#78 Charlie Munger (the Tao of Charlie Munger)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show. So we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. In the Chronicles of American Financial History, Charlie Munger will be seen as the proverbial enigma wrapped in a paradox.
He is both a mystery and a contradiction at the same time. Warren Buffett said, Charlie's most important architectural feat was the design of today's Berkshire. The blueprint he gave me was simple. Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices. Instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices. Consequently, Berkshire has been built to Charlie's blueprint.
How is it that Charlie, who trained as a meteorologist and a lawyer and never took a single college course in economics, marketing, finance or accounting, became one of the greatest business and investing geniuses of the 20th and 21st centuries?
Therein lies the mystery.
Okay, so that's from the introduction of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, the one I read this week, which is The Tao of Charlie Munger, a compilation of quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman on life, business and the pursuit of wealth.
So I wasn't expecting to do this book this week, but I saw this random tweet, and let me just read this tweet to you, and it says, The Tao of Charlie Munger by David Clark is easily the most impactful book I've read over the past five years. I've read it probably 20 times just to drill all of Munger's lessons into my head. Better than any MBA. So anytime I see a tweet like that with such a high recommendation, I've talked about this before, I think it's foolish to like, I think you should economize and be frugal with most of your resources and most things in life, but I don't think books is one of the things you should economize on or anything that teaches you something. I think it's silly. I think that's what you should be, like there's a purpose of money, that's what you should be spending your money on. So once I saw the tweet, I immediately downloaded the Kindle version and read the Kindle sample. Couldn't put it down, immediately bought the book. And normally I like to read paperback books or physical books, but I didn't want to wait. So I downloaded the entire book and just couldn't stop reading.
And before I jump into the book, I just want to talk about, I especially like, if you're new to the world of Charlie Munger, now there's two other books that I'm going to be doing on future episodes of Founders About Charlie. One of them being Poor Charlie's Almanac, which is huge. But this is a really good introduction because what David, let's see, his name is David Clark, the author. What he did is he took, the book is not like a normal chapter book. It's like 130 or 140, I would say one to two page essays. And so he takes a quote or an observation that he found of Charlie Munger and then kind of expounds on it in a few short paragraphs. So it's the kind of book where you could read it in a weekend, but I would recommend, and I'm waiting for the paperback version to arrive, just keeping it around your house and in a place where you see it all the time, pick it up, read one or two essays, put it kind of down. And that's the way I would consume it after you read it. Because I think it is very much what the person that's tweeting this is, who read it 20 times, it's very much an easy digestible reference to the mind of Charlie Munger. Now, why you might be asking, other than the fact that he's Warren Buffett's right-hand man, and like we just said, never really took a class on economics or any kind of business, yet has already had one of the most successful careers in business history. And the reason I was introduced to Charlie is because he is, there's a lot of people that I respect the way they think. And so I try to follow what they read, what they write, if they're on podcasts, et cetera like that. And what I noticed the pattern is a lot of the people that I already respect, respect Charlie Munger. And I think that's a good way. I've always talked about this idea that I was exposed to a few years ago, that books are the original hyperlinks. They link us from one person or one idea to another. Well, same thing with people, where if there's somebody you really admire the way they think, you always go back and look who influenced them because we're a species that mimics, right? So inevitably, the people you admire were heavily influenced by other people. And this podcast is kind of an example of that because I started out being interested in people that entrepreneurs, like the basic people that a lot of people look up to now. Let's say like the Steve Jobs and the Jeff Bezos and the Elon Musk's. But then the more you study them and you read their biographies, you watch videos of them talking, you realize like they always reference who influenced them. So think about this, like Steve Jobs, he was influenced by Robert Noyce, one of the founders of Intel. Robert Noyce was in turn influenced by people like Bill Hewlett and David Packard, founders of HP, who also influenced Steve Jobs. And I always talk about, if you really wanna understand Steve Jobs, you should really study the life of Edwin Land, who is, I think, one of the most, how would I say it, not underrated. Like, he had a huge impact in the world, and yet not that many people know about him. So whatever term describes that. Where, when I discuss Edwin Land, I said, hey, you really should read the biography on him called Insisting on the Impossible. And you realize a lot of the ideas that we quote Steve Jobs, he's just quoting Edwin Land. And this happens all the time. So Jeff Bezos, who is he influenced by? Well, read the Everything story. Talks about Sam Walton. Talks about a life-changing meeting with the founder of Costco.