you met him that you would not be making any more donations to the Gates Foundation?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I may have even — may have been even — I can't tell you exactly when I told him.But — but at some point, I had read the — I had read what Congress came up with. I'd read everything.And — and all I can say is, you know, I've — I don't know whether I've done dumper things, but I've done things that — I've just done many dumb things in life.I mean, that is — all I have to do is look at our portfolio. I mean, four out of five of our — at least four out of five of — of the decisions I've made have not been anything out of the ordinary. But —BECKY QUICK: But he was OK when you told him —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — that this was — OK.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: So he's on board. None of this is news to him.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.Bill, unlike me, more or less, I think wants it to end when — when he dies. Then of course he doesn't know when he's —BECKY QUICK: His foundation?WARREN BUFFETT: The Gates Foundation.Whereas, I hope that my kids live a lot longer than — than I do, and I hope all three participate. And I think all three will be better off for doing it.But that — that's not a decision that was made — well, when Susie and I started giving them — I think we moved it up to, maybe, 30 million a year, and —BECKY QUICK: To the kids' foundations?WARREN BUFFETT: No, actually to —BECKY QUICK: Oh.WARREN BUFFETT: — to — but — to their foundations. I don't remember the exact figures at all.But we gave it to them when we were 99 percent sure that — that they — well, we knew they were willing and — and in some cases, in a certain way, eager, to do things for other people.They — they've had a good life. They haven't — they haven't —Well, they've followed that rule that somebody told me a long time ago, but — which I get credit for, but I didn't think of it myself — which is that if you're the child of some very rich family, that you should have enough — you should be given enough to do — to do — to do something, but not enough to do nothing.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: And that's — that's exactly what's been going on at an increased scale, but —BECKY QUICK: Just to —WARREN BUFFETT: But I have to step it up now, because, you know, at my age, you know, the probabilities really get against me.So that the last will I wrote is — is very likely to be my final will. Whereas the wills that I was writing when I was 30 or 40 or 50, I knew they would change.BECKY QUICK: Right. Let's — let's talk about that. 2.    21:23 - Accelerating the pace of donationsBECKY QUICK: The other thing that you're announcing in this is that you would like to see the money go out at an expedited — and the shares go out — at an expedited rate.To this point, it had kind of been 10 years after your death, you thought the shares would all be disbursed to charity.Now you're saying that you would like all of those shares to be disbursed eight years from now, by the end of 2034.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: What — what changed your mind on that, and what does that mean?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it certainly means that I had — I had two purposes in — in all the philanthropy, and — and in particular with all — essentially, a hundred percent of my money in — in Berkshire —You know, that's my painting, and — and I like the painting, I like the people associated with it, and it's been refined over time. You know, I've added an (inaudible) over here or something. (Laughs)And — and I don't think — I don't know of 10 people in the United States that I would trust to hand it over to. I don't know —BECKY QUICK: Your company? You're talking your company?WARREN BUFFETT: The company.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know of five people, and I know a lot of people. And — now I have a very high standard in terms of what I'm looking for in — in that person. And clearly, we've — we found him with Greg Abel.So — and that becomes more evident by the day. Even this year, there's been added things that, so —BECKY QUICK: So you don't think you need to hold on to the shares, or have your family have voting power over those shares, for as long because you think Greg Abel is —WARREN BUFFETT: He is the choice. The only question is — is — he's not immortal, either, you know.I mean, you always have this mortality question, you know, and nobody gets away from it. I mean, it —People can be in marvelous health, or seem like it — and you know they —Who died the other day? Wasn't he —BECKY QUICK: Lindsey Graham.WARREN BUFFETT:  — 71 or something?So there's an enormous variety and variation from — from being lucky to not being lucky.And I've — that's — that's the bet I made with Greg.I do not have a list of 10. I mean, it isn't — I don't have 10 kids, either. But — even — I don't have a list of three.BECKY QUICK: In terms of who you would trust the company to —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — at this point?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.Now, I've got directors that I trust to be imbued with the — the — they like the concept of Berkshire Hathaway. They would like to keep it going.So I've got the right group that's the intermediary in — in making that choice.But things don't always work out perfectly with the world.BECKY QUICK: So your — your hope is that the shares will be dispersed by the end of 2034, just over eight years from now — eight and a half years from now.But I take it if — if you're not here and the kids are the one making the choices, you would leave it to their decision making at that point?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And eight — eight years from now, you know, my daughter will be 80 — very close to 81.You know, another will be seventy —And it's not just a question of mortality. It's a question of keeping your marbles, too. You know, and —BECKY QUICK: (Laughs)Have they heard you say it like this?WARREN BUFFETT: Well — well, I mean — I'm losing marbles — (laughs) — at this point.I accumulated marbles for a longer time than I deserved, and that's just a matter of luck.I mean, I've —  I've seen so many managers of our companies that — well, I think I've mentioned it at a few annual reports — annual meetings, I mean. We had guys cutting out paper dolls, and there's you know, and their assistants covering for them.BECKY QUICK: OK, just to — to clarify at this point, you are saying this of your right mind while you're making these decisions, correct?WARREN BUFFETT: I hope so. (Laughter)But actually, I wrote the will a couple years ago, so that —And I will not knowingly — I mean, I will not change that will, except for extremely important decisions, because there's no question that I had my marbles when I wrote it. 3.    