The Life, Times, and Brilliance of the Late Charlie Munger
For as long as I’ve been dabbling in the investment world I’ve known about Warren Buffett and his ‘right-hand man’, Charlie Munger, folk hero leaders of the company Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett is one of the world’s most famous billionaires, overseeing Berkshire since 1965 as its chairman and CEO and (between 1978 and 2023) by vice chairman Munger.
But Munger, who just passed away aged 99 years and 11 months young, was more than just a sidekick to Buffett.
He was so full of wisdom and as relevant to today’s world as any. His most recent interview, two weeks before his passing, showed just how sharp his mind still was.
But his words went beyond stock market investing. He delivered life lessons.
Something he preached was the need to be discerning. He stood for timeless principles. There was a realization that we know very little about a lot of things — but some things never change.
He played a key role in reshaping Buffett’s investment philosophy, with a focus on quality and an aim to appreciate what you can control.
Buffett called him ‘The Abominable No Man’. He was there to provide checks and balances to the occasional wrong-minded thinking by Buffett.
You also don’t always have to chase the hot new thing to get ahead in life. The dot-com craze, crypto (in his words, “partly fraud and partly delusion”), and many short-lived overhyped technology trends passed him by.
Not because he was slow to the game. They just didn’t pass his bullshit detector.
A man of many words
There are so many ‘Mungerisms’ that we can all learn from, not just in finance but in life:
Here are some:
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”
The main idea here is to always invert your thinking. Don’t be overconfident about any long-held view.
Your main goal should be to not screw it up. So looking at things from different angles can help you identify and avoid risks, mistakes, and biases.
“Lifelong learning is paramount to long-term success.”
“Without the method of learning, you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It’s just not going to work very well.”
Amen to that. Everything in our world is moving on so crazily fast, you have to keep moving forward.
And here’s another that’s about being practical in life:
“We’ve had enough good sense when something is working very well to keep doing it. I’d say we’re demonstrating what might be called the fundamental algorithm of life — repeat what works.”
Do what works. Rinse. Repeat.
Admittedly, not all of his views will sit well with everyone. After all, he was a red-blooded American capitalist and we shouldn’t ignore growing wealth disparities:
“Somebody my age has lived through the best and easiest period that ever happened in the history of the world — the lowest death rates, the highest investment production, biggest increases in most people’s standards of living. If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”
Still, he was a wise old head in a world of phoneys and bullshitters. He lived a full life and he was the quintessential life-long learner.
If you want to appreciate the wit and wisdom of the man, the definitive book is Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.
Essential reading to understand the man, the myth, the legend.
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