Warren Buffett, now 95 years old with an estimated net worth of $147 billion, is widely considered the most successful investor of the modern era. Even so, across more than six decades, he has made decisions that erased tens of billions in potential value.
Buffett has always been unusually transparent about these errors, discussing many of them openly in annual letters and interviews.
This article compiles his biggest investment mistakes — choices shaped by emotion, overconfidence in management, poor timing, or stepping into sectors that sat outside his usual circle of competence.
| Mistake # | Investment | Year(s) | Estimated Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berkshire Hathaway (textiles) | 1960s–1980s | Tens of billions in opportunity cost |
| 2 | Dexter Shoe | 1993–2001 | Hundreds of millions to billions |
| 3 | ConocoPhillips | 2008–2009 | ~$1 billion |
| 4 | Tesco | 2014 | ~$400 million |
| 5 | IBM | 2011–2018 | $3–4 billion |
| 6 | Kraft Heinz | 2013–2025 | Tens of billions |
| 7 | U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, Southwest) | 2016–2020 | ~$7 billion |
| 8 | Paramount | 2022–2024 | $1–2 billion |
| 9 | Snowflake | 2020–2024 | Small gain to modest loss |
| 10 | HP Inc. | 2022–2024 | Hundreds of millions |
Mistake #1: Buying Berkshire Hathaway for the wrong reasons
In the early 1960s, Berkshire Hathaway was a declining textile mill in Massachusetts with no meaningful competitive advantage and no long-term prospects. Buffett initially purchased shares because they looked cheap, following the classic value-investing approach he used at the time.
The situation escalated when the company’s CEO offered to repurchase Buffett’s shares at a lower price than previously agreed. Buffett saw this as a sign of disrespect and reacted emotionally. Instead of selling, he bought enough stock to take control of the company.
Once in control, Buffett spent years trying to revive the textile operations, despite the industry being structurally uncompetitive. Money was poured into machinery, modernization, and restructuring, yet returns remained poor. The opportunity cost was massive — capital that could have gone into high-return investments was tied up in a business destined to shrink.
Decades later, Buffett admitted that if he had never purchased Berkshire Hathaway, his net worth would likely be far higher today. He has even described the decision as a “$200 billion mistake.”
Ironically, the failing textile mill later became the corporate shell through which he built the Berkshire conglomerate — but the original purchase remains one of the worst investment choices of his career.
Mistake #2: The Dexter Shoe acquisition — a catastrophic misjudgment
In the early 1990s, Dexter Shoe Company, based in Maine, appeared to be a strong and reliable business. It had respected brands, healthy margins, and a long history of profitability. Believing he was buying a durable U.S. manufacturer with staying power, Buffett acquired Dexter for approximately $433 million.
The real problem wasn’t just the business — it was the currency he used to pay for it.
Buffett didn’t finance the deal in cash. Instead, he paid in Berkshire Hathaway shares, which at the time were still undervalued relative to what they would eventually become. Those shares later multiplied in value to an extraordinary degree.
Shortly after the acquisition, global competition reshaped the footwear industry. Cheaper foreign manufacturing undermined U.S.-based producers, and Dexter collapsed under the pressure. The business that once looked stable lost its edge rapidly and went essentially to zero.
Buffett later admitted publicly that this was one of the most disastrous deals of his life — not only because Dexter failed, but because he paid for it with Berkshire stock that today would be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions.
Mistake #3: Buying ConocoPhillips at the peak of the oil cycle
In 2008, oil prices were soaring above $140 per barrel, driven by strong global demand and the belief that energy shortages were inevitable. Buffett viewed oil as a long-term necessity and committed heavily to ConocoPhillips, one of the largest integrated oil companies in the world.
The problem wasn’t the industry’s importance. It was the price he paid.
Shortly after he increased his position, the global financial crisis hit. Oil collapsed to below $40 per barrel, and ConocoPhillips shares fell with it. The investment quickly turned into a major loss.
Buffett later acknowledged that the timing was “terrible” and that he bought the stock at an inflated valuation during a peak commodity cycle. When the dust settled, Berkshire had lost more than $1 billion on the investment.
Mistake #4: Overestimating Tesco’s management
Warren Buffett has long been a fan of strong management teams, and he was particularly enamored by the leadership at Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain. Over time, he increased his stake in the company, eventually owning around 3% of Tesco’s shares.
The problem came in 2014 when a massive accounting scandal erupted. Tesco had inflated its profits by nearly half a billion pounds. The market’s reaction was swift and harsh, and Tesco’s stock price plummeted.
Buffett was forced to sell his position, taking a loss of over $400 million. In his annual Berkshire report, he openly admitted that this was a “classic mistake.” He had fallen in love with the company’s management and was slow to recognize the underlying problems.
Mistake #5: Betting on IBM instead of the future of tech
For decades, Warren Buffett avoided technology stocks because he felt it was too hard to identify long-term winners in such a fast-changing industry. But in 2011, he broke his own rule and invested heavily in IBM. On paper, it looked safe: a respected company with a long history, solid dividends, and deep corporate relationships.