25:40 - The family foundations BECKY QUICK: OK, so let's talk a little bit about what happens now, because you've talked about how this is really your children making the decisions, but in the announcement that you're putting out now, you increased each of your children's foundations, the amount you're giving them, by about 50 percent —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — from what you gave them last year.WARREN BUFFETT: But I've increased the Susan Thompson Foundation, but —BECKY QUICK: But it's the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation that really is seeing the outsize gains in what they're going to be giving away.They're —  they're — the amount of shares they receive this year is tenfold what it was last year. Basically they're getting all the money that would have gone to the Gates Foundation. Why?WARREN BUFFETT: They're — they're getting all the money that would have gone to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation —BECKY QUICK: — and then some.WARREN BUFFETT: — if my first wife would have survived.BECKY QUICK: Right. And then some.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: But basically the payout they're going to be getting this year, in terms of what they can disburse, is four and a half billion dollars. That's how much the Gates Foundation got last year.Why so much more to the STB Foundation than the other three foundations, relatively speaking?Everybody gets more, but — but why that outsized amount?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the SCB Foundation is what — and I would say, totally, my wife would have — my first wife would have created — and I would have approved it.I mean, we were on the same page in all kinds of questions that aren't even questions anymore, in terms of women's rights, civil rights. I mean, we were — we were in sync.That — now she — she took an interest in listening to everybody's story. That would be the last thing in the world — (laughs) — I would want to do.She — she saw every individual as an individual, but she also saw them as a group. I saw them as a group, and I had other things that fascinated me more.BECKY QUICK: This money that goes through, is this what you will anticipate seeing from — from this point on? In years past, at Thanksgiving, you've given additional disbursements to the three kids' foundations.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: Do you plan to do that again this year?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I'm almost sure I will. But — but regardless, the other — the other goes on.You know, I mean — if I, you know — I could, I'm — I'm more probable to die before Thanksgiving than any of my three children, and probably the probability of all three combined. But — but —But I also enjoy explaining why I take actions, just like I do in the annual report on Berkshire.I — I've got a didactic streak, which my partner Charlie Munger had, and to us — the money wasn't — well, the money was important, in terms of what it could actually do for other people.It wasn't important for what it could do for me. I — I have not denied myself anything in life.BECKY QUICK: If something happens that you're not here to make these decisions, does it revert to what you talked about last year in your will, where there is a new foundation that is created?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, there's a new foundation —BECKY QUICK: And the three kids are in charge?WARREN BUFFETT: Because it has to be — to be — because it does have slight variations. One being unanimous consent among the three for anything they do.BECKY QUICK: Does the STB Foundation or the kids' foundations, do they have to spend the money in this fiscal year as was required of the Gates Foundation, or is this something where they can take their time and make their plans?WARREN BUFFETT: They know — they know my views on it, but they can they can do what they want. But if they — if their wants get away from the basic principles far enough, you look at it again, but that isn't going to happen.BECKY QUICK: Warren, you've spent most of your adult life thinking about philanthropy. How have your views changed over time? What would you like to see happen with this?I think about the Giving Pledge and what you all did. What's your perspective at this point?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the perspective I have is out of eight billion people, you know, I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world. (Laughs)So I've been lucky and healthy to get to 95. I've been lucky in that the field that intrigued me, and where I had some natural ability, happened to be one that paid off in a way that was — nothing paid off like it.I've — I could have been a great violin player, you know — anything else.I — it requires more talent than I have, but a different form of talent. And — and fortunately, I got exposed, partly accidentally, to what I liked to do very early on, and that was just an accident.If my father had been a plumber, I would not have — I would not have had the same advantage I had.So I was incredibly lucky. And — and then, as life has gone along, I have seen how unbelievably unlucky some people have been.And it is luck. I mean, you know, we — you know — we had accidents with — with the kids when they were young, and all kinds of things can happen. And they just didn't happen to us.BECKY QUICK: All right, let's talk about a few other things while we have you, here.