Finance
Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's partner
A leading authority on Charlie Munger's multidisciplinary approach to investing, business analysis, and rational decision-making derived from his extensive writings and lectures.
“Invert, always invert.”
10 Courses · 60 Lessons · 8 Hours
Biography
Born in Omaha in 1924, as a boy he worked in Warren Buffett's grandfather's grocery store without ever meeting him. He left college to enlist as a meteorologist during the war, entered Harvard Law without an undergraduate degree, and graduated with honors.
As a lawyer in Los Angeles, he realized that law made him wealthy but not free: he transitioned to real estate investments and in 1962, opened his own investment firm. From 1962 to 1975, it yielded nearly 20% annually, despite two disastrous years.
In 1959, at a dinner in Omaha, he met Buffett: thus began the most famous partnership in finance. It was Munger who convinced him that “it's better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price”—the idea behind See's Candies, and later Coca-Cola and Apple. Since 1978, he has served as Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
His weapon is the “latticework of mental models”: taking fundamental models from psychology, mathematics, physics, biology, and economics and using them in concert. And inversion: “Tell me where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.” He systematically studied the cognitive biases that ruin decision-making.
He passed away in 2023 at 99 years old, one month before his birthday. He leaves behind “Poor Charlie's Almanack,” a philosophy of continuous learning, and the conviction that rationality is a moral duty.
His library
10 Courses · 60 Lessons · 8 Hours. Select a course to see every lesson inside it.
New to Charlie? Start here
The foundational mental models that define the Munger approach to thinking.
Beginner
6 lessons
What is a Mental Model?
8 min readThe Latticework: Why One Model is Never Enough
8 min readInversion: Start by Thinking Backwards
8 min readThe Five Simple Notions for Successful Investing
8 min readCase Study: The Initial Purchase of See's Candies
8 min readThe Munger Two-Step: Filter for Quality, Then Value
8 min readTiptico courses are independent educational analyses based on publicly available information, writings, interviews, speeches and documented decisions. The individuals featured are not instructors, employees, partners, sponsors or endorsers of Tiptico unless explicitly stated.
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