I agree with all of this. But I disagree that code alone is enough to understand the why.

All code is written under constraints, and most constraints live outside the code.

Specifically this part:

> There's 1000 chatgpt clones but everyone still uses chatgpt. There might be 1000 jev clones soon enough but people won't switch unless there's something significantly better about it.

The fact that Jev will be cloned is exactly why brand and distribution matter even more. When 1,000 products do the same thing, you'll use the one you know.

It's also why Meta can make Muse and get a lot of users even though there's 10,000 personal agent startups

For one, Howard is not the successor, Greg Abel is. Howard is a Stewart of culture, but he is not the leader.

He also isn’t inheriting Buffetts fortune so the generational rot won’t be the same.

Next, both Greg and Howard have been at Berkshire for decades, and however is next up will likely be similar. So there is time to pass on the values.

Laslty, Berkshire is a decentralized company. The company itself has less than 50 employees. All of the companies they own have their own leadership structures and cultures, and Berkshire does not burden itself in managing it. This makes the successor problem a lot easier

The grandson has a pretty successful career already anyways (helped obviously by his relation to Warren)

Not exactly, he's there to oversee the culture of Berkshire and ensure it's continuity. Buffett is donating all of his wealth (and has already donated $66B), so there isn't a fortune to protect.

Berkshire is an institution of sorts at this point, and requires strong stewardship to prevent enshittification (for lack of a better word).

Why is that so? Fast growth, when achieved honestly, is a result of solving user pain that others haven't. Maybe you think so because users != the public, but I think in totality the public is a collection of users who all have needs they want met.