The problem was that IBM’s business model no longer reflected where the world was heading.
While Amazon, Microsoft, and Google were building dominant cloud platforms, IBM remained tied to legacy services and slow-growth segments. Revenue declined year after year, and the competitive gap widened instead of closing. The company was strong on paper but structurally behind the technological curve.
Buffett gradually exited the position, selling in stages until he fully closed it in 2018. Estimates suggest Berkshire lost between $3 billion and $4 billion on the investment.
Mistake #6: Overpaying for Kraft Heinz and relying too heavily on 3G’s cost-cutting philosophy
In 2013, Buffett partnered with 3G Capital to acquire Heinz, and two years later, in 2015, the company merged with Kraft Foods to create Kraft Heinz — the third-largest food business in North America. On paper, the deal looked ideal. 3G had a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting, improving margins, and squeezing efficiency out of mature brands.
The problem was that efficiency came at the expense of innovation.
As 3G slashed budgets and streamlined operations, product development stalled. Consumer tastes shifted, competitors adapted faster, and several Kraft Heinz brands lost relevance. Market share eroded instead of expanding.
In 2019, the company announced a staggering $15 billion write-down on some of its most iconic brands. Then, in 2025, another substantial impairment hit the balance sheet again, reinforcing how far the company had drifted from its original valuation.
Buffett later acknowledged two major mistakes:
He paid too much for Kraft Heinz, and he placed too much confidence in 3G’s “cut to grow” strategy — a model that works in the short term but often suffocates long-term brand strength.
The losses accumulated over the years reached tens of billions of dollars, making Kraft Heinz one of the most painful chapters in Berkshire’s recent history.
Mistake #7: Exiting airline stocks at the bottom during the 2020 crash
For decades, Buffett warned that airlines were capital traps — businesses with high fixed costs, thin margins, and constant competitive pressure. Yet in 2016, he reversed course and bought sizable stakes in Delta, United, American Airlines, and Southwest. At the time, consolidation in the industry had improved profitability, and Buffett believed the sector had finally matured.
Then came 2020.
The pandemic grounded fleets worldwide, revenue collapsed to near zero, and airlines faced unprecedented financial stress. Berkshire responded by selling its entire airline portfolio — but the timing proved disastrous. The sales occurred at the exact bottom, when panic was at its peak and valuations were severely depressed.
The move cost Berkshire an estimated $7 billion in market value.
Mistake #8: Betting on Paramount during the streaming wars
In 2022, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a large position in Paramount Global, signaling a bet on the company’s transition into the streaming world. The logic seemed straightforward: Paramount+ was growing, the company owned a vast content library, and streaming was becoming the dominant distribution model.
But the economics of streaming were far harsher than expected.
Paramount was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to compete with giants like Netflix and Disney. Customer acquisition costs were high, churn was persistent, and profitability remained distant. The industry had shifted into a cash-burn race that only the largest and strongest players could sustain.
By 2024, before the merger announcement involving Paramount’s restructuring, Buffett exited the entire position. He later admitted the investment had been a clear mistake and confirmed he had “lost a lot of money” on the trade.
Analysts estimate Berkshire’s losses at $1–2 billion, making it another example of how even well-established media brands can struggle in industries being reshaped by technology and scale.
Mistake #9: Approving Berkshire’s Snowflake investment despite unclear long-term economics
When Berkshire Hathaway appeared in the 2020 Snowflake IPO, Wall Street was stunned. Snowflake was exactly the kind of company Buffett had avoided for decades — a young, fast-growing software business with a premium valuation and an uncertain long-term competitive moat.
Although the investment was initiated by Berkshire’s younger managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, Buffett personally approved the deal.
Snowflake expanded rapidly after the IPO, but the competitive landscape in cloud data services tightened. Companies like Amazon (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud intensified pressure, compressing Snowflake’s growth expectations and raising questions about long-term profitability.
By 2024, Berkshire had exited the entire position.
The final result wasn’t impressive. Some estimates suggest Berkshire may have made a small gain; others point to modest losses. Either way, the investment was widely viewed as a questionable use of capital, especially compared to Berkshire’s traditional focus on predictable cash-generating businesses.
Mistake #10: Misjudging HP’s long-term prospects in a declining hardware market
In 2022, Buffett acquired nearly 12% of HP Inc., convinced the company was undervalued and capable of generating strong free cash flow. On paper, it looked like a classic Berkshire-style investment: a mature business, steady earnings, and a shareholder-friendly capital strategy.
But the fundamentals of the industry were shifting faster than expected.
The markets for PCs and printers — HP’s core revenue engines — contracted significantly. Consumer demand weakened, commercial upgrades slowed, and the company had no clear new growth drivers to offset the decline. The structural pressures on hardware businesses intensified just as Berkshire was building its position.
By 2023 and 2024, Berkshire began selling HP shares aggressively. The sales took place near multi-year lows, implying losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
