Charlie Munger, investing genius and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, dies at age 99

Billionaire
Charlie
Munger,
the
investing
sage
who
made
a
fortune
even
before
he
became
Warren
Buffett’s
right-hand
man
at
Berkshire
Hathaway,
has
died
at
age
99.

Munger
died
Tuesday,
according
to
a
press
release
from
Berkshire
Hathaway.
The
conglomerate
said
it
was
advised
by
members
of
Munger’s
family
that
he
peacefully
died
this
morning
at
a
California
hospital.
He
would
have
turned
100
on
New
Year’s
Day.

“Berkshire
Hathaway
could
not
have
been
built
to
its
present
status
without
Charlie’s
inspiration,
wisdom
and
participation,”
Buffett
said
in
a
statement.

In
addition
to
being


Berkshire

vice
chairman,

Munger
was
a
real
estate
attorney,
chairman
and
publisher
of
the
Daily
Journal
Corp.,
a
member
of
the
Costco
board,
a
philanthropist
and
an
architect.

In
early
2023,
his
fortune
was
estimated
at

$2.3
billion —
a
jaw-dropping
amount
for
many
people
but
vastly
smaller
than Buffett’s
unfathomable

fortune,
which
is
estimated
at
more
than
$100
billion.

During
Berkshire’s
2021
annual
shareholder
meeting,
the
then-97-year-old
Munger
apparently
inadvertently
revealed
a
well-guarded
secret:
that
Vice
Chairman
Greg
Abel

“will
keep
the
culture”
after
the
Buffett
era.

Munger,
who
wore
thick
glasses,
had
lost
his
left
eye
after
complications
from
cataract
surgery
in
1980.

Munger
was
chairman
and
CEO
of
Wesco
Financial
from
1984
to
2011,
when

Buffett‘s
Berkshire
purchased
the
remaining
shares
of
the
Pasadena,
California-based
insurance
and
investment
company
it
did
not
own.

Buffett
credited
Munger
with
broadening
his
investment
strategy
from
favoring
troubled
companies
at
low
prices
in
hopes
of
getting
a
profit
to
focusing
on
higher-quality
but
underpriced
companies.

An
early
example
of
the
shift
was
illustrated
in
1972
by
Munger’s
ability
to
persuade
Buffett
to
sign
off
on
Berkshire’s
purchase
of

See’s
Candies
for
$25
million
even
though
the
California
candy
maker
had
annual
pretax
earnings
of
only
about
$4
million.
It
has
since
produced

more
than
$2
billion
in
sales
for
Berkshire.

“He
weaned
me
away
from
the
idea
of
buying
very
so-so
companies
at
very
cheap
prices,
knowing
that
there
was
some
small
profit
in
it,
and
looking
for
some
really
wonderful
businesses
that
we
could
buy
in
fair
prices,”
Buffett
told
CNBC
in
May
2016.

Or
as
Munger
put
it
at
the
1998
Berkshire
shareholder
meeting:
“It’s
not
that
much
fun
to
buy
a
business
where
you
really
hope
this
sucker
liquidates
before
it
goes
broke.”

Munger
was
often
the
straight
man
to
Buffett’s
jovial
commentaries.

“I
have
nothing
to
add,”
he
would
say
after
one
of
Buffett’s
loquacious
responses
to
questions
at
Berkshire
annual
meetings
in
Omaha,
Nebraska.
But
like
his
friend
and
colleague,
Munger
was
a
font
of
wisdom
in
investing,
and
in
life.
And
like
one
of
his
heroes,
Benjamin
Franklin,
Munger’s
insight
didn’t
lack
humor.

“I
have
a
friend
who
says
the
first
rule
of
fishing
is
to

fish
where
the
fish
are.
The
second
rule
of
fishing
is
to
never
forget
the
first
rule.
We’ve
gotten
good
at
fishing
where
the
fish
are,”
the
then-93-year-old
Munger
told
the
thousands
of
people
at
Berkshire’s
2017
meeting.

He
believed
in
what
he
called
the

“lollapalooza
effect,”
in
which
a
confluence
of
factors
merged
to
drive
investment
psychology.

