- This piece is a tribute to Charlie Munger, who was known as Warren Buffett's best friend and business partner.
- Munger was a critic of corporate greed and excess and had a diverse range of interests and knowledge.
- He passed away at the age of 99, just before his 100th birthday.
- Munger believed in the power of learning and studied various subjects, even at a young age.
- He admired Benjamin Franklin and tried to model himself after him.
- Munger attended the University of Michigan and initially studied mathematics before shifting his focus.

- The speaker discusses his decision to switch from studying geology to physics during World War 2.
- He reflects on his experience in the Air Force Corps and the unpleasantness of sleeping in a tent during winter.
- The speaker talks about the significant progress and advancements in civilization that occurred in the last two centuries.
- He mentions the importance of the British Empire and the impact it had on civilization.
- The speaker discusses the growth and advancements in various fields such as biology, medicine, and chemistry.
- He shares the story of Eastman Kodak's bankruptcy and the lesson he learned about the vulnerability of common shareholders.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of being excellent at something to make money and mentions the influence of his father's friend, a leading urologist.
- He talks about the secrecy and code of magicians and their ability to deceive the senses.

- The speaker discusses how a magic trick involving the transformation of women into panthers was done using small slats of mirror and clever contrivances.
- The speaker then talks about his family's struggles during the Great Depression, with his uncles being severely affected by the economic downturn.
- One of his uncles became the chief architect for the FHA in Los Angeles and implemented important standards for building houses.
- The speaker also mentions the hardships his family faced, including the death of a cousin and a playmate at a young age.
- The speaker reflects on the high child mortality rate in the past and the emotional toll it took on families.
- The speaker shares his childhood experience of playing marbles and his strategy of only playing with opponents who he knew he could beat.

- The speaker discusses the importance of mastering economics and decision-making skills.
- They mention the difficulty of understanding economics and the ease of finding success in certain submarkets.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of waiting for good investment opportunities and not being swayed by taxes or other factors.
- They discuss the teachings of Ben Graham, who advocated for finding a few good investments and staying with them for a few years.
- The speaker notes that it has become more difficult to make money using this strategy due to increased competition and the disappearance of low-hanging fruit.
- They mention their own success in finding great companies and accumulating wealth over time.
- The speaker talks about the large amount of cash they currently have and the potential for making a big purchase.
- They mention the possibility of new people making investment decisions in the future.
- The speaker compares Berkshire's strategy to the "Wooden Effect" in basketball, where the best players receive the majority of playing time, leading to success.

- Concentrating playing time on the best players leads to success in basketball.
- Investing in venture capital is difficult and only a few outliers make money.
- Sequoia's success as an investment firm is unlikely to be replicated in the future.
- The speaker mentions the joy of successful investments like the Washington Post.
- BYD was a successful investment found by Lee Lou.
- The speaker initially thought investing in BYD's auto business was a bad idea, but it turned out to be successful.
- Luck, work, and talent are all factors in investment success.
- Berkshire's early success was attributed to investments in blue chips, stamps, See's Candy, Buffalo News, and early insurance operations.
- The speaker's worst trade was buying a block for the Bunger family in Alibaba, which was overhyped and had issues with the Chinese government.

- The speaker believes that people learn more from their mistakes and bad days than their successes.
- They emphasize the importance of not living in such a way that a bad day can destroy you.
- In terms of investing, it is advised to avoid using excessive leverage and to wait for the right opportunities.
- The speaker acknowledges that it may be harder for the current generation to achieve the same financial success as previous generations.
- However, they point out that there are also new opportunities, such as companies offering benefits to computer science graduates.
- When it comes to fixing bloated bureaucracies, particularly in the federal government, the speaker admits it is a difficult task and suggests a more comprehensive solution is needed.
- The speaker believes in the need for government and values the progress of civilization.
- They share personal anecdotes about the influence of their grandparents and the lessons they learned from them.

- The speaker discusses his grandfather's pride in surviving the Indian Wars and his willingness to talk about the hardships he overcame.
- The speaker's grandmother, on the other hand, did not like to talk about the difficult early days.
- The speaker's grandfather taught his grandchildren about fiscal matters, emphasizing the importance of taking advantage of opportunities and not being afraid to take risks.
- The speaker reflects on how they could have taken more risks and potentially achieved greater success, but chose to be cautious to avoid disappointing shareholders.
- The speaker expresses concern about the potential for global conflicts to disrupt civilization.
- The speaker discusses the budget deficit problem and the idea of setting incentives for Congress members to address it.
- The speaker mentions modern monetary theory and the need for financial responsibility.
- The speaker discusses interest rates and the need to reconsider the idea of fixed percentage returns on endowments.
- The speaker reflects on the benefits of capitalism and the importance of a sound currency for successful exchanges.
- The speaker mentions the early history of economics and the discovery of main ideas in the discipline.

