Overview

Charles Thomas Munger (January 1, 1924 – November 28, 2023) was an American businessman, investor, attorney and philanthropist. He was vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett, from 1978 until his death in 2023. Buffett described Munger as his closest partner and right-hand man, and credited him with being the "architect" of modern Berkshire Hathaway's business philosophy. In addition to his role at Berkshire Hathaway, Munger was a founding partner of Munger, Tolles & Olson; chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011; chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California; and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation. == Early life and education == Charles Thomas Munger was born on January 1, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Florence "Toody" (Russell) and Alfred Case Munger, a lawyer. As a teenager, he worked at Buffett & Son, a grocery store owned by Warren Buffett's grandfather, Ernest P. Buffett. His grandfather, Thomas Charles Munger, was a state representative and later a U.S. district court judge appointed by Theodore Roosevelt. He enrolled in the University of Michigan, where he studied mathematics. During his time in college, he joined the fraternity Sigma Phi Society. In early 1943, a few days after his 19th birthday, he dropped out of college to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he became a second lieutenant. After receiving a high score on the Army General Classification Test, he was ordered to study meteorology at Caltech in Pasadena, California, the town he was to make his home. Through the G.I. Bill, Munger took a number of advanced courses through several universities. When he applied to his father's alma mater, Harvard Law School, the dean of admissions rejected him because Munger had not completed an undergraduate degree. However, the dean relented after a call from Roscoe Pound, the former dean of Harvard Law and a Munger family friend. Munger excelled in law school, becoming a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and graduating in 1948 with a J.D., magna cum laude. In college and the Army, he developed what he considered "an important skill": card playing. He used this in his approach to business. "What you have to learn is to fold early when the odds are against you, or if you have a big edge, back it heavily because you don't get a big edge often. Opportunity comes, but it doesn't come often, so seize it when it does come." He also used the card analogy to explain his approach to investing. He maintained that treating the shares of a company like baseball cards is a losing strategy because it requires one to predict the behavior of often irrational and emotional human beings. == Career == Munger moved with his family to California, where he joined the law firm Wright & Garrett (later Musick, Peeler & Garrett). In 1962, he founded and worked as a real estate attorney at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. He then gave up the practice of law to concentrate on managing investments and later partnered with Otis Booth in real estate development. When he met Buffett over lunch at the Omaha Club, "the two began talking about investments and never stopped." In 1962, Munger partnered with Jack Wheeler to form Wheeler, Munger, and Company, an investment firm with a seat on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. According to Buffett's essay "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville", published in 1984, Munger's investment partnership generated compound annual returns of 19.8% during the 1962–75 period compared to a 5.0% annual appreciation rate for the Dow. He wound up Wheeler, Munger, and Co. in 1976, after losses of 32% in 1973 and 31% in 1974. Munger was previously the chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. The acquisition of this company was controversial following accusations that Buffett's company, Blue Chip, bought Wesco shares to defeat an impending merger between Wesco and Financial Corp. Wesco began as a savings and loan association, but eventually grew to control Precision Steel Corp., CORT Furniture Leasing, Kansas Bankers Surety Company, and other ventures. Wesco Financial also held a concentrated equity portfolio of over US$1.5 billion in companies such as Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, US Bancorp, and Goldman Sachs. Munger believed that holding a concentrated number of stocks that he knew extremely well would in the long term produce superior returns. Wesco is based in Pasadena, California, Munger's adopted hometown. Pasadena was also the site of the company's annual shareholders' meeting, which were typically held on the Wednesday or Thursday after the more famous Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Munger's meetings were nearly as legendary in the investment community as those he co-hosted with Buffett in Omaha. Such meetings were often perfunctory, but Munger interacted with the other Wesco shareholders at considerable length, sometimes speculating about what Benjamin Franklin would do in a given situation. Meeting notes have been posted on the Futile Finance? website, but no updates exist beyond 2011. Munger was also the chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation. After Wesco meetings ended, the Daily Journal annual meeting grew in importance, as investors flocked to the meeting to listen to him speak at length. == Investment philosophy == === "Elementary, worldly wisdom" === In multiple speeches, and in the 2005 book Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, "worldly wisdom" consists of a set of mental models framed as a latticework to help solve critical business problems. Munger, along with Buffett, was one of the main inspirations behind the book Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger. Author Peter Bevelin explained his key learnings from both Munger and Buffett in a 2007 interview: "How to think about businesses and investing, how to behave in life, the importance of ethics and honesty, how to approach problems but foremost how to reduce the chance of meeting problems." Bevelin stated that previously, he "was lacking the