A Conversation with Charlie Munger & John Collison

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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**Charlie Munger** (1:22)
Thank you.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (1:28)
Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy, and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.
Invest Like the Best is part of the Collossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincollossus.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:53)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of PositiveSum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of PositiveSum.
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**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:22)
We've had this interview with Charlie Munger scheduled to air for a while, coinciding with Stripe Press' launch of the amazing reprint of Poor Charlie's Almanack, which is launching today.
Tammy Winter and the team at Stripe Press created a beautiful book worth its weight in gold. You should get one immediately.
We were all stunned last week when we heard the news of Charlie's passing, but having consulted with those close to him, everyone agreed that he'd want us to release the interview as planned.
In reviewing his remarkable, uncompromising life, a few things stood out to me. The word curious doesn't do Charlie justice. He was a voracious truth-seeker. He was funny. He was wise. But from my perspective, maybe the most impressive of all was that he was a great teacher. The sheer number of people who shared a meal with him and learned from him was staggering. He gave what he learned freely to those that were interested and in the process changed people's minds and their lives.
That everyone listening can probably recite a few pearls of Munger's wisdom without looking it up is a testament to his reach and impact. He says in this interview, if you don't look, you won't find. For me and I hope for you, part of his legacy will be go seek, go learn, go look, never stop. Before I turn it over to John Collison who conducted this interview with Charlie, I'll leave you with one final quote from Charlie. He said, the best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more. Amen to that. We need more people like him. I'm thankful to be able to learn from him just one more time in this interview. Please enjoy and may Charlie rest in peace.

**John Collison** (3:52)
We are here in Charlie's house in LA where you have lived for 61 years?

**Charlie Munger** (3:57)
Yeah.

**John Collison** (3:57)
And I just learned that you designed this house.

**Charlie Munger** (4:00)
Right.

**John Collison** (4:00)
So we're here in your creation to discuss your creations, which I'm extremely excited about. I read Poor Charlie's Almanack pretty early in starting Stripe. I can't remember exactly where it was, but it was pretty early the first few years.
And now I feel like the book is an ode to thinking for yourself, where at least for me, early on at that stage, there's all this received wisdom and how things work, and it requires a certain bit of confidence to work up to actually question some of that received wisdom or come at things in your own way. And I feel I took away, obviously, there's the multidisciplinary thinking and multiple mental models, which have been very useful for me. But I feel like part of it as well in thinking about, say, for me, the Stripe business, but the quality of businesses generally is, I feel like a lot of what you get at is a sort of a map territory confusion where the professional financial world very much discusses the map and the numbers of a business, whereas you're much more obsessed with, is this a good business? Well, it goes further than that.