Is "boring" the right word? BH owns a huge chunk of DIRECTV, the whole BNSF railroad (can you imagine how complex that business is to run?), and NetJets.
I think there's a difference between "businesses Warren and Charlie feel like they can get their heads around" and "boring businesses". Also: I don't understand why they bought DIRECTV.
After I recently went through an in-depth review of the unit economics of connecting physical lines to houses in rural Washington (which it turns out is prohibitively expensive to do), I actually have started to appreciate the value of a brand known for giving service to people (without loss of generality) Comcast won't bother with. Quite a lot of America is rural, and quite a few people's joy is less than full with the customer service of their competitors.
DIRECTV was indeed a purchase by Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, as Buffett wrote in the 2012 Annual Report (p. 15). They operate pretty much autonomously.
I think there's a difference between "businesses Warren and Charlie feel like they can get their heads around" and "boring businesses". Also: I don't understand why they bought DIRECTV.