Munger ability to un-learn my own best-loved ideas". Munger stated that high ethical standards were integral to his philosophy; at the 2009 Wesco Financial Corporation annual meeting he said, "Good businesses are ethical businesses. A business model that relies on trickery is doomed to fail." During an interview and Q&A session at Harvard-Westlake School on January 19, 2010, Munger referred to American philosopher Charles Frankel in his discussion on the 2008 financial crisis and the philosophy of responsibility. Munger explained that Frankel believed: The system is responsible in proportion to the degree that the people who make the decisions bear the consequences. So to Charlie Frankel, you don't create a loan system where all the people who make the loans promptly dump them on somebody else through lies and twaddle, and they don't bear the responsibility when the loans are good or bad. To Frankel, that is amoral, that is an irresponsible system. As part of his philosophy Munger lived in the same relatively modest California home for 70 years. When asked about living in more luxurious homes, Munger was quoted as stating: "in practically every case, they make the person less happy, not happier.” Munger appreciated the utility of a "basic house" with few advantages over living in an ostentatious home. Munger appreciated modesty stating, "don't have a lot of envy" and "don't overspend your income". In Munger's last 2023 interview with CNBC he credited his success and longevity to a long-held sense of caution and ability "to avoid all standard ways of failing". === Lollapalooza effect === Munger used the term "Lollapalooza effect" for multiple biases, tendencies or mental models acting in compound with each other at the same time in the same direction. With the Lollapalooza effect, itself a mental model, the result is often extreme, due to the confluence of the mental models, biases or tendencies acting together, greatly increasing the likelihood of acting irrationally. During a talk at Harvard in 1995 titled The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, Munger mentioned Tupperware parties and open outcry auctions, where he explained "three, four, five of these things work together and it turns human brains into mush," meaning that normal people will be highly likely to succumb to the multiple irrational tendencies acting in the same direction. In the Tupperware party, you have reciprocation, consistency, and commitment tendency, and social proof. (The hostess gave the party and the tendency is to reciprocate; you say you like certain products during the party so purchasing would be consistent with views you've committed to; other people are buying, which is the social proof.) In the open outcry auction, there is social proof of others bidding, reciprocation tendency, commitment to buying the item, and deprivation super-reaction syndrome, i.e. sense of loss. The latter is an individual's sense of loss of what he or she believes should be (or is) his or hers. These biases often occur at either conscious or subconscious level, and in both microeconomic and macroeconomic scale. === Criticism of cryptocurrencies and Robinhood === Munger was critical of cryptocurrencies, referring to Bitcoin in particular as "noxious poison". Munger also compared Robinhood to gambling, saying that its success is due to "people who know how to take advantage essentially of the gambling instincts of, not only American public, worldwide public" and further explained why he thinks individual investments without commission is tantamount to gambling. "If you cater to those gambling chips, when people have money in their pocket for the first time, and you tell them they can make 30 or 40 or 50 trades a day, and you're not charging them any commission, but you're selling their order flow or whatever, I hope we don't have more of it." He also said the use of cryptocurrency should be banned and said it was "beneath contempt"; that bitcoin was "stupid, "immoral," and "disgusting" and that "'It's like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, 'I can't be left out'"; and that it was like a venereal disease, among other things. == Wealth and philanthropy == At the time of his death, Munger had an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion and was ranked as the 1,182nd richest person in the world, according to Forbes. Munger was a major benefactor of the University of Michigan. In 2007, Munger made a $3 million gift to the University of Michigan Law School for lighting improvements in Hutchins Hall and the William W. Cook Legal Research Building, including the noted Reading Room. In 2011, Munger made another gift to the Law School, contributing $20 million for renovations to the Lawyers Club housing complex, which covered the majority of the $39 million cost. The renovated portion of the Lawyers Club was renamed the Charles T. Munger Residences in the Lawyers Club in his honor. In 1997, the Mungers donated $1.8 million to the Marlborough School in Los Angeles, of which Nancy Munger was an alumna. The couple also donated to the Polytechnic School in Pasadena and the Los Angeles YMCA. On December 28, 2011, Munger donated 10 shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock (then valued at approximately $1.2 million total) to the University of Michigan. Munger and his late wife Nancy B. Munger were major benefactors of Stanford University. Nancy Munger was an alumna of Stanford, and Wendy Munger, Charlie Munger's daughter from a previous marriage, was also an alumna (A.B. 1972). Both Nancy and Wendy Munger served as members of the Stanford board of trustees. In 2023, Munger made a gift of stock worth $40 million to the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Museum in San Marino, California. He gave 77 Class A Berkshire Hathaway shares valued at more than $40.3 million to the Huntington, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A decade ago, he gave the institution nearly $33 million worth of Berkshire stock to help pay for a new education and visitors center. Munger did not sign The Giving Pledge that was started by his partner Warren Buffett and co-director, Bill Gates, explaining that he "[could]n't do