Buffett’s latest interview: criticizes today’s market speculation frenzy, and admits that he personally took the lead in investing in Google

ME News message, July 16 (UTC+8). In the latest interview, “Oracle of Omaha” Warren Buffett shared his views on a range of topics, including the market environment, technology investments, and personnel at the Federal Reserve.

Buffett criticizes the current market environment for being hard to find value
Buffett criticized that today’s market is increasingly driven by speculative trading rather than long-term investment principles: “When everyone prefers gambling, it’s hard to find something valuable.” Earlier in the year, he also described the stock market as a church with a casino attached, and specifically pointed out that single-day options trading is a form of gambling. This year, despite energy shocks brought by the Iran–US conflict, the three major U.S. stock indices have continued to hit new highs. AI infrastructure-related stocks have been accused of excessive speculation, while retail investors have flooded into targets such as Micron Technology and SpaceX. Regarding this, Buffett—who has long practiced value investing—said that truly meaningful investment opportunities are not common and require patience and discipline: “Sometimes opportunities are so fast you can’t catch them, but at other times, being lucky enough to find one in years already counts. Since humans love gambling so much, the capital raised from cultivating gamblers is more than the capital raised from cultivating investors.”

Buffett admits he personally drove the investment in Google
Buffett said that Berkshire’s recent large-scale investment in Google was pushed by him personally, rather than led by CEO successor Greg Abel. However, “I won’t do anything he doesn’t approve of, and he won’t do anything I don’t approve of. In the end, the decision-maker is him.” Berkshire has continued to increase its holdings of Google since the third quarter of 2025, and earlier this year it also participated in its $10 billion private placement. Buffett openly noted: “The trick to investing is to find those businesses that can continue to generate high returns on capital for a very long time,” and he also admitted that he “made a mistake”—not investing in Google earlier. He recalled that in 2018, he saw the success of Google’s advertising business through Geico, but at the time he was unsure whether it could become a long-term winner. Still, he said Google is not his favorite holding: “My level of affection for it isn’t as strong as at least four or five other companies we hold,” and he pointed out that the key issue for Google and all its competitors is the hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars of capital invested in the artificial intelligence sector: “When they developed software in the past, they weren’t playing a game like this.”

“Wosh” is a “reasonable option”
On the newly appointed Federal Reserve chair Kevin Wosh, Buffett called it a “reasonable option.” When Wosh first chaired meetings in June, he already showed his policy style. While keeping interest rates unchanged, he proposed adjusting the central bank’s policy framework, and at a congressional hearing he promised to push the Federal Reserve to “change direction” and committed to tackling inflation. Buffett said: “I think he will make every effort to complete the assignment he’s been given—namely achieving the 2% inflation target while maintaining maximum employment. He can’t do it perfectly, just as I know I can’t manage other people’s money perfectly and still continuously generate outsized returns. Wosh cares about this country. That doesn’t mean his decisions are always correct, but it’s because sometimes those decisions really are very difficult.” (Source: BlockBeats)