If it ain't broke...

January 28, 2021 9:41 PM

The website of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the largest companies in the world, is a Web 1.0 throwback essentially unchanged since 1997.

The HTML source code shows that pages were variously made in Microsoft FrontPage 3, Adobe PageMill 2, and Microsoft Word 97 and 2013 and have presumably been edited by hand since then to update the pages as necessary.

posted by jedicus (50 comments total)

At some point after 2012, the line

If you have any comments about our WEB page, you can either write us at the address shown above or e-mail us at [e-mail].

was edited to remove the "or e-mail us" part. If you want to ask them snarky questions you'll have to buy a stamp.
posted by jedicus at 9:44 PM on January 28, 2021 [17 favorites]

If you do write: "However, due to the limited number of personnel in our corporate office, we are unable to provide a direct response." Tim in accounting needs paper for his fleet.
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:50 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

?! Is this real it is amazing
posted by latkes at 10:03 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair
posted by XMLicious at 10:08 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Loads FAST on my phone :)
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:19 PM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that Berkshire Hathaway has a Geico ad on its homepage?
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 10:20 PM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

I blinked, then remembered that Berkshire Hathaway wholly owns Geico.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:27 PM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

Warren Buffet has been infatuated with GEICO since he was a college boy writing love letters.
posted by pwnguin at 11:06 PM on January 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

I like the professional white background.
posted by Phanx at 11:25 PM on January 28, 2021 [24 favorites]

Not sure I believe it's a 90s webpage if it's not in a webring.
posted by zompist at 11:36 PM on January 28, 2021 [34 favorites]

The only giveaway that we're not on the Wayback Machine is the Annual & Interim Report from November 2020. They're still actively using and updating the materials on this website, it's not just a holdover.
posted by Dysk at 11:58 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that Berkshire Hathaway has a Geico ad on its homepage?

Precisely because it is a Web 1.0 banner ad, my adblocker didn't delete it and it's one of the only ads I've seen on the web for weeks.

And I didn't mind seeing it one bit.
posted by straight at 12:15 AM on January 29, 2021 [13 favorites]

I love this web page and would be very happy if a large percentage of the web looked and functioned like this.
posted by straight at 12:16 AM on January 29, 2021 [37 favorites]

Ha! And the first link sounds remarkably like the only advertising that gets my attention on a regular basis:

Dear Reader,

You probably know that I don't make stock recommendations. However, I have two thoughts regarding your personal expenditures that can save you real money. I'm suggesting that you call on the services of two subsidiaries of Berkshire: GEICO and Borsheim's.

Sincerely,

Warren E. Buffett

It's a podcast ad read by the host.
posted by straight at 12:23 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

"Reproduction or distribution of any materials obtained on this website or linking to this website without written permission is prohibited."

Mefi better brace for a call from Munger Tolles!

(I mean, this style is a pose, but it's an aesthetically inoffensive one, so...)
posted by praemunire at 12:49 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

Not sure I believe it's a 90s webpage if it's not in a webring.

Is.. is Zompist critiquing 90s web design?

I have legit spent hours on your site, long before I ever heard of Metafilter. Never had a chance to say it before, but thanks for the LCK. It's been a pleasant occasional diversion of mine for well over a decade.
posted by biogeo at 1:13 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh that is lovely. Never heard of the company but what a refreshingly texty page. Professional white background as well. Images are very tiring to look at.
posted by paduasoy at 2:09 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

“The company”, for what it’s worth, is a multinational conglomerate holding company whose CEO is the fourth richest person in the world.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:56 AM on January 29, 2021 [11 favorites]

You can't really avoid buying something from a company that BH either owns or partially owns, the list is huge.
posted by octothorpe at 4:22 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

They couldn’t afford the blue background feature?
posted by waving at 4:39 AM on January 29, 2021 [8 favorites]

And look at that, it doesn't take a fortnight to load.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:04 AM on January 29, 2021 [6 favorites]

I miss FrontPage...
posted by PhineasGage at 5:18 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

This site was made in 1983 and doesn’t seem to want you to see it.
posted by waving at 5:23 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

I mean, what do they need a webpage for, honestly? Not like they need to advertise. Something something Deep Work. I suspect most who own Berkshire would rather they spend their time doing the stuff that grows Berkshire.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:35 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

I just learned that Berkshire Hathaway owns Oriental Trading Company, and, like, of course it does.
posted by box at 5:40 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

I do NOT miss FrontPage!!!
posted by kwaller at 5:51 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that Berkshire Hathaway has a Geico ad on its homepage?
...
I blinked, then remembered that Berkshire Hathaway wholly owns Geico

Ah, okay that makes sense now. Because notably when you view the source for this Awesome Homepage the GEICO part isn't so much an ad as it is just a link to GEICO. No URL ref tag, no evidence it was dropped into an ad frame. Just a little bit of html with an img tag for the logo and a hyperlink to their website.

I kind of love this.
posted by mcstayinskool at 6:19 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

Don't they have an email newsletter? I'm still waiting for the CSS pop-up
posted by thelonius at 6:23 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

You know, would any additional features that took it into the 21st century actually be HELPFUL? It... sits there and does what it's supposed to. As a GenX'er who remembers the day I learned that I could change the background color of a web page away from the default mid-grey, I appreciate how this doesn't do anything other than sit there and link to stuff.

