During the 1990s, Greg Abel, then a high-flying energy industry executive, lived just a few blocks from Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska, the home of Berkshire Hathaway.
The pair never met at the time, but three decades later Abel is in line to eventually succeed him at the top of Berkshire, handing the plain-speaking Canadian a challenge even more daunting than the one Tim Cook faced when he took the reins at Apple from Steve Jobs.
Buffett’s longevity means putative successors have either died or fallen by the wayside, but as Berkshire’s shareholders gather in Omaha for the group’s annual meeting on Saturday, the question of what the future holds when the legendary investor is no longer in charge is an ever more pressing one.