Charles
Thomas
Munger
was
born
in
Omaha
on
Jan.
1,
1924.
His
father,
Alfred,
was
a
lawyer,
and

his
mother,
Florence
“Toody,”

was
from
an
affluent
family.
Like
Warren,
Munger
worked
at
Buffett’s
grandfather’s
grocery
store
as
a
youth,
but
the
two
future
joined-at-the-hip
partners
didn’t
meet
until
years
later.

At
17,
Munger
left
Omaha
for
the
University
of
Michigan.
Two
years
later,
in
1943,
he
enlisted
in
the
Army
Air
Corps,
according
to
Janet
Lowe’s
2003
biography
“Damn
Right!”

The
military
sent
him
to
the
California
Institute
of
Technology
in
Pasadena
to
study
meteorology.
In
California,
he
fell
in
love
with
his
sister’s
roommate
at
Scripps
College,
Nancy
Huggins,
and
married
her
in
1945.
Although
he
never
completed
his
undergraduate
degree,
Munger
graduated
magna
cum
laude
from
Harvard
Law
School
in
1948,
and
the
couple
moved
back
to
California,
where
he
practiced
real
estate
law.
He
founded
the
law
firm
Munger,
Tolles
&
Olson
in
1962
and
focused
on
managing
investments
at
the
hedge
fund
Wheeler,
Munger
&
Co.,
which
he
also
founded
that
year.

“I’m
proud
of
being
an
Omaha
boy,”
Munger
said
in
a
2017
interview
with

Dean
Scott
Derue
of
the
Michigan
Ross
Business
School.
“I
sometimes
use
the
old
saying,
‘They
got
the
boy
out
of
Omaha
but
they
never
got
Omaha
out
of
the
boy.’
All
those
old-fashioned
values
—
family
comes
first;
be
in
a
position
so
that
you
can
help
others
when
troubles
come;
prudent,
sensible;
moral
duty
to
be
reasonable
[is]
more
important
than
anything
else
—
more
important
than
being
rich,
more
important
than
being
important
—
an
absolute
moral
duty.”

In
California,
he
partnered
with
Franklin
Otis
Booth,
a
member
of
the
founding
family
of
the
Los
Angeles
Times,
in
real
estate.
One
of
their
early
developments
turned
out
to
be
a
lucrative

condo
project
on
Booth’s
grandfather’s
property
in
Pasadena.
(Booth,
who
died
in
2008,
had
been
introduced
to
Buffett
by
Munger
in
1963
and
became
one
of
Berkshire’s
largest
investors.)

“I
had
five
real
estate
projects,”
Munger
told

Derue.
“I
did
both
side
by
side
for
a
few
years,
and
in
a
very
few
years,
I
had
$3
million
—
$4
million.”

Munger
closed
the
hedge
fund
in
1975.
Three
years
later,
he
became
vice
chairman
of
Berkshire
Hathaway.

In
1959,
at
age
35,
Munger
returned
to
Omaha
to
close
his
late
father’s
legal
practice.
That’s
when
he
was
introduced
to
the

then-29-year-old
Buffett
by
one
of
Buffett’s
investor
clients.
The
two
hit
it
off
and
stayed
in
contact
despite
living
half
a
continent
away
from
each
other.

“We
think
so
much
alike
that
it’s
spooky,”
Buffett
recalled
in
an
interview
with
the
Omaha
World-Herald
in
1977.
“He’s
as
smart
and
as
high-grade
a
guy
as
I’ve
ever
run
into.”

“We
never
had
an
argument
in
the
entire
time
we’ve
known
each
other,
which
is
almost
60
years
now,”
Buffett
told
CNBC’s

Becky
Quick
in
2018.
“Charlie
has
given
me
the
ultimate
gift
that
a
person
can
give
to
somebody
else.
He’s
made
me
a
better
person
than
I
would
have
otherwise
been.
…
He’s
given
me
a
lot
of
good
advice
over
time.
…
I’ve
lived
a
better
life
because
of
Charlie.”

