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Warren Buffett’s exit is ‘leadership at its most selfless,’ McKinsey CEO whisperer says. It’s a powerful lesson in Fortune 500 succession

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Warren Buffett’s recent exit as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway is being widely recognized not only for its impact on Wall Street but also as a masterclass in selfless leadership. Carolyn Dewar, senior partner and co-leader of McKinsey’s CEO Practice, one of the firm’s vaunted “CEO whisperers” describes Buffett’s handover as “leadership at its most selfless”—a quiet but powerful lesson for leaders everywhere.​​

Dewar, who has talked to hundreds of CEOs and leaders for her role, including for her recently co-authored work, A CEO For All Seasons, wrote on LinkedIn that Buffett’s final letter to Berkshire shareholders is so typical of the man they call the “Oracle of Omaha.” For instance, when he reminds readers that “the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman,” Dewar writes that it sums up his whole leadership philosophy. “Decency is not decorative. Respect is what sustains loyalty, trust, and long-term success.”

In conversation with Fortune, Dewar emphasized that Buffett’s exit is itself an example of leadership. Buffett’s decision was not only personal but deeply organizational, reflecting the importance of choosing the right moment to ensure a thriving future for Berkshire Hathaway. Leaders must ask themselves whether they would pick themselves for the evolving needs of their company—a rarely practiced but crucial reflection. “For any leader, really saying from a company point of view … given the kind of skills we’ll need in our next leader, am I the right person to take us on that next journey?”

She also referred back to her recent book, including research on former Intuit CEO Brad Smith, who had impressed her with his own succession mindset. He was CEO for 11 years and discussed succession with his board 44 times: every single quarter. Many of his deputies went on to be successful CEOs at other companies, she said, itself a representation of Smith’s legacy. She told Fortune that there was a fitting sports metaphor in the succession from one Hall of Fame quarterback to another.

The Steve Young problem—and opportunity

Before Intuit’s Brad Smith stepped down as CEO, he suggested that he and his successor, Sasan Goodarzi, talk to Steve Young, who succeeded the iconic Joe Montana as the playcaller for the San Francisco 49ers. “He talked to us about how for part of his first year he tried to be Joe Montana,” Smith told Dewar. “He grew his hair out like Joe and began to dress like Joe. He even tried to change his throwing mechanics like Joe. And he had the worst half year ever.”

The lesson, Dewar recounted, is that eventually, Steve stopped trying to be like Joe and had a great career. “Steve looked right at Sasan and said, ‘You need to be the best Sasan Goodarzi in the world.’” Buffett passing the torch to his longtime deputy Greg Abel reminded her of this, she added. “How do you give the person the confidence and space to be themselves? There’s a reason they were picked, right? They shouldn’t be trying to be their predecessor.”

As Dewar explained, “once it’s clear what that timing is…have you done all the things to get your successor ready?” Buffett’s preparation for Greg Abel as his successor was methodical and generous. Dewar emphasized the unique nature of the CEO role and how effective leaders create opportunities for potential successors to experience the scope of executive responsibility before taking the job. Buffett’s warm public handoff—accompanied by confidence and supportive messaging—not only inspired trust, but reinforced the value of setting up successors for success, allowing the new leader to “find their voice and be seen as the CEO” without interference from predecessors. ​​

The beauty of ‘going quiet’

Dewar was particularly struck by Buffett’s intention to “go quiet for a while.” This is a rare and graceful move among iconic leaders, ensuring the new CEO gets the space to lead authentically: to be Steve Young, in other words. Successful transitions occur when the outgoing CEO avoids “chipping in from the cheap seats” and supports the new leader from a respectful distance, recognizing the need to “give the person the confidence and space to be themselves.” Adding that she was not close to the story directly, she said the current succession at Walmart looked similar, with Doug McMillon passing the torch to John Furner, who was in a deputy role very similar to Abel.

Dewar added that, even though Buffett may be going quiet and making fewer headlines with his wise pronouncements going forward, “he’s done so much writing and going back and reading all of his letters to shareholders, I think is a gift that he’s left behind, that all of us can read and learn from.” Obviously, she added, “whenever there’s an incredible leader, you’re going to miss them. And I think the key for everyone then is to distill, well, what are those lessons learned? What are the things we admire, and how do this next generation of leaders embody that and take it forward in a way that works for them?”

