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1. A more substantial discussion of succession. While he mentions it in the last few paragraphs he doesn’t add any information to what we already know from prior announcements. Despite going on and on about how CEOs don’t do enough risk management, the shareholders of BRK.A are left with the biggest risk of all – who will replace Warren Buffett if he were to decide to step down (unlikely) or take ill (he’s 9000 years old). Part of the reason Berkshire generates such amazing profits is that Buffett, on the force of his reputation and charisma is able to secure unbelievable deals. Future CEOs (David Sokol, for instance) may be very competent but not capable of hitting the high level of networking performance that Buffett is able to do with such ease. People pay millions for a peek into Buffett’s wallet but more valuable is the 50 year old Rolodex that he’s developed. A Rolodex of such high quality it probably can’t be emulated ever again. Which is why it’s extremely important for us to have an understanding of what reasons he has for not being more specific about a succession strategy.

My one assumption is that he figures we should trust the process. He does clearly have a good managerial bench and he has said that the future manager of the company is either already in the company or "available" to the company. What does that mean?

Buffett has one folksy comment about succession in the letter: