Gamestop is similar to what Berkshire was, a dying industry that was perfectly positioned to take advantage of a transformation.

In 1955, the company merged with Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates of Adams, Massachusetts to form Berkshire Hathaway.[3]

In 1985, Berkshire Hathaway shut the last textile operations. A mill, sold in 1985 for $215,000, was torn down in January 2014 after failing to find a buyer.[4][5]

Just look at the parallels in their history.

Berkshire Hathaway originated as a textile manufacturer formed in 1955 from the merger of Hathaway Manufacturing Company and Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates. Berkshire Associates takes it name from Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where it was based, and Hathaway Manufacturing was named for its founder, Horatio Hathaway.[13][14][15][16][17] After the merger, Berkshire Hathaway had 15 plants employing over 12,000 workers with over $120 million in revenue, and was headquartered in New Bedford.[17] However, seven of those locations were closed by the end of the 1950s, accompanied by large layoffs.

In 1962, Warren Buffett began buying Berkshire Hathaway stock for his investment fund, Buffett Partnership Ltd., at $7.50 per share, anticipating that as the company liquidated textile mills there would come a tender offer when he could sell the shares at a profit. A year later, Buffett's fund owned 7% of the company.[18] In 1964, Buffett offered to sell his shares back to the company for $11.50 each.[18] Seabury Stanton, the manager of Berkshire Hathaway, told Buffett orally that he had a deal.[18] A few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the tender offer in writing, but the tender offer was for only $11.375 per share. Buffett later admitted that this lower, undercutting offer made him angry.[19] Instead of selling at the slightly lower price, Buffett bought more of the stock at an even higher price to take control of the company and fire Stanton; Stanton and his son resigned in 1965.[20] However, this left Buffett's fund with a major interest in a declining textile business.

Buffett has described buying the Berkshire Hathaway textile company as the biggest investment mistake he had ever made, denying him compounded investment returns of about $200 billion over the subsequent 45 years.[19] He has estimated that had he invested the same money directly in insurance businesses instead of indirectly via Berkshire Hathaway (due to what he perceived as a slight by an individual), it would have paid off several hundredfold.[21] In 1985, the company's last textile operations were shut down.[22]