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK:  Is there more you want to say?WARREN BUFFETT: Let me add one more thing on that, though.I mean, the idea, the whole idea, of kings and queens and everything, where you pass along, for thousands of years, the ability to live in any manner you wish, you know, while you say "let them eat cake" — (laughs) — to the rest, it —That — that is not the way the system should — would be, if I had my way of designing the world. And I can't -- I can't change the design of the world, but I can make — I can level at the edges.BECKY QUICK: And those are the same values that your wife, Astrid, and your kids all have, too?WARREN BUFFETT: A hundred percent. And I'm glad you mentioned Astrid, because she feels — she's as extreme in this field as you can imagine. And she — she's actually experienced more hardship in life than either Susie or I did, because she was — she's Latvian — and you know, and came over in a boat in Ellis Island, and — and didn't know who she was being assigned to. Lived in foster homes, all kinds of things.So, the — the accidents of birth are just so extreme. And I've seen people that use those accidents to justify positions that are just ridiculous — (laughs) in my view.And — and that's the reason for encouraging philanthropy.You can't mandate it. It isn't even — it isn't philanthropy if you mandate it. But people, most people, are a combination, you know, of lots of good instincts and lots of not so good instincts — (laughs) — and including me. And the —If you do things that appeal to their better instincts, they — they respond, sometimes.BECKY QUICK: And by the way, your — your point with the Giving Pledge, when you founded that with Bill and Melinda Gates, was to encourage people to give to anything, but not to try and tell them what to do with their money.WARREN BUFFETT: Exactly. Exactly. And —And also decide when they would do it. I mean, a family that's got a family farm they've had for a hundred years, and they're — you know, within the family, they've all worked out and everything — they're going to have a different view toward capital.They're all going to work hard, but they just — going — they're going to have a whole different view than some guy that is — is writing options on Wall Street.BECKY QUICK: Yeah. 4.    33:45 - Buffett says he initiated big Alphabet investment BECKY QUICK: OK, let's talk about a few other things that have happened, maybe since we got the chance to sit down last in May.The first that I can think of is the massive position that Berkshire has — has developed and grown in Alphabet — in Google shares.That's something that a lot of people have looked at and said, OK, this is Greg's mark on how he's going to be changing the portfolio. How did the Alphabet position come along?WARREN BUFFETT: I initiated it.I mean, I normally wouldn't give you an answer on something like that, but I will because — but we — I am not doing anything that he doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time.He's, you know, he's — well every day, I mean. And — and — but it — he is the decider.And getting back to Alphabet, or Google, it's probably number five or six.BECKY QUICK: Well, I thought it was number three if you consider the 10 billion dollar private placement that would go along with that, because that would put it north of 31 billion dollars.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, but we — we've got — we've got the Burlington Northern railroad —BECKY QUICK: OK.WARREN BUFFETT: —  which is certainly worth far more money than that.BECKY QUICK: OK, so you're counting — you're counting fully owned companies.WARREN BUFFETT: Absolutely. You know, I mean, we are always making the choice between whether we'll buy marketable securities or the company. We look at them the same way.There's — there are some minor exceptions to that. We can't — we can't set dividend policy, for example, if we don't own it.But the chances of those being material — the important thing is to buy a good business and to buy it on the right terms, and to get the right person to run it.BECKY QUICK: OK, but you've quickly grown a north-of-thirty-billion-dollar investment in Alphabet. That puts it, in terms of those companies that you own pieces of, behind only Apple and —WARREN BUFFETT: American Express.BECKY QUICK: And American Express. So Coca-Cola would be smaller. Bank of America would be smaller.WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it's — it's kind of close, and — and it—But — but if you take Coca-Cola, which we've owned, you know, 45 years, whatever it may be — you know, we — we don't have a thing to do with running that business, and — but it's a very good business.And I — when I say a very good business, I mean something that you can expect to own, earn high returns on capital, over a long period of time.Now the question is, when you get into Google, is — or any of the AI companies — you're putting out huge amounts of money. And I can put huge amounts of money into government bonds and get, you know, 20 or 30 or billion dollars a year, in terms of payments from them.So, a good business is one that earns a lot more than — than — and has prospects of continuing to earn a lot more than the — the returns on — on essentially riskless investments, which you could define as Treasurys.But if you take something like American Express, you know, there are — most of the banks earn 13, 14 percent on — on capital.If I asked everybody to guess what American Express would — they would — they would — they would come up with some figure similar. But it's so different that it earns 30 percent-plus on capital, and does not incur more risk in doing so than the banks that earn 13 or 14 percent.And the — the trick in life is to find —I mean, in investing — is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time.And that's what happened with — with Berkshire for a long period of time.A long period of time gets to be very important because those doubles later on are of very big numbers.But Charlie — Charlie Munger — my partner for many — for decades — he just — he just pounded the idea that it wasn't a good business just because it — it was doing sexy things, or whatever it might be.But if it wasn't earning real cash that it would — or be expected to do it in a very short period of time — and — and to be able to distribute it if it wanted to — better yet, if it could reemploy it as a business —  it was even better than one that had — had the ability to earn high returns, but you couldn't deploy the excess capital of those returns.BECKY QUICK: OK, let me ask you, though.Forever, people have thought of you as somebody who doesn't invest in technology. And by the way, you've described yourself as somebody who doesn't invest in technology.Obviously, the biggest position in the Berkshire portfolio is Apple, a position that you put on. But at the time, you called that a consumer company.Google, you just called an AI company. So what happened?WARREN BUFFETT: Google — the real question with Google and all of its competitors now, because they're all laying out hundreds of billions. I mean, they —BECKY QUICK: They're big capex spenders.WARREN BUFFETT: So they — and yeah — and that — and that's real money.I mean, that's — if our railroad were to lay out 300 million — or billion — or 200 billion, you know, that — that kind of money wasn't even put in the railroad business, you know, in terms of developing it.So — and — and they are — that's the game they're — they're playing now. They weren't playing that game with — with computer software.BECKY QUICK: No, so