Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), is the most successful investor of our time. His daughter, Susan, worked as my assistant when I was the publisher of a magazine 40 years ago. Just before she got married, Susie told me she worried that her fiancé’s parents had bought a couple of shares of Berkshire stock — and what if it tanked? At the time, the price was about $1,000 a share. Today, it’s $507,000 a share. I hope the in-laws hung on.

In his annual report, Warren Buffett calculates that the average yearly gain in market value from his acquisition of Berkshire in 1965 through the end of 2022 was 19.8%, compared with 9.9% for the S&P 500 — an astounding difference, matched by no one of whom I’m aware. And Berkshire beat the market in two-thirds of the years.