- This text is a tribute to Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner and friend.
- Munger was critical of corporate greed and had diverse interests and knowledge.
- He passed away at 99, just before his 100th birthday.
- Munger believed in the power of learning and studied various subjects from a young age.
- The speaker discusses Munger's decision to switch from geology to physics during World War 2.
- The speaker reflects on Munger's experience in the Air Force Corps and the hardships he faced.
- The speaker talks about the progress and advancements in civilization in the last two centuries.
- Munger admired Benjamin Franklin and tried to model himself after him.
- The speaker discusses Munger's belief in being excellent at something to make money and mentions the influence of his father's friend, a leading urologist.
- The speaker talks about the secrecy and deception of magicians and shares a magic trick involving mirrors.
- The speaker discusses Munger's family struggles during the Great Depression and the impact it had on them.
- Munger emphasized the importance of mastering economics and decision-making skills.
- The speaker mentions the difficulty of understanding economics and the importance of waiting for good investment opportunities.
- They discuss the teachings of Ben Graham and the challenges of finding good investments in today's market.
- The speaker talks about Berkshire's success in finding great companies and accumulating wealth.
- They mention the possibility of new people making investment decisions in the future.
- The speaker compares Berkshire's strategy to the "Wooden Effect" in basketball.
- They mention the difficulty of successful venture capital investing.
- The speaker shares the joy of successful investments like the Washington Post and BYD.
- They discuss luck, work, and talent as factors in investment success.
- The speaker talks about Berkshire's early success and their worst trade in Alibaba.
- They emphasize the importance of learning from mistakes and not letting bad days destroy you.
- They advise against excessive leverage and waiting for the right opportunities in investing.
- The speaker acknowledges the challenges for the current generation to achieve financial success.
- They mention new opportunities for computer science graduates.
- The speaker discusses the difficulty of fixing bloated bureaucracies and the need for comprehensive solutions.
- They value the progress of civilization and share personal anecdotes about their grandparents.
- The speaker reflects on the potential for global conflicts to disrupt civilization.
- They discuss the budget deficit problem and the need for financial responsibility.
- The speaker talks about interest rates and the importance of a sound currency.
- They mention the early history of economics and the discovery of main ideas in the discipline.

- Lon Fuller had some understanding of how economics interwoven with law, which helped the speaker in their life.
- Proper incentive structures should be set up for public policy.
- Some people cheat the government in order to sell things and manipulate the system.
- The speaker believes that the wealthy want to hold onto their wealth and increase the wealth disparity.
- Elon Musk has been lucky in his ventures and has used leverage to his advantage.
- Reading is important for gaining knowledge and intelligence.
- The speaker receives many books as gifts and enjoys reading them.
- The speaker enjoys watching Seinfeld because it showcases self-centered people making wrong decisions and solving problems with humor.
- The speaker believes that the job of being president may be too hard and not worth worrying about.
- The speaker would like to have the power to write laws and eliminate those that are stupid and cause bad results.

- The speaker believes that certain professions, such as chiropractors, should not exist as they are not effective.
- The speaker supports the idea of capital punishment for certain individuals who are deemed mischievous.
- The decriminalization of drugs in Oregon has led to negative consequences, such as an increase in drug users on the streets.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of figuring out what works and avoiding what doesn't work in order to achieve success.
- Personal advice given includes having low expectations, a good sense of humor, and surrounding oneself with loved ones.
- The speaker reflects on missed opportunities and regrets not being smarter or working harder to achieve greater wealth.
- Despite living in a beautiful house, the speaker believes that having a basic house is more beneficial than an extravagant one.
- Staying rich is not difficult, but staying sane can be a challenge for many people.
- The speaker advises avoiding traps and making wise choices in order to lead a successful life.

