Subject: Re: 2026 and beyond
story about Lee Raymond and the dividends. You’ve aligned yourself with people of high integrity and it’s paid off in many ways. The money part takes care of itself.

Quite similarly, Warren reportedly worries constantly about the responsibility of taking care of his shareholders—many of modest means—who’ve entrusted large portions of their life savings with him.



Both CEOs can be admired for thinking about their shareholders, but the difference is that one group of shareholders being thought about (the XOM ones) seem to be wishing for something irrational, the illusion of getting more income from a reliable investment just because it pays a steadily growing dividend, while the others being thought about (the BRK ones) are wishing for a maximal TOTAL return, with or without dividends. If Exxon has great opportunities to reinvest earnings at certain points of its cycle, but foregoes those investments in order to steadily increase the return of capital, he is impoverishing the people he is supposed to be working for. The fact that that is what they want is some consolation, I suppose, but it is not as satisfying, and it means the other Exxon shareholders who just want a comfortable retirement are being sacrificed in order to satisfy shareholders who haven't understood that they can generate whatever dividend they need by selling a few shares.

So I admire both CEOs but I admire more the CEO who caters to a rational wish and maximizes their prosperity, compared to the one who caters the irrational wish, but at the expense of their prosperity.

dtb