The
melding
of
the
minds
focused
on
value
investing,
in
which
stocks
are
picked
because
their
price
appears
to
be
undervalued
based
on
the
company’s
long-term
fundamentals.

“All
intelligent
investing
is
value
investing
—
acquiring
more
than
you
are
paying
for,”
Munger
once
said.
“You
must
value
the
business
in
order
to
value
the
stock.”

But
during
the
coronavirus
outbreak
in
early
2020,
when
Berkshire
suffered
a
massive

$50
billion
loss
in
the
first
quarter, Munger
and
Buffett
were
more
conservative
than
they
were
during
the
Great
Recession,
when
they
invested
in
U.S.
airlines
and
financials
like
Bank
of
America
and
Goldman
Sachs
hit
hard
by
that
downturn.

“Well,
I
would
say
basically
we’re
like
the
captain
of
a
ship
when
the
worst
typhoon
that’s
ever
happened
comes,”
Munger
told
The
Wall
Street
Journal
in
April
2020.
“We
just
want
to
get

through
the
typhoon,
and
we’d
rather
come
out
of
it
with
a
whole
lot
of
liquidity.
We’re
not
playing,
‘Oh
goody,
goody,
everything’s
going
to
hell,
let’s
plunge
100%
of
the
reserves’
[into
buying
businesses].” 

Munger
donated
hundreds
of
millions
of
dollars
to
educational
institutions,
including
the
University
of
Michigan,
Stanford
University
and
Harvard
Law
School,
often
with
the
stipulation
that
the
school
accept
his

building
designs,
even
though
he
was
not
formally
trained
as
an
architect.

At
Los
Angeles’
Harvard-Westlake
prep
school,
where
Munger
had
been
a
board
member
for
decades,
he
ensured
that
the
girls
bathrooms
were
larger
than
the
boys
room
during
the
construction
of
the
science
center
in
the
1990s.

“Any
time
you
go
to
a
football
game
or
a
function
there’s
a
huge
line
outside
the
women’s
bathroom.
Who
doesn’t
know
that
they
pee
in
a
different
way
than
the
men?”
Munger
told

The
Wall
Street
Journal
in
2019.
“What
kind
of
idiot
would
make
the
men’s
bathroom
and
the
women’s
bathroom
the
same
size?
The
answer
is,
a
normal
architect!”

Munger
and
his
wife
had
three
children,
daughters
Wendy
and
Molly,
and
son
Teddy,
who
died
of
leukemia
at
age
9.
The
Mungers
divorced
in
1953.

Two
years
later,
he
married
Nancy
Barry,
whom
he
met
on
a

blind
date
at
a
chicken
dinner
restaurant.
The
couple
had
four
children,
Charles
Jr.,
Emilie,
Barry
and
Philip.
He
also
was
the
stepfather
to
her
two
other
sons,
William
Harold
Borthwick
and
David
Borthwick.
The
Mungers,
who
were
married
54
years
until
her
death
in
2010,
contributed
$43.5
million
to
Stanford
University
to
help
build
the
Munger
Graduate
Residence,
which
houses
600
law
and
graduate
students.

Asked
by
CNBC’s
Quick
in
a
February
2019
“Squawk
Box”
interview
about

the
secret
to
a
long
and
happy
life,
Munger
said
the
answer
“is
easy,
because
it’s
so
simple.”

“You
don’t
have
a
lot
of
envy,
you
don’t
have
a
lot
of
resentment,
you
don’t
overspend
your
income,
you
stay
cheerful
in
spite
of
your
troubles.
You
deal
with
reliable
people
and
you
do
what
you’re
supposed
to
do.
And
all
these
simple
rules
work
so
well
to
make
your
life
better.
And
they’re
so
trite,”
he
said.

“And
staying
cheerful
…
because
it’s
a
wise
thing
to
do.
Is
that
so
hard?
And
can
you
be
cheerful
when
you’re
absolutely
mired
in
deep
hatred
and
resentment?
Of
course
you
can’t.
So
why
would
you
take
it
on?”

—
CNBC’s
Yun
Li
contributed
reporting.