To her point, Buffett’s famous quotes are legion, nearly all of them easier said than done. “Rule No. 1 is never lose money. Rule No. 2 is never forget Rule No. 1,” he said in his folksy style, a typically deceptively simple quote. Another is to “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.” Finally, there’s the famous quote that refers to bubbles as the great exposer of true investors and poseurs: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

Dewar said the fourth season in A CEO For All Seasons is “not talked about enough.” What we’re seeing with Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway, she said, is that “how you finish strong not only sets your successor up for success, but it sets the organization up to thrive beyond you. And that should be the goal, that should be the legacy.” She added that “it’s nice to feel like you’re going to be missed, but honestly, your real legacy is when you’ve left the next generation in such a great place that they’re going to do even better than when you were there.”



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Netflix–Warner Bros. deal sets up $72 billion antitrust test

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December 5, 2025

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Netflix Inc. has won the heated takeover battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Now it must convince global antitrust regulators that the deal won’t give it an illegal advantage in the streaming market. 

The $72 billion tie-up joins the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie studios. It would reshape the market for online video content by combining the No. 1 streaming player with the No. 4 service HBO Max and its blockbuster hits such as Game Of Thrones, Friends, and the DC Universe comics characters franchise.  

That could raise red flags for global antitrust regulators over concerns that Netflix would have too much control over the streaming market. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review and a possible US lawsuit seeking to block the deal if it doesn’t adopt some remedies to get it cleared, analysts said.

“Netflix will have an uphill climb unless it agrees to divest HBO Max as well as additional behavioral commitments — particularly on licensing content,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Rie. “The streaming overlap is significant,” she added, saying the argument that “the market should be viewed more broadly is a tough one to win.”

By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. has jilted another bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, and the company has touted their longstanding close ties to President Donald Trump. Their acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from Trump. 

Comcast Corp. also made a bid for Warner Bros., looking to merge it with its NBCUniversal division.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal on its face because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.

The White House, the Justice Department and Comcast didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.

“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare,” Warren said after the Netflix announcement. Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that a Warner Bros.-Netflix tie-up would raise more serious competition questions “than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.”

European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review amid pressure from legislators. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.

The combined company could raise prices and broadly impact “culture, film, cinemas and theater releases,”said Andreas Schwab, a leading member of the European Parliament on competition issues, after the announcement.

Paramount has sought to frame the Netflix deal as a non-starter. “The simple truth is that a deal with Netflix as the buyer likely will never close, due to antitrust and regulatory challenges in the United States and in most jurisdictions abroad,” Paramount’s antitrust lawyers wrote to their counterparts at Warner Bros. on Dec. 1.

Appealing directly to Trump could help Netflix avoid intense antitrust scrutiny, New Street Research’s Blair Levin wrote in a note on Friday. Levin said it’s possible that Trump could come to see the benefit of switching from a pro-Paramount position to a pro-Netflix position. “And if he does so, we believe the DOJ will follow suit,” Levin wrote.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos had dinner with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last December, a move other CEOs made after the election in order to win over the administration. In a call with investors Friday morning, Sarandos said that he’s “highly confident in the regulatory process,” contending the deal favors consumers, workers and innovation. 

“Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need,” he said.

Netflix will likely argue to regulators that other video services such as Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the company’s perceived dominance.

The US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses, isn’t expected to play a role in the deal, as neither hold such licenses. Warner Bros. plans to spin off its cable TV division, which includes channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT, before the sale.

Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. 

Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.



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The rise of AI reasoning models comes with a big energy tradeoff

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December 5, 2025

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Nearly all leading artificial intelligence developers are focused on building AI models that mimic the way humans reason, but new research shows these cutting-edge systems can be far more energy intensive, adding to concerns about AI’s strain on power grids.

AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, according to a study released Thursday. The work was carried out by the AI Energy Score project, led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce Inc. head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov.

The researchers evaluated 40 open, freely available AI models, including software from OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. Some models were found to have a much wider disparity in energy consumption, including one from Chinese upstart DeepSeek. A slimmed-down version of DeepSeek’s R1 model used just 50 watt hours to respond to the prompts when reasoning was turned off, or about as much power as is needed to run a 50 watt lightbulb for an hour. With the reasoning feature enabled, the same model required 7,626 watt hours to complete the tasks.

The soaring energy needs of AI have increasingly come under scrutiny. As tech companies race to build more and bigger data centers to support AI, industry watchers have raised concerns about straining power grids and raising energy costs for consumers. A Bloomberg investigation in September found that wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% over the past five years in areas near data centers. There are also environmental drawbacks, as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. have previously acknowledged the data center buildout could complicate their long-term climate objectives. 

