so in other words he had money and got lucky with one of his gambles
There are fewer problems like this in the stock market. However, getting a better model than the players in the market is arguably more difficult. However, with the resources of Berkshire you can do things which a retail investor couldn't dream of, stuff like using satellite imagery to approximate performance. Or paying the CFOs latest squeeze for information (or at least the same but laundered through a 3rd party).
As a layperson, I always wonder: is there some equivalent of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle at play in the market? There is no way to make an observation (in this case, a trade) without altering the very thing your are observing (the market).