when they were asset light, you didn't like them, and the markets loved them. Now that they are —WARREN BUFFETT: I made a mistake.BECKY QUICK: — spending heavily on capex, a lot of shareholders don't like them as much, because they don't  —WARREN BUFFETT: I think they're more likely to be a winner, based on their record, than — than probably 90 percent or — or 95 percent of what gets merchandised through Wall Street, because Wall Street is just interested in whether they can sell something.And I can't recall a report on Wall Street that really gets into the internal rates of return that a business is actually earning. That — what's more important than what a business is earning?But they ask all these questions about what'll happen next quarter, or you know, or it's just — it's ridiculous.But, you know, investing is — is coming up with —Well, probably the — close to the most successful long-term investor was — was Rockefeller. And — but look at what oil and gas has done over 150 — or a couple of hundred years.So he kept compounding at a very good rate. Not as good a rate as GEICO would have achieved in its early years, because it's easier to do when you're small.Getting to do it when you're large is — you got the whole world looking at you, trying to figure out how — (laughs) — how — how come those guys are doing it and we're not doing it?BECKY QUICK: Why do you like Alphabet above all others, and what made you initiate this position? What was the eureka moment?WARREN BUFFETT:  I — I would say that I don't like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own.BECKY QUICK: Other than Apple, the railroad?WARREN BUFFETT: Well —BECKY QUICK: American Express?WARREN BUFFETT: You're not going to get the whole portfolio out of me — (laughs) — but — and of course —BECKY QUICK: But you like it enough it make it a huge position.WARREN BUFFETT: I like — I like Berkshire that way. I mean, Berkshire earned high returns on capital without — without — I'm not talking about using the tricks of leveraging or that sort of thing — I'm — and all that.BECKY QUICK: But I'm talking about why Alphabet versus the other Magnificent Seven, or the other, you know, hyperscalers, who are doing the same thing, spending a lot of money —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — Amazon, Microsoft, whoever it may be — to try and win in this position of AI?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I don't want to sit around knocking the others. They don't have any choice. You know —BECKY QUICK: To spend like this, you mean?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. They're now playing a game, in many cases, where they — or in some cases — where they're playing a game they don't want to play.IBM would have loved it if they just kept playing the game that IBM was playing in the 30s or the 40s or the 50s and the 60s, you know. And then somebody came along with — and said, we'll get a better result for you, achieving the objective of all the customers you have, because that's all you're going to have is — you either have happy customers or you don't have customers, over time. And the customer is not dumb.Wall Street can be very dumb, and in terms of — they — they can dream. But a guy with a grocery store can't dream. I mean, I worked at my grandfather's grocery store, and we saw — well, we had one store in 1869 and we had one store in 1969 — (laughs) — and — and other people were earning high returns on capital, some on a national scale. A&P, which people don't associate with anymore, in the 1930s, I mean, they were — they were number one — enemy number one — of trustbusters in — in Washington. And they — they had a very, very, very good hand, and that hand disappeared.BECKY QUICK: So it's a different game.WARREN BUFFETT: Yep.BECKY QUICK: And you like this game? You understand this game more than you understood the game they were playing before? Is that what you're saying?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, there's all kinds of games I don't understand. Sure.BECKY QUICK: Yeah. But this game —WARREN BUFFETT: Why — why should I expect to make money in all kinds of things I don't understand? And —BECKY QUICK: But that's what I'm getting at. What do you understand about this game at this point? Because most people would say he's never going to buy any technology stocks, and I think you've said the same thing yourself in the past.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, but I've done it. And actually, one of the most successful companies I was associated with, going back to 1958.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: We started a company called Data Documents. We started Data Documents because a couple of pals of mine read in the paper that IBM had settled a antitrust suit by divesting. They had to divest 50 percent of the capacity of what was their best business. And everybody knew it was their best business.Now, it so happens it ran out after 10 or 15 years, and I — I knew some of the people that caused it to run out.But if you have a wonderful business, you are going to be subject to attack. So you — it's not a question of whether it was wonderful yesterday. It's — it's — the question is: how long is it going to be wonderful?BECKY QUICK: But that's what I think I love. People can try and pigeonhole you and say they know who you are and what you do. To me, it looks like you're 95, turning 96 next month, and you are still changing and following the game.WARREN BUFFETT: Well yeah, but it's easier for me — if somebody came along — I'm just trying to think of what it might be — better candy — that would have more predictive value to me than if they came along and had a better way of — of doing something that a hundred of their competitors would sneak in the — in the plant at night to see how — exactly how they got it all done. 5.    