- The speaker noticed that people who had early heart trouble had one thing in common: they smoked a lot of cigarettes.
- The speaker tried to smoke to fit in but it made them nauseated, so they decided not to smoke.
- They also avoided excessive drinking due to family history of alcoholism.
- The speaker doesn't know the secret to living to 100, but they avoided crazy things and standard ways of failing.
- They enjoy things like eating peanut brittle and drinking Diet Coke, even though they may shorten their life.
- The speaker watched their mother and sister die of Parkinson's disease, so they believe their diet may help them avoid the last month of life.
- The speaker believes that the practice of medicine used to be nonsensical, so they are skeptical of new methods to extend life.
- They advise others to avoid crazy things and to avoid slipping into crazy.
- The speaker has given away a lot of their money, but not as much as Warren Buffett.
- They have a busy social schedule and enjoy their old age.
- The speaker recognizes unfair advantages and has taken advantage of them.
- They had a long marriage with their second wife, Nancy, who lived to 86.
- The speaker believes that everyone struggles in life and the key is to soldier through tough times.
- They have experienced tough moments, such as the death of their first child, but they soldiered through.
- The speaker is pleased with the progress in curing childhood leukemia, which took the lives of their cousin and son.

- The speaker reflects on the positive aspects of civilization and how it has improved lives over the past 2 centuries.
- They mention a conversation with Warren Buffett about living life on their own terms and writing their own obituary.
- The speaker discusses their decision to not live a grand lifestyle and how it was influenced by their belief that it would not be good for their children.
- They emphasize the importance of soldiering on through hardships and recognizing rare opportunities.

The speaker discusses various topics including the interconnection of economics and law, the importance of proper incentive structures, cheating in the government, wealth disparity, Elon Musk's success, the value of reading, enjoying Seinfeld, the difficulty of being president, the desire to write laws, skepticism towards certain professions, support for capital punishment, negative consequences of drug decriminalization, achieving success through wise choices, personal advice, regrets, the benefits of a basic house, the challenge of staying sane, avoiding traps, and the importance of soldiering through tough times. They also reflect on their own experiences with smoking, drinking, and diet, as well as their philanthropy, social life, and belief in the progress of civilization. They mention conversations with Warren Buffett and their decision to live a modest lifestyle for the sake of their children."""

The late investing legend Charlie Munger sits down with CNBC's Becky Quick for his final television interview, discussing how he ended up at Berkshire Hathaway, his enduring relationship with Warren Buffett, and his timeless investing strategies.

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Watch Legendary Investor Charlie Munger's Final Interview With CNBC

Charlie Munger may be best known as Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman Warren Buffett's best friend, confidant and business partner for 6 and a half decades.

But Munger was also a giant in his own right, a scold of corporate excess and greed who preached to a large flock of devout followers about how to get along in investing and in life.

A Renaissance man, Munger modeled himself after none other than Benjamin Franklin.

He studied mathematics, physics, meteorology, and engineering, all before attending Harvard Law School.

He trained himself in subjects as diverse as psychology and architecture.

Munger passed away at the age of 99, just 1 month shy of his 100th birthday, and 2 weeks after our last interview with him.

Tonight, we bring you a look back at the wit and wisdom of Charlie Munger.

Hey, Charlie, first of all, I just want to thank you for inviting us to your home today and for hosting us here.

It's certainly a peculiar example of 1 life.

It's interesting that a man who started out to be a lawyer ended up with an identity that's more like a guru's than a lawyer's.

I called you a lawyer once, and I think that was the most irritated you've ever been with me, because that was how you started things, but you really have studied every field out there and tried to take things from different studies and different models in life.

Did you go about doing that intentionally?

And I was what I would call naturally arrogant.

I was in the top 1%, but not, no prodigy.

So I never would have succeeded in a field that required a mind to be that of a prodigy.

But it was a much better mind than ordinary people had.

And I recognized that quite early, and I just played the hand I was dealt, you know, to get as much advantage as I could.

Years when I was taking courses in grade school, I was often revising the textbook and the course in my head to make it more correct because I realized the professor was doing it wrong.

What kind of things would you recognize that they were doing wrong?

For instance, my Latin teacher was a maladjusted woman who was a devote follower of Sigmund Freud.

And I recognized that Sigmund Freud was a horse of science, and I still first read him when I was in high school.

And of course, it was an odd little boy whose Latin teacher was teaching him Freud.

But that was, she was peculiar and so was I.

And of course, when I read, I bought the complete writings of Sigmund Freud for the New American Library.

And so I decided I wasn't going to learn that from my Latin teacher.

And that's what I went through all my life, trying to turn every teacher into my Latin teacher.

I hadn't quite learned to understand it right yet.

The best teacher I had in my life was Lon Fuller, but he was the best contracts teacher in any law school.

And contracts is the best subject in every law school, at least I think it is, because it integrates so beautifully with the new doctrine of economics that came along with Adam Smith and all those people.