More than a year ago, OpenAI released its first reasoning model, called o1. Where its prior software replied almost instantly to queries, o1 spent more time computing an answer before responding. Many other AI companies have since released similar systems, with the goal of solving more complex multistep problems for fields like science, math and coding.

Though reasoning systems have quickly become the industry norm for carrying out more complicated tasks, there has been little research into their energy demands. Much of the increase in power consumption is due to reasoning models generating much more text when responding, the researchers said. 

The new report aims to better understand how AI energy needs are evolving, Luccioni said. She also hopes it helps people better understand that there are different types of AI models suited to different actions. Not every query requires tapping the most computationally intensive AI reasoning systems.

“We should be smarter about the way that we use AI,” Luccioni said. “Choosing the right model for the right task is important.”

To test the difference in power use, the researchers ran all the models on the same computer hardware. They used the same prompts for each, ranging from simple questions — such as asking which team won the Super Bowl in a particular year — to more complex math problems. They also used a software tool called CodeCarbon to track how much energy was being consumed in real time.

The results varied considerably. The researchers found one of Microsoft’s Phi 4 reasoning models used 9,462 watt hours with reasoning turned on, compared with about 18 watt hours with it off. OpenAI’s largest gpt-oss model, meanwhile, had a less stark difference. It used 8,504 watt hours with reasoning on the most computationally intensive “high” setting and 5,313 watt hours with the setting turned down to “low.” 

OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google released internal research in August that estimated the median text prompt for its Gemini AI service used 0.24 watt-hours of energy, roughly equal to watching TV for less than nine seconds. Google said that figure was “substantially lower than many public estimates.” 

Much of the discussion about AI power consumption has focused on large-scale facilities set up to train artificial intelligence systems. Increasingly, however, tech firms are shifting more resources to inference, or the process of running AI systems after they’ve been trained. The push toward reasoning models is a big piece of that as these systems are more reliant on inference.

Recently, some tech leaders have acknowledged that AI’s power draw needs to be reckoned with. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the industry must earn the “social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers in a November interview. To do that, he argued tech must use AI to do good and foster broad economic growth.



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SpaceX to offer insider shares at record-setting valuation

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1 hour ago

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December 5, 2025

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SpaceX is preparing to sell insider shares in a transaction that would value Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker at a valuation higher than OpenAI’s record-setting $500 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

One of the people briefed on the deal said that the share price under discussion is higher than $400 apiece, which would value SpaceX at between $750 billion and $800 billion, though the details could change. 

The company’s latest tender offer was discussed by its board of directors on Thursday at SpaceX’s Starbase hub in Texas. If confirmed, it would make SpaceX once again the world’s most valuable closely held company, vaulting past the previous record of $500 billion that ChatGPT owner OpenAI set in October. Play Video

Preliminary scenarios included per-share prices that would have pushed SpaceX’s value at roughly $560 billion or higher, the people said. The details of the deal could change before it closes, a third person said. 

A representative for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The latest figure would be a substantial increase from the $212 a share set in July, when the company raised money and sold shares at a valuation of $400 billion.

The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, earlier reported that a deal would value SpaceX at $800 billion.

News of SpaceX’s valuation sent shares of EchoStar Corp., a satellite TV and wireless company, up as much as 18%. Last month, Echostar had agreed to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX for $2.6 billion, adding to an earlier agreement to sell about $17 billion in wireless spectrum to Musk’s company.

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The world’s most prolific rocket launcher, SpaceX dominates the space industry with its Falcon 9 rocket that launches satellites and people to orbit.

SpaceX is also the industry leader in providing internet services from low-Earth orbit through Starlink, a system of more than 9,000 satellites that is far ahead of competitors including Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Leo.

SpaceX executives have repeatedly floated the idea of spinning off SpaceX’s Starlink business into a separate, publicly traded company — a concept President Gwynne Shotwell first suggested in 2020. 

However, Musk cast doubt on the prospect publicly over the years and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said in 2024 that a Starlink IPO would be something that would take place more likely “in the years to come.”

The Information, citing people familiar with the discussions, separately reported on Friday that SpaceX has told investors and financial institution representatives that it is aiming for an initial public offering for the entire company in the second half of next year.

A so-called tender or secondary offering, through which employees and some early shareholders can sell shares, provides investors in closely held companies such as SpaceX a way to generate liquidity.

SpaceX is working to develop its new Starship vehicle, advertised as the most powerful rocket ever developed to loft huge numbers of Starlink satellites as well as carry cargo and people to moon and, eventually, Mars.



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