Warren Buffett Has a Lesson for AI Investors: Don't Ignore History.

Warren Buffett’s investment in an airline, USAir, is being used as a cautionary example for AI investors, arguing that revolutionary technologies can still fail to deliver profits. Buffett put $358 million into USAir’s preferred stock, and by the end of 1994 Berkshire Hathaway had written it down to $89.5 million—about 25 cents on the dollar. The piece links that outcome to a debate over whether AI will truly transform the world and lift broad markets like the S&P 500, while warning that investors can still lose money even if technology changes everything. It compares aviation’s costly, commodity-like business model to the AI buildout’s heavy spending and rapid catch-up.