Berkshire Hathaway vs Broadcom: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Berkshire Hathaway and Broadcom side by side

1. 1839Berkshire Hathaway

   Valley Falls Company Founded

   Oliver Chace founds the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, as a cotton textile manufacturer. Chace had learned the trade working with Samuel Slater and built his first mill in 1806.

2. 1955Berkshire Hathaway

   Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing Merge

   Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates and Hathaway Manufacturing combine and take the Berkshire Hathaway name.

3. 1962Berkshire Hathaway

   Buffett Partnership Buys Its First Berkshire Shares

   Buffett Partnership Ltd. buys its first Berkshire Hathaway shares in December 1962. Buffett was drawn to the pattern of Berkshire closing plants and using the liquidation proceeds to repurchase its own stock.

4. 1964Berkshire Hathaway

   Tender Offer Dispute With Seabury Stanton

   Berkshire president Seabury Stanton asks Buffett at what price Buffett Partnership would sell, agrees to $11.50 a share, then mails a tender offer at $11.375.

5. 1965Berkshire Hathaway

   Buffett Takes Control and Names Ken Chace President

   Buffett Partnership takes control of Berkshire Hathaway in May 1965 and Stanton leaves. Buffett selects Ken Chace, a long-time employee, as president to run the textile operation, and the cash it generates is pointed at other industries.

6. 1967Berkshire Hathaway

   Entry Into Insurance With National Indemnity

   Early in 1967 Berkshire pays $8.6 million to buy National Indemnity Company and a small sister insurer from owner Jack Ringwalt.

7. 1972Berkshire Hathaway

   See's Candies Bought for $25 Million

   Blue Chip Stamps, controlled by Buffett and Munger and later merged into Berkshire, buys See's Candies for $25 million.

8. 1985Berkshire Hathaway

   Textile Operations Closed

   Buffett decides in July 1985 to close Berkshire's textile operation and the shutdown is largely complete by year end. He described it as finally throwing in the towel after twenty years of unremitting struggle with the business.

9. 1991Broadcom

   Broadcom Corporation founded

   UCLA professor Henry Samueli and his former doctoral student Henry Nicholas III found Broadcom Corporation in Los Angeles to build broadband communications chips in CMOS, starting with chips for cable modems and digital set-top boxes.

10. 1996Berkshire Hathaway

    GEICO Becomes Wholly Owned and Class B Shares Created

    Berkshire buys the remaining 49% of GEICO on January 2, 1996, having held 51%, and GEICO becomes a wholly owned subsidiary. Shareholders also approve a recapitalization creating Class B shares with the economic rights of one thirtieth of a Class A share.

11. 1998Berkshire Hathaway

    General Re and Executive Jet Acquired

    Berkshire acquires reinsurer General Re and fractional-aircraft operator Executive Jet.

12. 1998Broadcom

    Broadcom Corporation IPO

    Broadcom Corporation lists on Nasdaq in April 1998 at $24 a share, as cable operators roll out DOCSIS cable modems built on its chips.

13. 2005Broadcom

    Avago Technologies formed

    KKR and Silver Lake buy Agilent Technologies' semiconductor products group, whose roots go back to Hewlett-Packard's chip operations, for about $2.66 billion and name it Avago Technologies.

14. 2006Broadcom

    Hock Tan becomes CEO of Avago

    Hock Tan becomes president and CEO of Avago in March 2006 and begins pruning its portfolio to the businesses with defensible technology.

15. 2009Broadcom

    Avago lists on Nasdaq

    Avago Technologies goes public on Nasdaq in August 2009 at $15 a share, giving it stock to use in later acquisitions.

16. 2010Berkshire Hathaway

    BNSF Railway Acquired

    Berkshire completes its purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe in the first quarter of 2010.

17. 2014Broadcom

    LSI Corporation acquired

    Avago completes its $6.6 billion purchase of LSI in May 2014, adding storage controllers and custom ASIC design teams.

18. 2016Berkshire Hathaway

    Precision Castparts Acquired

    Berkshire completes the purchase of Precision Castparts, an aerospace and industrial components maker, for $235 a share in cash.

19. 2016Broadcom

    Avago buys Broadcom Corporation

    Avago completes its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Corporation in February 2016, takes the Broadcom name and trades as AVGO.

20. 2017Broadcom

    Brocade acquired

    Broadcom completes its $5.9 billion purchase of Brocade Communications in November 2017, adding Fibre Channel storage networking switches.

21. 2018Berkshire Hathaway

    Abel and Jain Named Vice Chairmen

    Berkshire's board expands from twelve to fourteen directors and elects Greg Abel and Ajit Jain.

22. 2018Broadcom

    Qualcomm bid blocked and move to the U.S.

    President Trump blocks Broadcom's unsolicited bid for Qualcomm on national security grounds in March 2018. Broadcom completes its redomicile from Singapore to the United States that April.

23. 2018Broadcom

    CA Technologies acquired

    Broadcom completes its $18.9 billion purchase of CA Technologies in November 2018, its first large software deal, creating the infrastructure software segment.

24. 2019Broadcom

    Symantec enterprise security acquired

    Broadcom buys Symantec's enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in November 2019, adding endpoint, web and data loss prevention software.

25. 2022Berkshire Hathaway

    Alleghany Corporation Acquired

    Berkshire completes the acquisition of insurer Alleghany Corporation on October 19, 2022, paying $848.02 a share in cash for a total equity value of about $11.6 billion and adding the TransRe reinsurance business.

26. 2022Broadcom

    VMware deal announced

    Broadcom agrees in May 2022 to buy VMware in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $61 billion at announcement.

27. 2023Broadcom

    VMware acquisition closes

    Broadcom completes the VMware acquisition on 22 November 2023 after clearances in the U.S., EU, UK and China, a deal valued at about $69 billion including assumed debt.

28. 2024Berkshire Hathaway

    Market Value Tops $1 Trillion

    Berkshire's market capitalization passes $1 trillion on August 28, 2024, making it the first US company outside the technology sector to reach that level.

29. 2024Berkshire Hathaway

    Pilot Travel Centers Fully Owned

    Berkshire acquires the remaining 20% of Pilot Travel Centers on January 16, 2024 and takes full ownership. It had bought 38.6% in 2017 and a further 41.4% for about $8.2 billion in January 2023.

30. 2024Broadcom

    Stock split and $1 trillion market value

    Broadcom splits its stock 10-for-1 in July 2024, sells VMware's end-user computing unit to KKR for about $4 billion, reports fiscal 2024 revenue of $51.6 billion and passes $1 trillion in market value in December 2024.

31. 2025Berkshire Hathaway

    Board Approves Abel as CEO From January 2026

    Berkshire announces in May 2025 that Greg Abel will become President and Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2026, with Warren Buffett remaining Chairman of the Board.

32. 2025Broadcom

    OpenAI partnership and record fiscal 2025

    OpenAI and Broadcom agree in October 2025 to deploy 10 gigawatts of OpenAI-designed accelerators. Fiscal 2025 revenue rises 24% to $63.9 billion, with about $20 billion from AI chips.

33. 2026Berkshire Hathaway

    Abel Becomes CEO and Buffett Becomes Chairman Emeritus

    Abel takes over as CEO on January 1, 2026 and Berkshire completes the $9.7 billion purchase of OxyChem from Occidental on January 2. On September 18, 2026 Buffett is named Chairman Emeritus and remains a director, and his son Howard G.

34. 2026Broadcom

    AI chips pass half of revenue

    Amie Thuener becomes CFO in June 2026. Third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue rises 86% to $29.6 billion, and AI semiconductor revenue of $16.7 billion is 56% of the total.

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