An inheritance often feels like a second chance to get money decisions right. Especially when the money isn’t really for you.
A California father named Michael had been investing for his two children when he came into a substantial sum. Unlike many of the younger folks, he wasn’t after an Nvidia (NVDA), though, but wanted money to help his kids 20 or 30 years down the road.
Naturally, he had a familiar name in mind in Warren Buffett.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why. Buffett transformed Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) into one of Wall Street’s great wealth-building stories, rewarding patient shareholders for decades.
For someone thinking about family money, that kind of record can make a single stock feel reassuringly safe.
But when Michael called CNBC’s Mad Money (the exchange has appeared in previous episodes) and asked Jim Cramer whether Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares might be the right home for the inheritance, Cramer didn’t simply applaud the idea.
He liked Buffett. He just had a warning about betting a family’s future on one company.
Jim Cramer cautions father against putting children’s inheritance into Berkshire Hathaway
A California caller told Cramer he had inherited a substantial amount of money and wanted to put it to work for his two children, with a 20- to 30-year horizon.
One possibility was Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares; Michael also floated a Vanguard exchange-traded fund and asked Cramer which way to go.
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Cramer didn’t hesitate to recommend diversification.
“I think the S&P 500 fund and the total return funds are both really good for that kind of situation, Vanguard’s total return,” he said.
Then came the warning.
“The one thing I would caution is, it’s my opinion as much as I like Warren Buffett,” Cramer said, before explaining that holding one stock means needing a broader basket, while diversified funds do much of that work for investors.
In essence, Cramer cautioned Michael against relying too heavily on one company when the money was meant to help children decades from now.
However, that raises a fair question: If Berkshire’s record is so extraordinary, why wouldn’t it be enough?
Berkshire crushed the S&P 500 for decades, but Buffett himself favors index funds for family wealth
The numbers from Berkshire make the caution surrounding Berkshire Hathaway seem all the more surprising.
From 1965 through 2025, Warren Buffett’s company posted an eye-catching 19.7% annualized share-price gain, compared with 10.5% for the S&P 500, including dividends. Berkshire’s cumulative gain topped 6 million percent, as per its 2025 annual report.
That impressive record didn’t happen by accident.
Buffett built a struggling textile manufacturer into an empire covering GEICO insurance, BNSF Railway, energy, manufacturing, and retail, backed by a formidable stock portfolio. His patience, dealmaking, and habit of reinvesting profits made Berkshire a favorite of investors willing to play the long game
However, past performance isn’t the whole picture.
Between September 2010 and October 22, 2026, $10,000 invested in Berkshire Class B shares grew to roughly $66,450. The same amount grew to about $88,040 in Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) and $92,780 in its S&P 500 ETF (VOO), with fund distributions reinvested according to TotalRealReturns.
Berkshire outperformed the index in 2022, however, so the recent comparison doesn’t make it a permanent loser.
Perhaps the bigger twist is that Buffett himself has recommended index funds for family wealth.
In his 2013 shareholder letter, he said the trust benefiting his wife should invest 90% in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, suggesting Vanguard, and 10% in short-term government bonds.
That underscores Cramer’s point on diversification.
Berkshire owns many businesses, but its shareholders still depend on one company’s management and capital-allocation decisions. An index fund spreads ownership across hundreds or thousands of companies, although it still carries market risk.
For a father investing money his children may need decades from now, that difference matters.
With Buffett no longer Berkshire’s CEO, riding off into the sunset to George Strait’s “The Cowboy Rides Away,” one big question remains: Who will deliver the next 20 years of returns?
With Warren Buffett no longer CEO, what should long-term investors expect from Berkshire?
Buffett’s ridden off into the sunset, but the onus is now on CEO Greg Abel to show investors what his decisions can deliver.
He’s already spending.
Abel restarted Berkshire’s share buybacks after a nearly two-year pause, buying back $4.8 billion in the first half of 2026 according to Reuters. Berkshire also invested $10 billion in Alphabet (GOOGL) and completed a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison in July.
Explaining the buybacks on CNBC’s Squawk Box in March, Abel said, “we see value, the intrinsic value exceeds the current market value.”
Moreover, Berkshire’s Q2 operating earnings rose 16% to nearly $13 billion. Yet its insurance and other businesses still held $359.2 billion in cash and Treasury bills at June 30. Abel’s challenge is putting that money to work without overpaying.
Cramer has praised Berkshire’s assets but questioned whether investors will remain as enthusiastic without Buffett. For Michael, Berkshire could remain part of his children’s inheritance. It doesn’t need to be all of it.
Related: Jim Cramer’s 5% to 8% rule puts Nvidia stock in focus