A top money manager at Warren Buffett’s investing empire Berkshire Hathaway said believes he landed his lucrative job partly because he didn’t “kiss up” to his legendary billionaire boss.
“I think he appreciated the candidness because when you’re a CEO, or especially Warren or whatever, everybody kisses your ass, everybody tells you what they think you want to hear,” Todd Combs said on a Monday episode of the “Art of Investing” podcast.
During the episode, Combs talked about getting hired in 2010 at Berkshire Hathaway, where he now oversees 10% of the company’s $340 billion-plus portfolio alongside fellow investment manager Ted Weschler.
Buffett, as Berkshire’s longtime CEO, runs the other 90%.
Combs said Buffett had asked him whether Progressive — the insurance firm where Combs previously worked in the pricing department — was superior to Geico, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Combs boldly said that Progressive was better than the Berkshire-owned auto insurance company. He also recalled telling his now-boss that Geico was better than Progressive at marketing and branding, but that the latter’s focus on data would spell long-term success.
“I just didn’t care really,” Combs said of unapologetically sharing his opinion with Buffett. “I’m irreverent in that regard.”
“I could be wrong, but it is what it is. So that honesty, I guess, is at least genuine and authentic,” he added during the podcast, which was reported on earlier by Business Insider.
Combs would go on to be named Geico CEO in January 2020.
Buffett, whose worth $116 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — a fortune that was amassed, in part, by the 93-year-old’s savvy stock picks — also queried Combs on his investments.
“We got right into it,” Combs said during the Monday podcast episode.
Buffett, who owned large stakes of Wells Fargo and American Express, asked Combs, who owned shares of US Bancorp, Mastercard and Visa, why he invested in Mastercard over Amex.
“And so I laid it on him. I have my opinions when it comes to that stuff,” Combs said. He recalled that Buffett asked him how his own assessments could be wrong, and the two discussed scenarios where Berkshire’s picks would perform better.
“Warren and I really hit it off on just capital allocation, like risk assessment and upside, downsides and things like that, insurance too,” Combs said.
Combs also dished details on his early conversations with Charles Munger, Buffett’s right-hand man and the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
Combs remembered feeling burnt out from running his hedge fund, Castle Point Capital — which was liquidated after Combs joined Buffett’s workforce — and cold-calling Munger in the hopes of setting up a meeting.
Once Munger determined Combs was well-intentioned, the two met for breakfast in LA, where “we ended up talking for like six hours,” Combs said on the podcast. It “was exhausting to try and keep up with something like that the first time. For him, it was like just hitting a tennis ball or whatever.”
“But for me, I was obviously very, very nervous,” he added.
Combs, was clearly two-for-two with Buffett and Munger — who he recalled bonding with over their shared love of obscure books — and the little-known money manager was hired by Berkshire Hathaway in 2010.
After Weschler landed a job at the firm two years later, the two began to take over Berkshire’s key investment operations. At the end of 2022, the two reportedly oversaw $34 billion.
Since those nerve-wracking interviews over a decade ago, Combs, 52, has become an obvious choice to replace Buffett as Berkshire’s fund manager, while Weschler’s name has reportedly been floated when discussing who will assume the role of chief investment officer.
Representatives for Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
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