VALUE: After Hours (S08 E16): Could AI Become a Threat to Berkshire Hathaway’s Business Model?

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Adam Mead discussed Could AI Become a Threat to Berkshire Hathaway’s Business Model?. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

[Tobias] This is a, this is a long-ish question, but I’ll throw it out there. You know, AI is writing a lot more software. So many companies are going to become software companies in some sense.

Software eats the world. So when software does the non-material function in the economy and Berkshire’s not so tech friendly, does that put them at a disadvantage?

[Jake] Well, I’d kind of push back on the initial premise of like, that’d be like saying, well, every company is an electricity company because they use electricity to keep the lights on while they’re running the computer or whatever. I don’t, I’m not sure about that.

[Adam] I mean, I don’t think it’s, I think if you have an inherent competitive advantage in some way, it’s only going to enhance it. I mean, it’s, it’s not, AI is not going to instantly replace the NSF. I mean, it’s just physical infrastructure.

So if you kind of go down the list of Berkshire’s businesses, you mentioned electricity. I mean, Berkshire has, has a huge investment in DHE. They move 15% of the natural gas in the United States every year.

You know, you kind of just go down the list, all these consumer products, buildings, products, companies, you know, maybe, maybe a business like Business Wire, the new service, you know, gets hurt by it. I think on balance, it will probably help Berkshire, but it will definitely be some casualties.

[Tobias] Lots of consumer surplus. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

You can find out more about the VALUE: After Hours Podcast here – VALUE: After Hours Podcast. You can also listen to the podcast on your favorite podcast platforms here:

VALUE: After Hours (S08 E16): Could AI Become a Threat to Berkshire Hathaway’s Business Model?

Read next