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Warren Buffett got lucky — or at least that’s what he says.The legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway chairman underlined just how fortunate he’s been during a rare interview aired by CNBC on Wednesday.Buffett said that “out of eight billion people, I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world.”He’s lucky to be alive and healthy at age 95, he said. While he’s “losing marbles at this point,” he quipped, he “accumulated marbles for a longer time than I deserved, and that’s just a matter of luck.”Buffett also said he’s blessed that the field he’s passionate about and has…

PayPal shares jumped about 15% on Wednesday following a report that Stripe and the private equity firm Advent International had made a joint offer to buy the payments giant. The $60.50-per-share bid values PayPal at more than $53 billion and would see Stripe and Advent hold an equal stake, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.PayPal’s stock rose as much as 19% in premarket trading before paring some gains.Stripe was valued at $159 billion in a February tender offer, while PayPal’s market cap stood at nearly $42 billion at Tuesday’s close. Stripe and Advent’s offer would represent a…

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday announced a $24 million effort to help revive American shipbuilding, his latest move under the bank’s $1.5 trillion security project aimed at bolstering industries critical to U.S. economic and national security.The figure includes $18 million in loans and $6 million in grants to finance a new submarine manufacturing facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard being built by Rhoads Industries, expand lending to maritime-related small businesses and strengthen regional suppliers, JPMorgan said.”The arsenal of democracy has been reignited,” Dimon told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.”People said it couldn’t happen, but here you have Hanwha shipbuilding…

In 2013, I threw reality out the window and reached out to a real-estate agent to try to buy a house.I had just turned 25 and felt like it was time to have my own space, even though I had minimal savings and a steep student-loan balance that my salary as a high-school teacher was barely covering.But as a first-gen daughter, my immigrant parents adamantly stressed the importance of ownership. So buying a home not only felt like the right choice — it also felt like the only choice.It took several years after that initial outreach for everything to fall…

Warren Buffett shone a light on his relationship with Bill Gates, and his decision to end his annual donations to the Gates Foundation, in a rare interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick on Wednesday.The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway chairman said he’d “read a great deal” about Gates’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and while it was a “distasteful” situation, everyone makes mistakes in judging people.”I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could picture myself doing,” Buffett said about the transcript of Gates’ voluntary testimony to the House Oversight Committee last month as part of its investigation into Epstein.Gates…

Ted Pick, CEO Morgan Stanley, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 18th, 2024.Adam Galici | CNBCMorgan Stanley reported second-quarter earnings before the opening bell Wednesday.  Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:Earnings per share: $3.46 vs. $2.94 expected Revenue: $21.35 billion, vs. $19.64 billion expected Morgan Stanley is expected to benefit from higher trading and investment banking revenue in the quarter, as rivals JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have shown in their reports.Heightened activity fueled by the global artificial intelligence boom…

Here comes an AI ad campaign that could ruffle some feathers in Hollywood.AI text-to-video platform OpenArt AI is launching ads in AMC movie theaters across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York this week to promote its Director product, the company exclusively told CMO Insider. The push also includes billboards in those cities, as well as digital and social placements.Director lets users describe an idea, visual style, and narrative arc in conversational language, then generates videos up to five minutes long.The company said it hopes the campaign — created entirely in-house using the Director tool — will spark a wave…

JPMorgan’s next CEO will have to tick a whole lot of boxes to be a worthy successor in Jamie Dimon’s eyes.Dimon, 70, answered a question during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday about what he and his board are looking for in the company’s next leader, and what he thinks makes an exceptional CEO.The billionaire banker replied that the person should:Be good at managementBe good with peopleBe analyticalBe detailedBe a “culture carrier”Be curiousHave heartHave gritHave soulHave work ethicBe able to travelBe able to deal with CEOs and prime ministersUnderstand and engage with the bank’s back-office functions”I could give you…

CMOs often treat hate comments on TikTok as a corporate reputation problem. BÉIS, the buzzy luggage brand founded by actor Shay Mitchell, is incorporating them into its product road map.This week, BÉIS (pronounced “base”) is rolling out major redesigns to many of its core products, the company exclusively told CMO Insider. That includes its much-reviewed and much-duped Weekender bag, which helped it build a cult following online.Liz Money, SVP of brand and creative at BÉIS, said her team cataloged every negative TikTok video it could find about The Weekender — from complaints about its weight to criticism of its straps…

When IBM delivered bad news on Tuesday, CEO Arvind Krishna didn’t look for someone else to blame. He owned it.Krishna, who is widely credited with turning IBM around since becoming CEO in 2020, said in a letter to investors that clients had redirected quarterly capital spending toward scarce infrastructure. Management underestimated the scale of that shift, contributing to the company’s second-quarter shortfall.”These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered,” Krishna wrote. “We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected.”Though IBM’s shares tanked in…