45:48 - Apple faces tough competitors BECKY QUICK: Let's talk about your largest position, Apple.You told us that you were thrilled with everything that Tim Cook had done. I don't know how well you know [incoming CEO] John Turnus at this point, or what you think the company's doing.You still have a lot of faith in Apple?WARREN BUFFETT: Well — I — there was no move they could make, that would replace Tim, that I would have liked. (Laughs)I mean, you know, if you got somebody, you know, Stradivarius playing the violin for you, I mean, don't — don't spend the next 300 years looking for another one. I mean, you've got one already.And — and of course, Wall Street thrives on the idea that convincing you that — that — that if you just listen to them, they've got something that nobody else has. Well — which can't be true. I mean, it's ridiculous.But — but it works because — well, in general, it works because the — America has been a wonderful place to invest money. And the Dow industrials, when I bought my first stock, had just crossed a hundred — 100 — and now it's 52,000 or something — and you've got dividends in between and all kinds.Well, I mean, the village idiot — (laughs) — could have made it from that point forward. And so I've been in the right game.If I'd been in — in wheat speculation, I mean, wheat — wheat's gone from, you know — I don't know whether it's gone from three dollars to five dollars, or something, over 200 years. And it — it's a pretty — it's a very simple business, as long as you keep remembering that it's simple and that making it complicated can — can — well, it's just crazy. At that point, you're gambling.BECKY QUICK: But do you still like Apple?WARREN BUFFETT:  And the people — people's enthusiasm for gambling is enormous.BECKY QUICK: You've talked about that —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — over the last many years, probably since COVID.But you still like Apple? Back to the point.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.And I know more about Apple than I knew many years ago. But on the other hand, if you're — if you're Apple, you've got very, very smart people all over the world shooting and trying to figure out how to make sure that — that Apple's future — the future isn't as bright as the past.And look at — look at the car companies. I mean, Henry Ford owned the car business for 30 — for 20 or 25 years, and he —  he did — he brutally integrated like you cannot believe. He got — drove costs down. He got the cost of the Model T down, I think, to $285. And he always was decreasing prices while increasing wages.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: So he was — he was — but he also was a little nuts in some ways, and — and that did him in, finally, when he — when he converted over the Model A, and General Motors just came racing by.And — and my friend Charlie Munger thought that General Motors was the — was going to be the dominant company. Who could imagine attacking their dealer fleet and everything they had going for them? And — and — you know.You've always got somebody shooting at you.BECKY QUICK: To that point, Apple brought a lawsuit against OpenAI just last Friday night — just last week — and basically accused OpenAI of trying to steal trade secrets.WARREN BUFFETT: I would say most — most companies would love to try steal trade secrets. They wouldn't love getting caught.But if you really could dig deep into the hearts of managers, they'd like to steal secrets. (Laughter)Wouldn't you? I mean, if you had a business and you were struggling along, and the guy next door was making money?I — I had a half interest in a Sinclair filling station at 30th and Redick in Omaha when I was in my early 20s, and I'd been to business school and knew all these things. The guy next door had the Phillips station and he was pumping 30,000 barrels — 30,000 gallons — a month, and we were pumping 15,000 gallons  a month.So I said we're going to wipe this guy off the face of the earth. And you know, a couple years later, we were selling 15,000 and he was selling 30,000 and we gave up, and we closed up. And I think he's still operating.It's — people are playing for keeps in business. 6.    50:40 - IRS sues Coca-Cola over taxes BECKY QUICK:  Yeah.We talked about Coca-Cola briefly, the long-time position you've held for more than 45 years.There is a major lawsuit —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.BECKY QUICK: — with the government that could look at action, I believe, going all the way back to 1996 with Coca-Cola. The government — the IRS — has said that they owe them —WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, it's 20 —BECKY QUICK: Twenty billion dollars, roughly.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, of which they paid —BECKY QUICK: I think they put 10 billion something —WARREN BUFFETT: They made a deposit of close to 10 billion.BECKY QUICK: But we — we're going to hear about whether — the activities in this has to do with overseas — their overseas business — just some of the accounting that goes back and forth.Coca-Cola says that they thought they had an agreement in 1996 that stood, with how they should behave. The government's now looking for more money and saying that's not the case.It's not just Coca-Cola that's riding on this, though. There's a lot of other American businesses who are doing the same thing.WARREN BUFFETT: Well, a huge number, which is why the derivative effects of the suit could be the biggest in American history.BECKY QUICK: What do you think of this? And with the understanding that you are a Coca-Cola shareholder, a large Coca-Cola shareholder, was this an overzealous government looking for ways to raise more money? Was this a company that performed badly — or that behaved badly?WARREN BUFFETT: I — you know — I've got a dog in that fight, so — (laughs).BECKY QUICK: So you don't want to —WARREN BUFFETT: So no, that's why we have courts.BECKY QUICK: Yeah. So you'll wait and see what happens with it.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. No —BECKY QUICK: I take it you're watching this closely?WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.Paying the extra money won't break Coca-Cola any more than anything I can think of would break Berkshire. I mean, I — I look at — all I think — do — is think about the downside. The upside will take care of itself.BECKY QUICK: Right. 7.    52:25 - New Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh "will do the best he can" BECKY QUICK: We also have a new FOMC chairman, Kevin Warsh, who is taking a look at the economy this week. He's going to be — or is speaking to — in front of Congress.A lot of questions about what he'll do with the markets — what he'll do with interest rates, and what that, in turn, means to the markets.You, in the past, have spoken about how interest rates are gravity, and it determines where stock market prices are headed.WARREN BUFFETT: Right.BECKY QUICK: So, what do you think happens? What are you betting?WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know what he'll do, but I would say that — that job is so complicated. I think the other day he was quoted as saying, you know, that they have 950 economists where they could use about 10.I admire him for taking on the job. I think he will do the best he can at achieving the job he was assigned to do, which is, you know, 2 percent inflation while maintaining maximum employment.And my guess is that — that just like some of the