And of course I could see the integration and so could this Lon Fuller, who was a damn contract teacher.

Now he'd been the leading contract teacher in some other law school, as what got him to Harvard by transfer, which was rare in those days.

And also, I could see in the Harvard Law School something very interesting.

When I went to the Harvard Law School, it was in the immediate aftermath of a long, long range in which 15 professors handled 1,500 graduate students.

It just morphed into that system and it did it early.

And, of course, when you have a system like that, it really helps to have a few big ideas that are strewn through the system that are useful and a somber resident sees it.

He integrated law and economics is what he did to some extent.

And the reason he did is he wanted to know why do we have these kind of contracts that so obviously make modern civilization work.

And he never, he didn't explain exactly why, but I can sort of explain why to myself after hearing Lon Fuller.

You had this idea of mental models before

But it was very much a Lon Fuller-esque thing.

I have never been awestruck by any other teacher in my whole life, including some gifted mathematicians and physicists who did some remarkable things.

Did you keep in touch with him for a long time

It was like Moses or something going down to the mountaintop.

And I was pleased he was there for ordinary.

And he'd put it all in a book I didn't need on Fuller.

That's the way I handled almost all my teachers.

And he trained himself in lots of different disciplines.

And he self-trained himself with like 2 years of grade school education.

And when he found late in life, he needed something like algebra.

He went back and pulled down the textbook and taught himself algebra.

And that was a very much an interesting story for that reason.

How could a man who taught himself everything, you know, like Latin, and it was just, how could a man like that go to so many different fields and be the top guy in the whole country.

No, I — all those 5 or 6 people whom we now consider the founding fathers have worn pretty well.

But you found Ben Franklin when, how young were you when you first came across what Ben Franklin had done?

And that's when you started modeling yourself after some of these things?

know when I started modeling myself after Franklin Franklin, but I certainly tried to model myself a little bit.

I like the mixture of, of financial life and regular life, and I, and what I couldn't copy, I didn't have any musical ability.

And so Franklin was, he played 4 different musical instruments, 1 of which he invented.

Well this is a lot of musical ability that God suddenly left out of me.

So I never made any effort to imitate Franklin's musical ability.

But any other ability he had, of course, I tried to imitate.

You started out in college at the University of Michigan.

young when you went there because you had skipped some time in grade school.

Because I could get an A in it without doing any work.

decided that biology was not the proper science to handle a war.

Or, I mean, geology was not the proper science to handle anymore.

And obviously I had to start with physics.

No, I didn't take it very much, because as soon as I mastered the first part of physics, I actually entered the Air Force Corps as a private.

Marched around in some field in the middle of winter and slept in a tent.

And I must say it was pretty damn unpleasant to be outside in the winter, sleeping in a tent, look, this is the middle of November, we're in Southern California.

Yes, and of course, I noticed that it was like that.

It wasn't like that in Omaha at the time I was at Caltech.

And so I naturally thought this is better.

Yes, I understand why you moved permanently.

Yeah, well, you understand why the whole nation moved.

And it moved south and west is what it moved.

So, Charlie, you were born on the first day of 1924.

Not only that, I lived in the aftermath of a previous century of history.

In fact, you could argue that about 90% of the progress of man in civilization has occurred in the last 2 centuries, and that I lived in the immediate aftermath of 1.

And it was a very important cemetery, that cemetery that ended when I was born.

Because In that century, we figured out so very, very much that it was quite important as a start.

If you stop to think about the technical revolution, it happened in that century.

That's when they opened all these coal mines and created all these steam engines and so on.

And so it was just, and of course that's what brought the economic system up.

So man had enough leisure, had enough time to think when he wasn't getting enough food to eat.

And so it was an amazing time to be born and be born in the place in that century where all the growth was going to occur.

The heyday of the British Empire, which was probably the most important empire that ever existed on Earth, ended about the time I was born.

Pretty much the whole earth was colored red or pink for the British Empire.

But it was a little stinking island in the North Sea, And that's what they, and they created the most important civilization ever created.

Now they borrowed heavily from the Greeks and the Romans and so forth to do it, but they did it nonetheless.

And it was a very interesting thing, the idea that a system where 300 families own half the land in England, and When the summer came in England, they went to London and ran the country as a matter of noblesse oblige.

That enabled them to make the best of that 300 families and make them important parliamentarians.

That was the way in which they took civilization and their part of civilization and the total leadership of the technical revolution.

My father grew up in a world where if you wanted to go around Lincoln, Nebraska, he had to use a horse and buggy.

