Charlie Munger

Quotes

• “... much of what is taught in modern corporate finance courses is twaddle.”
• “The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you gotta do it. I don’t care what you have to do — if it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit.”
• “The hard part of the process for most people is the first $100,000. If you have a standing start at zero, getting together $100,000 is a long struggle for most people.”
• “You have to learn all the big ideas in the key disciplines in a way that they're in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life. If you do that, I solemnly promise you that one day you'll be walking down the street and you'll look to your right and left and you’ll think "my heavenly days, I'm now one of the few competent people in my whole age cohort." If you don't do it, many of the brightest of you will live in the middle ranks or in the shallows.”
• “Our investment style has been given a name - focus investing - which implies ten holdings, not one hundred or four hundred. The idea that it is hard to find good investments, so concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obvious idea. But 98% of the investment world does not think this way. It's been good for us.”
• “You can't give the average Wall Street CEO really lenient standards of accounting and expect the figures to be good. The accountant is like the referee in soccer. The accountant has to be the adult that prevents the mayhem. Accountants don't want to be the adults because it causes liability, it causes responsibility, it causes difficulty ... they failed us terribly.”

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Key facts

Born

Charles Thomas Munger , ( 1924-01-01 ) January 1, 1924, Omaha, Nebraska , U.S.

Died

November 28, 2023 (2023-11-28) (aged 99), Santa Barbara, California , U.S.

Education

University of Michigan California Institute of Technology Harvard University ( JD )

Occupations

Businessman financial analyst investor philanthropist lawyer

Known for

Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

Spouses

Nancy Jean Huggins ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1945 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1953 ) ​ Nancy Barry Borthwick ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1956 ; died 2010 ) ​

Children

7, including Charles Munger Jr.

Relatives

Thomas Charles Munger (grandfather)

Branch

United States Army

Service years

1943–1946

Rank

Second lieutenant

Unit

Army Air Forces

Conflicts

World War II

via Wikipedia infobox

Key dates

Born

1 January 1924

Died

28 November 2023

via Wikidata · CC0

Wikidata facts

Instance of

human

Given name

Thomas

Gender

male

Citizenship

United States

Place of birth

Omaha

Place of death

Santa Barbara

Employer

Berkshire Hathaway

Languages spoken

English language

Field of work

law

Conflict

World War II

Military branch

United States Army Air Forces

Military rank

second lieutenant

Image

Charlie Munger (cropped).jpg

Number of children

+7

via Wikidata · CC0