others that have preceded him, not all of them, but — but he would read that every morning, you know. I mean —BECKY QUICK: The dual mandate of the Fed.WARREN BUFFETT: The dual mandate.And he doesn't — he — he knows he can't be perfect at it. And just like I know I couldn't be perfect at taking people's money and earning super returns on it.But my guess is that people were right in realizing that I cared about what happened to their money. And I — I would say that — that Warsh has — he cares about the country.BECKY QUICK: OK.WARREN BUFFETT: And I think that's been true of a good many. It doesn't mean their decisions are always great, but — because sometimes the decisions are so tough. I mean, imagine Paul Volcker getting you know death threats all the time.And — and others just think they know more than they do.BECKY QUICK: But you think Kevin knows a lot and is —WARREN BUFFETT: I think he's a very — yeah — I think he was a good choice.BECKY QUICK: OK.WARREN BUFFETT: Which probably means the president will be mad. (Laughs)Future presidents will be mad at him because future presidents are looking at the next election, and he's not supposed to be looking at the next election.BECKY QUICK: Right. 8.  54:42 - "It's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling" BECKY QUICK: You, obviously, don't come out and make calls on where the market's headed at any point in time.WARREN BUFFETT: No.BECKY QUICK: But you do make calls on market behavior and what makes sense to you and what doesn't.Do you think the markets make sense to you when there's so much riding on AI?Earnings have been very strong. The consumer looks like it's held into this point. But how do you view it?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think there are — there are times when opportunities are just thrown at you so fast you can't — you know — it's unbelievable.And then there's other times when you're very, very lucky if you find one thing in a couple of years.And — and — it should always be that the — the latter is what prevails.But — but since humans love to gamble so much, there's more money in — in actually cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors.If — if somebody bought Berkshire 40 years — you know — 50 years ago, a guy would have made one commission. (Laughs)And — and he should spend the rest of his time telling the client, "Don't do anything with it."And that's just not the way — we can't expect that of humans.But every now and then you do find people that — I mean, you find people who behave far better than other — other people.BECKY QUICK: Fair to say, though, it's tougher to find values or find cheap opportunities —WARREN BUFFETT:  It's — it's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: And from the standpoint of the state — we may have discussed this — but from the standpoint of the state, it's — it's sort of disgusting because the state needs money for all kinds of things, roads, schools, you name it, and they have found that they can clip people who are buying nothing but hope, selling them a payout, something with a payout ratio of 60 percent or something like that, and — and if they weren't doing that, they'd have to have the income tax higher.BECKY QUICK: Right.WARREN BUFFETT: It's a cynical sort of activity. And I think the less you get cynicism between the governing body and — and the people — the government — you — you don't want to — you don't want people to be cynical about their system.But there's times when the system says, you know, just be as cynical as you want because this is what I'm going to do, baby. (Laughter) 9.    57:06 - Buffett has great faith in Greg Abel BECKY QUICK: Let's go back very quickly — you touched on this — part of the reason that you want the shares given out over the next eight years is because you want your kids making these decisions.But the other part is that you don't feel like you necessarily have to hold on to these voting shares of Berkshire for as long, because you have faith in Greg.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, exactly.And if we didn't — if we didn't have faith — well, part of the reason I'm around is because we didn't have sufficient faith in anybody. And we knew all kinds of people. But I mean, if you were talking about Tom Murphy, I mean, if I could have hired Tom Murphy —But the trouble was they were all older, and all my friends were pretty much older. So I — I — I didn't.It wasn't like I was in college and I could see who really had it, you know, who was writing crib sheets — (laughs) — on their — on their — answers on their shoulder — on their shoe cuffs.BECKY QUICK: But you feel that way with Greg.WARREN BUFFETT: I — I feel a hundred percent that way.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I've seen him in a lot of situations — a lot of situations.I felt that way with Charlie. I felt that way with Tom Murphy. I mean —But you know — nobody — nobody expects you to pick out, you know, 25 husbands and have them all work out. (Laughs)And just finding one is pretty tough, I mean, that's the right sort.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: And then you make mistakes. 10.    58:44 - Buffett broke a leg BECKY QUICK: Warren, how are you feeling today?WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I — you know — I broke a leg — (laughs) —BECKY QUICK: What happened?WARREN BUFFETT: — a few weeks ago. So — which is really — you know — I've been very lucky on that sort of thing.I haven't broken a leg in — in my life until now. (Laughs)But — but — I — I feel good. I'm glad I was born.BECKY QUICK: Yeah.WARREN BUFFETT: And I'm glad I wasn't born in some other country. And I was glad, initially, that I wasn't born female. And — I mean, all kinds of things.I mean, I — I really won the lottery when I came out.And other people think they won the lottery if they've got a trust fund set up for them that takes care of them for their whole life, and, you know, five generations thereafter.But — but I just wasn't raised that way, and I think it's a good thing I wasn't, and I haven't raised the kids that way — or more important, Susie didn't raise them that way.BECKY QUICK: Great. Well, I want to thank you for your time today.WARREN BUFFETT: Well, thank you.BECKY QUICK: I appreciate it.WARREN BUFFETT: And we're interested in business. (Laughter)BECKY QUICK: Thank you. BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription:Yahoo Finance video: Everyone wants quick money. Warren Buffett says that's the problem.Axios: Buffett and Kalshi: Two views of America's gambling boom BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH Four weeks Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards 