Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist who was the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett. He was also the chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, a legal publisher and software company, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation. He was known for his value investing philosophy, his wisdom and wit, and his generous donations to various causes.

Munger was born on January 1, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, as the only son of Florence and Alfred Munger, a lawyer and a congressman. He worked at Buffett & Son, a grocery store owned by Warren Buffett’s grandfather, as a teenager. He dropped out of the University of Michigan to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, where he became a second lieutenant and a meteorologist. He later studied at Caltech and Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. in 1948. He founded Munger, Tolles & Olson, a renowned California law firm, and practiced as a real estate attorney.

He met Buffett at a dinner in Omaha in 1959, and they became close friends and business partners. He gave up law in the 1960s to focus on investing, and ran his own investment partnership, which achieved remarkable returns. He joined Berkshire Hathaway in 1978 as the vice chairman, and helped Buffett diversify the company’s portfolio by acquiring or investing in various companies that had strong competitive advantages, consistent earnings, and low debt. Some of their most notable investments include American Express, Coca-Cola, GEICO, Wells Fargo, Apple, and Amazon.

Munger was famous for his value investing philosophy, which advocated buying stocks of companies that were undervalued, well-managed, and profitable, and holding them for the long term. He was also known for his mental models, which were frameworks for thinking and decision making that incorporated insights from various disciplines, such as psychology, economics, physics, and biology. He was also known for his wit and wisdom, and his ability to explain complex financial concepts in simple and clear terms. He wrote and spoke extensively on various topics, such as ethics, investing, education, and happiness. He was nicknamed the “Abominable No-Man” for his tendency to veto bad ideas.

As of January 2024, Munger had a net worth of $3.2 billion, making him the 1,001st-richest person in the world, according to Forbes¹. However, he had pledged to give away most of his wealth to charitable causes, mainly through the Munger Research Center, which he founded in 2013 to support scientific research and education. He also donated to various universities, such as Stanford, Harvard, and Caltech, and to various organizations, such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the Nature Conservancy. He was one of the co-founders of the Giving Pledge with Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, a campaign that encourages billionaires to donate at least half of their fortunes to philanthropy. He had donated more than $1.5 billion to various charities so far, making him one of the most generous philanthropists in history.

Munger was married three times. His first wife was Nancy Jean Huggins, whom he married in 1945 and divorced in 1953. His second wife was Nancy Barry Borthwick, whom he married in 1956 and died in 2010. His third wife was Nancy Borthwick Munger, whom he married in 2011. He had seven children, Wendy, Molly, Ted, Charles, Barry, Philip, and Emilie, and several grandchildren. He lived in the same modest house in Pasadena that he bought in 1962 for $250,000. He was an avid reader, chess player, and piano player. He was also a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and the Wall Street Journal newspaper, which he read daily. He was a Republican and had supported various political candidates and causes, such as Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and lower taxes for the middle class. He was regarded as a role model and a mentor by many aspiring investors and entrepreneurs around the world..