Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger
Charles Thomas Mungeris an American businessman, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist. He is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett; in this capacity, Buffett describes Charlie Munger as “my partner." Munger served as chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He is also the chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth1 January 1924
CountryUnited States of America
Once you start doing something bad, then it's easy to take the next step - and in the end, you're a moral sewer.
The tradition of always looking for the answer in the most fundamental way available - that is a great tradition, and it saves a lot of time in this world.
The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can't beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That's just the way it is.
This is an amazingly sound place. We are more disaster-resistant than most other places. We haven't pushed it as hard as other people would have pushed it. I don't want to go back to Go. I've been to Go. A lot of our shareholders have a majority of their net worth in Berkshire, and they don't want to go back to Go either.
I feel that by getting rich in the way I did, I think my own example has hurt my own country.
...If you take sales presentations and brokers of commercial real estate and businesses... I'm 70 years old, I've never seen one I thought was even within hailing distance of objective truth.... 'incentive-caused bias,' causes this terrible abuse. And many of the people who are doing it you would be glad to have married into your family compared to what you're otherwise going to get....
I mean people are really crazy about minor decrements down. And then, if you act on them, then you get into reciprocation tendency, because you don't just reciprocate affection, you reciprocate animosity, and the whole thing can escalate. And so huge insanities can come from just subconsciously over-weighing the importance of what you're losing or almost getting and not getting.
Wrigley is a great business, but that doesn't solve the problem. Buying great businesses at advantageous prices is very tough.
If you can buy the best companies, over time the pricing takes care of itself.
Berkshireis in the business of making easy predictions If a deal looks too hard, the partners simply shelve it.
Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.
We don't like trading agony for money
If it is wisdom you're after, you're going to spend a lot of time on your ass reading.
Opportunity cost is a huge filter in life. If you've got two suitors who are really eager to have you and one is way the hell better than the other, you do not have to spend much time with the other. And that's the way we filter out buying opportunities.