And this is kind of 100% on-brand for Warren Buffett, anyway. "Just sit there and do stuff correctly and without any sort of pretension or attempt to be fancy or even modern" is kind of Berkshire Hathaway's thing. Seriously -- doing anything else than this would be just... contrary to the ethos.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 6:32 AM on January 29, 2021 [11 favorites]

Just look at us here on good old Metafilter dot com, discussing some web site that's barely changed since the 90s. What a lark we are having. What a joyous time.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:37 AM on January 29, 2021 [34 favorites]

Look I know you’re snarking but things have indeed changed here on MetaFilter. Pour one out for BLINK and IMG.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:43 AM on January 29, 2021 [10 favorites]

And this is kind of 100% on-brand for Warren Buffett, anyway.

It did occur to me that it was fitting that a person who has pointedly lived in the same house since 1958 would have the same website since 1997.
posted by jedicus at 6:55 AM on January 29, 2021 [6 favorites]

I love this web page and would be very happy if a large percentage of the web looked and functioned like this.

I suspect that this type of design has some advantages for accessibility as well, at least compared to the hot mess of reflexive design and grey text now permeating every corner of most of my tabs.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:15 AM on January 29, 2021 [6 favorites]

No mobile site? Well that does it, I’m not going to buy 100 shares of BRK.A after all, so there’s no reason to bother looking up how much that would even cost.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:26 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

> I blinked, then remembered that Berkshire Hathaway wholly owns Geico.

> Just look at us here on good old Metafilter dot com, discussing some web site that's barely changed since the 90s

Metafilter: A website so ancient a caveman could've written it.
posted by swr at 7:59 AM on January 29, 2021 [3 favorites]

Pour one out for BLINK and IMG.

Blink is still supported by metafilter. It's your browser that is censoring blink's expression.
posted by Mitheral at 8:30 AM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

So where is the public outcry about deplatforming blink?! Let's get these Qanon jagoffs to focus on what really matters.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:35 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is brilliant and I love it. How dare anyone body-shame this beautiful website.

My feelings on this may be related to the fact that I hand-code my own website's raw HTML using emacs together with my leet html skillz acquired in the mid-'90s.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:37 AM on January 29, 2021 [6 favorites]

Also, fuck blink. It was never good style, because you have to wait till it blinks back on before you can read it. Plus it's not supported by lynx.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:38 AM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm fairly certain I used a verison of lynx that did maybe 20-23 years ago but I can't prove it.
posted by some loser at 11:51 AM on January 29, 2021

Blink was great in a very narrow application: warnings and cautions. I'd use it in comments when I wanted to get attention for those purposes.

EG:

Warning: Performing this action could kill you and it will hurt the whole time you are dying.

Where only the bolded section was blinking.

Otherwise ya, blink was horrible and WAY overused. Nothing like loading up a page and having entire paragraphs blinking.

Lynx never had Blink (officially anyways, there was probably some implementations somewhere that had it) even though it was an off hand comment about Lynx that inspired the tag in the first place.

PS: Here is cortex paying to get Blink re-enabled. This might be the only feature on Metafilter to be paid for by directed contribution.
posted by Mitheral at 12:49 PM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

I almost didn't click on any of the links because they were already purple.
posted by hypnogogue at 1:55 PM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love this web page and would be very happy if a large percentage of the web looked and functioned like this.

JavaScript is a virus.
posted by mikelieman at 2:17 PM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

As a web design professional I both love it and hate it. It does everything it needs to do. However, I could never make a living selling websites this simple.
posted by COD at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2021

Here is cortex paying to get Blink re-enabled. This might be the only feature on Metafilter to be paid for by directed contribution.

Dang it I borked that link. here is cortex paying for blink.
posted by Mitheral at 2:46 PM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

One of the main reasons I used google for my home page for many years was because it was clean and simple. The home page was a 13KB load. That’s it. On dial up that’s a big deal. I still appreciate dead simple webpages because they’re lightning quick to load.

(Also I’ve been learning to sew and a site that carries supplies for making your own outdoor gear, questoutfitters.com, has a site that’s right out of 1997. I get a kick out of that.)
posted by azpenguin at 8:42 PM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

Similarly: today I ended up in this section of the AmeriCorps webpage, which I don't think has changed since I was young enough to consider applying. The main page is slick, so, no idea what's going on there.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:30 PM on January 30, 2021

Not sure if lynx suppored blink anytime but that might be a terminal / termcap thing more than anything else.
Well, then it fits; many terminal emulators don't support \e[5m as blink anymore... | Hacker News.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:19 PM on January 30, 2021

I wanted to see what the html and css were on the page, so I went to developer view. But when I clicked on an element, my browser crashed! I can't remember the last time that happened.
posted by Transl3y at 8:20 PM on January 30, 2021

Kind of feel like 90% of the web these days consists of websites that load 500 mb of libraries to make it LOOK like they are clean and simple.

(look I know we can't all code every page by hand any more, but not every little thing you want to do requires loading one more library. Maybe think about whether you NEED to do that one extra thing. Or whether there is a lighter-weight way to accomplish something similar. It's like how Nintendo had to squeeze every drop out of the storage on their tiny cartridges while Sony was luxuriating in the bloat on their roomy CD-driven game systems. Sure the Playstation was fast, but the Nintendo systems SEEMED fast, even on arguably inferior hardware, because they had more nimble code. Sometimes less is more, and just because many people have fast internet doesn't mean you can or should ignore page load times.)
posted by caution live frogs at 10:25 AM on February 3, 2021 [1 favorite]