So, but the last 2 centuries created almost all the growth.

Before that, everybody, not everybody, but like something like 80% of all people are farmers.

And what's happened over the last 100 years has been pretty remarkable too.

Yes, the 100 years I've lived has been even more remarkable.

That's pretty much all of modern biology, modern medicine, and modern industrial civilization, modern chemistry.

Just imagine what the world would be like.

We had photographs for 100 years before we had modern chemistry.

But it was done by a guy who was a natural, very good chemist.

But nonetheless, he created a mighty company, a great growth stock and so forth.

And it finally wiped out the shareholders in bankruptcy.

It was just an amazing story that that could happen.

And of course, It helped me because if somebody as brilliant as Old Eastman and somebody who hired as many brilliant people as Old Eastman did could take the company into bankruptcy, I figured that lesser people could easily take big companies into bankruptcy eventually, in spite of their best efforts.

They hired the most brilliant graduate students.

They gave them all kinds of time to think.

They learned everything any important man on earth learned as quickly as they could and so on and so on.

And even so, they wiped out the common shareholders.

And that taught you what as an investor, as a businessman?

And I was going to be a common shareholder someday in some company.

And it helped me to know that it was very easy to wipe out the common shareholders, even in a great company run by a genius.

I mean, that's an argument for being diversified, but.

No, no, I, that, it's a, yes, it is an argument for being diversified.

And there's some argument for being diversified.

But there's also some argument for being non-diversified.

And the argument for being non-diversified is better for a few people than the argument for being diversified.

So the lesson I would take out of that is to be diversified.

Well, it was going to be very difficult to be excellent enough at anything to make any money.

And I was lucky there too, because 1 of my father's 2 best friends was a guy named Eddie Davis Sr.

Was the leading urologist, well, probably in the United States at the time.

And just working as a private physician who taught medical students urology without charging for his teaching time, because that's what doctors did in their days.

They were volunteers at the medical school.

And they also furnished free medicine to their colleagues whom they knew.

So it was like a cartel against the rest of us, and courtesy to the noble profession.

And if you read the Hippocratic Oath carefully, which I'm the kind of a fellow who did.

What he was telling the doctors to do was to keep their secrets away from the people who might compete with them in practicing medicine.

Do not reveal the secrets of our craft, outsiders.

But what he really emphasized was don't tell anybody else how to do this.

The people who have the modern system of this are the magicians.

They have kind of a code of not telling the public how they're doing the tricks.

And for a long time I could not understand how they turned those women back and forth into apes or panthers and so forth in Las Vegas.

And I thought that is a hell of a magic trick.

I couldn't figure out how in hell they were doing it.

I could figure out how they were fooling my sense of smell.

But they also brought in, they turned the women into panthers and back into women, and I couldn't understand how they were doing that.

And when I was finally explained to be by some guy who broke their code, like the code of Hippocrates.

What they had is they had little slats of mirror that slid out of little slats of bamboo.

And by using those little slats of mirror, the Frenchie button would move out.

It was just very, it was a clever goddamn contrivance to fool the eye and mind of man.

But you saw and smell a woman turning into a panther.

Let me ask you about the Great Depression.

And it was just clobbering my family everywhere it looked.

It wasn't a little clobber, it was a major clobber.

Well, my mother had 2 sisters and my father had 2 sisters.

And all 4 of those sons-in-law, who were my uncles, got utterly clobbered by the Great Depression.

1 was an architect and the other stopped building practically everything.

And he finally got a job doing drafting work for the County of Los Angeles, and they paid him 108.08 per month for doing that drafting work, which was above what they would have paid an architect, but not much above, and that's what he was earning.

And then they passed the FHA rules and that was competitive civil service examination and he was a brilliant man and so he took the examination and came in first.

They made him chief architect for the FHA in Los Angeles, which is a huge program during the 30s to revive at least some building.

He wouldn't let the subdivider get by with much.

You know, the rule was how many legible outlets there had to be in every bedroom.

And you'd make them put in the right number instead of the lesser number.

And that was an important job, builders under depression incentives being what they would naturally be, and a good architect being what he would naturally be.

And so the FHA, which was then fostering a great percentage of the total building that was going on in terms of houses, just said, you're gonna build a house, you gotta have so many electrical outlets for a bedroom.

Well, it was useful work Michael was doing.

And he was enough of an architect that he forced in a little bit of grace too, as well as the right number of electrical outlets.

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Watch Legendary Investor Charlie Munger's Final Interview With CNBC