Warren Buffett leads Berkshire Hathaway to new heights at age 94

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Warren Buffett turned 94 on Friday and his sprawling, one-of-a-kind conglomerate has never been worth more than it is today.

Berkshire Hathaway became the first non-technology company to top a $1 trillion market capitalization this week. Berkshire Class A shares also topped $700,000 apiece for the first time ever.

Howard Marks, a great investor in his own right and friend of Buffett's, credits three things that have allowed the 'Oracle of Omaha' to lead Berkshire to new heights, even at his advanced age.

«It's been a matter of a well thought out strategy prosecuted for seven decades with discipline, consistency, and unusual insight,» said Marks, co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management. «Discipline and consistency are essential, but not sufficient. Without the unusual insight, he clearly wouldn't be the greatest investor in history.»

«His record is a testament to the power of compounding at a very high rate for a very long period of time, uninterrupted. He never took a leave of absence,» Marks added.

In the midst of the Go-Go stock market of the 1960s, Buffett used an investment partnership he ran to buy what was then a failing New England textile company named Berkshire Hathaway. Today, his company is unrecognizable from what it once was, with businesses ranging from GEICO insurance to BNSF Railway, an equity portfolio worth over $300 billion and a monstrous $277 billion cash fortress.

Generations of investors who study and imitate Buffett's investing style have been wowed by his shrewd moves for decades. The Coca-Cola bet from the late 1980s made a lesson for patient value investing in strong brands with wide moats. Injecting a lifeline investment in Goldman Sachs in the depth of the