Who After Warren Buffet?

Last month, Warren Buffett posted the mother of all help-wanted ads: a request for candidates to replace him as chief investment officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Now, the résumés are flooding in -- and the process is turning out to be every bit as unconventional as the billionaire investor himself. Among the 600 or so applicants so far: a Talmudic scholar who picks stocks from home, a Canadian economist with an intense yoga practice and even a four-year-old.


"We're going to run this like 'American Idol' in the end," the 76-year-old Mr. Buffett quipped in an interview in his modest office, neatly decorated with baseball paraphernalia and photos of old friends. On a recent Sunday, he went in after lunch to read annual reports and open mail, some of which is destined for a small box on his desk labeled "TOO HARD."

For all Mr. Buffett's whimsy, it's an important quest, both for his company, which has a market value of about $168 billion, and for his legions of fans. For decades, Mr. Buffett's financial decisions have been the subject of conjecture, scrutiny and imitation. So, even though Mr. Buffett says he is in "excellent health" and has no plans to retire soon, the naming of a CIO successor signals for many the end of an era and a step into uncharted territory.

It won't be easy to fill Mr. Buffett's size 10-1/2 shoes. Thanks largely to his legendary stock picking, the "Oracle of Omaha" is now the world's second-richest man, topped only by Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates. An investor who bought $1,000 of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock in 1965, after Mr. Buffett took control, would be worth more than $7 million today.

It takes "a peculiar temperament" to be an investor who consistently seeks opportunities away from the crowd, says Charlie Munger, Berkshire's 83-year-old vice chairman. Mr. Buffett says Mr. Munger, whom he has known for more than four decades, would be the "ideal person" for the job -- if he were just 30 years younger.
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