BREAKINGVIEWS - Buffett at least learned one thing from Steve Jobs

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture November 21, 2011.

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Warren Buffett seems to have learned something from a fellow corporate titan. The 81-year-old investing icon disclosed on Tuesday he was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer last week and pledged to keep shareholders updated about his health. The candor is a refreshing contrast to the way in which Steve Jobs guarded details of the illness that eventually killed him. Unfortunately, Buffett is shrouding his succession plan in the same sort of mystery the Apple boss did.

The prognosis sounds good for the Oracle of Omaha. Doctors have told him his life isn't in any danger from the cancer, which isn't an uncommon form for men his age, and that it hasn't spread to other parts of his body. He plans to keep running Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) as he undergoes two months of radiation treatment over the summer. The cheeseburger- and root beer float-loving Buffett doesn't expect any further changes in his condition for a good long while.

Jobs, though younger, confronted a more insidious disease. Yet in the years following the diagnosis, he was reluctant to keep shareholders informed much about his treatment - or, as it turned out, the lack thereof. Jobs' biographer wrote that for months he refused surgery for his pancreatic cancer - and came to regret it. Apple insisted his health was a private matter. It may well have been, but Jobs' gaunt appearance fuelled endless media and market speculation, as did substitute appearances at conferences by his lieutenants.

Unfortunately, Buffett's candour doesn't extend to identifying his replacement. He said rather bizarrely a couple months ago that he knows who it is but the chosen one doesn't. That leaves open the possibility the individual may not want the job managing the $200 billion conglomerate, a task even Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger have struggled with in recent years. And given that a man once on the shortlist, David Sokol, left amid a scandal last year, shareholders shouldn't necessarily put full faith in Buffett's selection skills.

Buffett expects to stick around for a while. Here's hoping it's long enough to realize he should reveal who will step into his big shoes.

CONTEXT NEWS

- Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, disclosed in a letter to shareholders on April 17 that he has stage 1 prostate cancer and that doctors have told him it is "not remotely life-threatening or debilitating in any meaningful way." He said he received the diagnosis on April 11 and that he has opted for a two-month treatment of radiation that will begin in mid-July.

- Buffett said there was no cancer discovered elsewhere in his body and that his daily routine will not change other than that his travel will be restricted.

- "I will let shareholders know immediately should my health situation change," Buffett wrote. "Eventually, of course, it will; but I believe that day is a long way off."

- Buffett's letter to shareholders: here

(Editing by Peter Thal Larsen and David Evans)