Having an invincible fortress of a business run by great management is the ideal situation for an investor, but forced to choose between the two, Warren Buffett would take the moat over the management. “If you have a big enough moat, you don’t need as much management,” Buffett notes.
“It gets back to Peter Lynch’s remark that he likes to buy a business that’s so good that an idiot can run it, because sooner or later one will,” Buffett said at the 1999 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. “He was saying that what he really likes is a business with a terrific moat where nothing can happen to the moat, and there aren’t very many businesses like that.”
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© 2022 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.