Warren Buffett: Here's Why I Decided to Step Down

Warren Buffett sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about his looming exit from Berkshire Hathaway, which he's led since buying the company—then a textile maker—at age 34. Now 94, Buffett gives a simple reason for his decision to step down as CEO: his age. "There was no magic moment. How do you know the day that you become old?" Buffett says. Starting a few years ago, he says, he noticed things like his eyesight and balance worsening, his ability to recall names receding a bit. "I didn't really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90. But when you start getting old, it does become—it's irreversible," he says.

He shocked the financial world earlier this month with his announcement that he'd turn over the CEO reins to Greg Abel at the end of the year, but he plans to remain chairman of the board indefinitely. "I thought I would remain CEO as long as I thought I was more useful than anybody else, in terms of being CEO. And it surprised me, you know, how long it went," Buffett says. But, comparing himself to Abel recently, "The difference in energy level and just how much he could accomplish in a 10-hour day compared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day—the difference became more and more dramatic," he says. Read the full interview, including what Buffett plans to do in "retirement," at the Journal. (More Warren Buffett stories.)