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Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett's longtime partner. Died in November 2023 at age 99. Known for mental models, multidisciplinary thinking, and ruthless clarity on Incentive Design — "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." Katie Burke cites his principle that complexity in incentive structures doesn't prevent manipulation; it enables it.
Core Ideas
- Keep Incentive Design ruthlessly simple
- Invert, always invert — think about problems backwards
- Mental models from multiple disciplines beat deep expertise in one