12 months Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards BRK.A stock price: $736,000.00BRK.B stock price: $490.91BRK.B P/E (TTM): 14.61Berkshire market capitalization: $1,058,643,311,348Berkshire Cash as of March 31: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from Dec. 31)Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026. BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Jul. 17, 2026 Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.Holdings are as of March 31, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on May 15, 2026, except for:Alphabet, which includes the $10 billion in shares that Berkshire agreed to buy directly from the company, as announced on June 1, 2026. Berkshire has not yet formally disclosed whether the transaction has been completed. The entry is a combination of Class A and Class C Alphabet shares. The market price is a weighted average of the prices of the two classes.Mitsubishi, which is as of April 30, 2026The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

UFC president and CEO Dana White predicted that Power Slap may become as big as his flagship fighting sport at the Game Plan conference in New York. View More

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: A fan competes at the Power Slap interaction during the UFC Freedom 250 Fan Fest at The Ellipse on June 14, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt Ferris/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)Matt Ferris | Ufc | Getty Images Mixed martial arts has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity in recent years as the UFC has taken off. And, according to UFC President and CEO Dana White, it might not be the last fighting sport to do so. "[Power Slap] could be just as big as the UFC," White told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on Thursday in New York City. "When you look at the numbers, we have like the most viewed YouTube short ever in sports on Power Slap, the most viewed ever in sports on TikTok, and the numbers are just astronomical on what we pull on this thing," he said. "And it's global. It's already a global business."Power Slap, for those who may have missed the infamously-brutal viral clips, consists of two competitors standing over a table in the middle of a padded stage, dishing out full-force, open-palmed slaps to one another until one person cannot physically recover. The mix of fighting and shock entertainment has captivated viewer attention, and White's bullishness surrounding its rising popularity isn't just talk. According to the social media analytics platform Socialpruf, Power Slap has racked up 1.88 billion impressions over the past year, with its posts garnering nearly 40 million likes and $48 million in earned media value. Many high-profile sponsors have capitalized on this wave of popularity, jumping at the chance to throw their names into the mix of flying flat-palms. Anheuser-Busch, Monster Energy, VeChain, Circa Sports, and 500 Casino are among the many brands that have bought into White's vision for the sport to this point.  "I thought sponsorship was going to be tough," White noted. "[Power Slap] has more sponsors [in its first two years] than the UFC had in 10 years." watch nowVIDEO3:1603:16UFC’s Dana White: Power Slap “could be just as big as the UFC”CNBC Sport Events Finding participants willing to take the beatdowns seen on a regular basis in the Power Slap world might seem harder than finding advertisers. In going about this odd sort of talent acquisition, White emphasized toughness, grit, and a high pain tolerance as weighty considerations. "There are tens to hundreds of thousands of people who wrestle all over the world every weekend. They'll jump off a step ladder onto a table full of tacks for $50 a night," he said. "These are the guys that I'm going after."What makes slap-boxing so successful? Two things, White says, that can be applied across any successful sport: "You need to have a great live event, and it needs to be good on television." But as Power Slap's main viewership growth comes in the form of short-form videos posted onto social media rather than conventional live televised broadcasting, White gave particular emphasis to the latter factor.  That is also how White intially caught a glimpse of the sport."In 2017 and 2018, this stuff starts popping up on my social media," he said. "Everything that I do in the fight business is done by gut, and the fact that I would watch it and want to see who won, I said this is interesting."White said as he dove deeper into it, he saw how many views slap-boxing was getting, which he said were "equivalent to like a Justin Bieber video at that time" on YouTube.That led him to pitch the Fertitta brothers, who had exited their stake in the UFC, on investing in the business, which was launched in 2022. Get the CNBC Sport newsletter directly to your inboxThe CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media, delivered weekly to your inbox.Subscribe here to get access today. White is also leading an investment into the boxing business called Zuffa Boxing, which aims to apply the same centralized model that UFC has followed. Holding its first event in January, White said that Zuffa Boxing is a better short term bet than Power Slap, due to the fact, White said, that "boxing has been broken for a long time.""We've been at it six months now, and it makes sense why it's broken," he said. "All these promoters that I'm competing with, they're really bad at what they do ... it's a lot more unsophisticated than I expected."White said that the "boxing business has always been economically incredible," with fights and cards can generate large sums of money. But he added, "Every time they put on a fight, it's like a going-out-of-business sale," he said.Zuffa Boxing — as well as the other fighting properties White is leading — aims to put that money back in the hands of fighters."It just gets better and better," White said of the economics for fighters. "First of all, these guys in Power Slap were slapping for free when I bought the companies. Now they get paid very well. As far as UFC fighters, the pay has gone up literally like this since we bought the business," making a straight upwards movement with his hands. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

A massive fire destroyed at least one hundred homes in Drammen, Norway. Hundreds of residents were forced to evacuate their residences after the blaze spread rapidly. Firefighters worked through Saturday to bring the extensive fire under control. Helicopters were deployed to assist in dousing the flames with water. The cause of this historic residential fire remains under investigation. View More

