Berkshire’s unusually modern bet on Alphabet forces a fresh look at Warren Buffett’s playbook

Just a week after Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had purchased 17.8 million Class A shares of Alphabet in the third quarter, the position is already up about $415 million, rising to nearly $5.35 billion as the stock rose 8.4%. This once again raises the question of whether the famously cautious company is becoming increasingly comfortable with higher-risk, AI-driven growth, something Warren Buffett has long avoided.Alphabet shares started the week Monday up 3.1%, apparently in response to the announcement of the Berkshire purchase. The rally was strengthened after Wednesday’s unveiling of Google’s new Gemini 3 AI model, which received positive reviews. While Alphabet enjoyed strong growth, some of its biggest tech rivals fell significantly over the same period, even if Nvidia’s strong earnings couldn’t completely allay fears of an “AI bubble.”

The speed of the gains has made it clear who within Berkshire is really behind this move. Buffett gets a lot of the public credit, but it has long been his practice to give portfolio managers room to operate.

“However, we know this is not the case, as portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs are able to act as ‘free agents,’” said a CNBC column, adding that Alphabet doesn’t feel like Buffett’s “kind of stock.” CNBC’s Yun Li wrote that the investment “likely” came from Weschler or Combs, pointing to their role in driving some of Berkshire’s more “technological” holdings, including its stake in Amazon, which is now valued at about $2.2 billion.

Li also recalled that Buffett himself distanced himself from certain technical decisions in the past. “Even before that position was first announced in 2019, Buffett went out of his way to tell CNBC’s Becky Quick that it wasn’t his decision and that ‘there has been no personality change.’”

Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar described the Alphabet deal as a potential philosophical break with Buffett’s traditional discipline. He recalled Buffett’s refusal to invest in companies he didn’t fully understand during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, warning that “AI is an order of magnitude more complicated than selling books or pet food online.” He added: “Combine opaque technology with premium valuations, and you’re sure to lose Buffett.” Kaissar suggested the move could signal a shift under CEO-designate Greg Abel, writing that it “reflects a very different approach than Berkshire shareholders are used to, particularly a new willingness to pay more now for potentially higher growth down the road, an opportunity that Buffett has rarely, if ever, seized.” For now, the outcome is clear in terms of dollars. Within days, Berkshire’s position in Alphabet has risen in value and a familiar question in Omaha and on Wall Street has been reopened: whether this is still Buffett’s playbook or the first real glimpse of what comes next.

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