Charles Munger, who died on Tuesday, rose from working for Warren Buffett’s grandfather for 20 cents an hour during the Great Depression to serving as Buffett’s second-in-command and foil atop Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for more than four decades.
Munger’s family informed Berkshire that he died peacefully on Tuesday morning in a California hospital.
Munger and Buffett’s partnership is one of the most successful in business history; they transformed Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with dozens of business units.
Despite pronounced differences in style and even investing, the partnership that formally began when they teamed up in 1975 at Berkshire, where Buffett was chairman and Munger became vice chairman in 1978, thrived.
Who was Charlie Munger?
Munger, known almost universally as Charlie, had a blunter style of musings on investing, the economy, and the foibles of human nature, often in laconic one-liners.
He compared bankers to uncontrollable “heroin addicts,” called Bitcoin “rat poison,” and told CNBC that “gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I don’t think civilized people buy gold.” They make investments in profitable businesses.”
Munger was equally witty when discussing Berkshire, which made both he and Buffett billionaires, as well as many early shareholders.
“I think part of the popularity of Berkshire Hathaway is that we look like people who have found a trick,” Munger said in 2010. “It’s not brilliance. It’s just avoiding stupidity.”
Munger and Buffett disagreed on politics, with Munger a Republican and Buffett a Democrat.
They also had disparities in their personal interests.
Munger, for example, had a passion for architecture, designing buildings such as “Dormzilla,” a massive proposed residence for the University of California, Santa Barbara, whereas Buffett claimed not to know the color of his bedroom wallpaper.
At Berkshire, however, the men became inseparable, finishing each other’s ideas and, according to Buffett, never arguing.
Indeed, after answering shareholder questions for five hours at Berkshire’s annual meetings, Munger would routinely deadpanned after Buffett finished an answer: “I have nothing to add.”
He did it more often than not, eliciting applause, laughter, or both.
“I’m slightly less optimistic than Warren is,” Munger said at the 2023 annual meeting, prompting laughter after Buffett expressed his familiar optimism for America’s future. “I think the best road ahead to human happiness is to expect less.”
Munger, like Buffett, was a fan of the famed economist Benjamin Graham.
Nonetheless, Buffett has credited Munger with motivating him at Berkshire to focus on buying wonderful companies at fair prices rather than fair companies at wonderful prices.
“Charlie shoved me in the direction of not just buying bargains, as Ben Graham had taught me,” Buffett has said. “It was the power of Charlie’s mind. He expanded my horizons.”
Munger met Buffett in Omaha in 1959
Munger, who was born on January 1, 1924, used to work part-time at Buffett’s grandfather Ernest’s Omaha grocery store.
Buffett worked there as well, though he and Munger, who was 6-1/2 years his senior, did not work together.
Munger went on to attend the University of Michigan, but dropped out to work as a meteorologist in the United States Army Air Corps during WWII.
Munger graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948 despite never having completed an undergraduate degree.
He then practiced law in Los Angeles, co-founding the law firm now known as Munger, Tolles & Olson, before transitioning to stock and real estate investment management in the mid-1960s.
Munger was a success, easily outperforming the broader market at his investment firm Wheeler, Munger & Co. between 1962 and 1975.
According to Buffett biographer Alice Schroeder, Munger met Buffett in Omaha in 1959, where they “fell into a tete-a-tete” after being introduced in a private room at the Omaha Club.
Charlie Munger was also a generous philanthropist
More conversations ensued, and they were soon talking on the phone for hours.
“Why are you paying so much attention to him?” Munger’s second wife, Nancy reportedly asked her husband.
“You don’t understand,” Munger replied. “That is no ordinary human being.”
Munger lived simply and drove his own car, though he was wheelchair-bound in his final years.
He was also a generous philanthropist, pledging more than $100 million to the University of Michigan in 2013 to build housing.
Nancy Munger passed away in 2010. Charlie Munger had six children and two stepchildren from his marriage.