Chantel Henry lives with her husband and two kids in Trinidad. She says living there has made her American Dream more affordable. View More

When I met my husband at a work conference in 2013, it was love at first sight. That chance meeting eventually led me to call the beautiful twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago home.At the time, I was building my career in Atlanta as a media consultant working with NFL and NBA players. I loved the glamour and the pace of the city. But when I met the man I'd eventually marry, my priorities shifted.I no longer wanted a life built around image, status and the need to always be "on." I wanted a home that gave me a sense of peace. And eventually, I wanted to raise children in a place where life could feel more grounded. In Trinidad and Tobago, all of that felt possible. It also inspired a new chapter in my career, and I created a business to help others find homes abroad. I visited Trinidad to see if I could build a life here Before we got married, my husband invited me to visit his home country. Even though I would have followed him anywhere, he wanted me to decide for myself whether I could imagine building a life here.Trinidad felt very family-oriented. I remember seeing children as young as six riding maxi taxis — minibuses that pick passengers up on a set route — to school on their own. To me, it reflected a level of independence and community trust I wasn't used to seeing. The kids greeted adults with "Good morning, miss" or "Hello, sir." There was warmth and respect in everyday interactions. Trinidad and Tobago is very family-oriented place. I love raising our kids here.Photo: Chantel Henry When my husband and I got married, we chose Tobago for our destination wedding. Known for its beaches and scenic landscapes, it gave us everything we wanted, without the hefty price tag of a big, traditional U.S. wedding.We had 18 guests and spent, to the best of my memory, less than $4,000. Instead of expensive flowers, I carried a bouquet my mother made. She used bougainvillea that my husband picked that morning from a bush across the road. It was simple, beautiful and exactly what I wanted. It's a privilege and a joy to be surrounded by all this natural beauty.Photo: Jonathan Mora and Matthew Innis for CNBC Make It My American dream became more affordable abroad In Trinidad and Tobago, I don't feel the same pressure to keep up with the lifestyle expectations I felt in America.In Atlanta, I drove a Mercedes-Benz. Today, I drive a Chevrolet truck that costs about $400 a month, including insurance. We spend about $20 a month on electricity. Our phone and internet bill is about $75 a month.I once paid $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta. We bought a three-bedroom home in 2018 and now have a mortgage payment of $500 each month. We live 12 minutes from the beach. My husband and me in my home office.Photo: Chantel Henry Living here has changed how I measure success. Now, it looks like watching my son and daughter climb the fruit trees in our yard from the window of my home office. We spend about $3,000 a month for my family of four. I feel like I can afford to dream here. I can also afford to get sick. Healthcare is more accessible and that's made a real difference for our family. One medication that would cost $500 without insurance in the U.S. costs $10 at my local pharmacy in Trinidad. Standing under one of fruit trees I can see from my office.Photo: Jonathan Mora and Matthew Innis for CNBC Make It The island is our children's classroom As a mom who homeschools her kids, I love that everyday life here gives my children a unique education. Trips to the local market double as lessons in mental math, budgeting, negotiation and conversation. One of many delicious learning opportunities for my kids on the island.Photo: Jonathan Mora and Matthew Innis for CNBC Make It Our children are currently involved in eight extracurricular activities, including music and sports, for about $477 total a month. I am also learning every day, especially when it comes to preparing local cuisine. Because groceries are more affordable for us here, I can experiment with local dishes and still keep our grocery bill at around $400 a month. A stunning sunset view from my home.Photo: Chantel Henry Adjusting to island life took time Moving to Trinidad and Tobago didn't make life perfect.I had to adjust to living in a different culture, being far from my immediate family, and going without some of the conveniences I was used to in the U.S. There have also been two crime-related states of emergency since I moved here. We live 12 minutes from the beach. Having access to sights like this never gets old.Photo: Jonathan Mora and Matthew Innis for CNBC Make It I miss parts of American life, like catching a train to go sightseeing in Washington, D.C. or New York. Shopping for clothes has also taken some getting used to. I usually upgrade my wardrobe twice a year now, instead of shopping every other weekend like I used to.But when I look at what my family has gained — a lower cost of living, access to nature, a broader worldview and the flexibility to homeschool — I know we made the right decision for us. Our home gives me the sense of peace I always wanted.Photo: Chantel Henry A life that feels possible I don't think everyone needs to leave the U.S. to build a better life. But I do believe many families feel trapped by the cost of living, childcare, housing, activities and the pressure to keep up.Trinidad and Tobago gives our family more room to breathe. It gives our kids a childhood I could have only dreamed of. My American dream didn't disappear when I moved abroad. It simply became more affordable.Chantel Henry is the founder of Easy Life Abroad, where she helps families plan for a life overseas. She shares more about her life in Trinidad and Tobago on all platforms at @BecomeHerChantel.Want to get ahead at work? Then you need to learn how to make effective small talk. In CNBC's new online course, How To Talk To People At Work, expert instructors share practical strategies to help you use everyday conversations to gain visibility, build meaningful relationships and accelerate your career growth. Sign up today! Take control of your money with CNBC Select CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.The new housing bill won't provide fast relief. These mortgage tools can help you right nowAre rewards debit cards the new credit cards? A brief history and the best options to considerThe best way to pay off debt is situational. 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