Wednesday, Nov 28
Charlie Munger, dead at 99
One of history's great investors, Charlie Munger, died on Tuesday in California just over a month shy of his 100th birthday. He served as Warren Buffett's right-hand man and Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman for the last 45 years.
Buffett said Tuesday the company "could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation."
Munger was perhaps known best for always having a quip at the ready during Berkshire's annual shareholder meetings where he would sit alongside Buffett and field questions for hours.
In this year's letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett spent nearly two pages sharing Charlie's wisdom offered in an interview he'd given last year.
"You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor," Munger said. "When the world changes, you must change." Munger, who began his career as a lawyer and ended it leading one of the country's largest conglomerates, lived this life lesson.
Munger's quotes have been collected in books and articles across the media landscape, most completely in "Poor Charlie's Almanack." And like any sage, Munger had just the right way to have the final word: "The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it."
他是一個我很崇拜的人。
聰明 / 努力 / 專心
不造作 / 活出自己人生
Nothing Beats Having a Great Partner
Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up
in a sentence. His version, moreover, is always more clearly reasoned and also more
artfully – some might add bluntly – stated.
Here are a few of his thoughts, many lifted from a very recent podcast:
• The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
• If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
• All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought:
Early on, write your desired obituary – and then behave accordingly.
• If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay
irrational and get lousy results.
• Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one
thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
• You can learn a lot from dead people. Read of the deceased you admire and detest.
• Don’t bail away in a sinking boat if you can swim to one that is seaworthy.
• A great company keeps working after you are not; a mediocre company won’t do that.
• Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term
investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time.
• Ben Graham said, “Day to day, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long term it’s
a weighing machine.” If you keep making something more valuable, then some wise person
is going to notice it and start buying.
• There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is
dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero. Don’t count
on getting rich twice.
• You don’t, however, need to own a lot of things in order to get rich.
• You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes,
you must change.
• Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the
country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were
slow to recognize the change, but better late than never.
• Finally, I will add two short sentences by Charlie that have been his decision-clinchers for
decades: “Warren, think more about it. You’re smart and I’m right.”
And so it goes. I never have a phone call with Charlie without learning something. And,
while he makes me think, he also makes me laugh.
************
I will add to Charlie’s list a rule of my own: Find a very smart high-grade
partner – preferably slightly older than you – and then listen very carefully to what he says.
