Charlie Munger

CNBC Full Interview with Warren Buffett — 2026 Annual Meeting (May 2, 2026)

“the different groups, not not just the Italian mafia, but all I mean it itItalian mafia, but all I mean it itItalian mafia, but all I mean it it wasn't that they were all we had somewasn't that they were all we had somewasn't that they were all we had some system for picking out the the wonderfulsystem for picking out the the wonderfulsystem for picking out the the wonderful people from some other countries, butpeople from some other countries, butpeople from some other countries, but it has it has worked. But it's work theit has it has worked. But it's work theit has it has worked. But it's work the extremes to which it worksextremes to which it worksextremes to which it works uh don't seem to belong to that kind ofuh don't seem to belong to that kind ofuh don't seem to belong to that kind of a society. I mean if you were drawing upa society. I mean if you were drawing upa society. I mean if you were drawing up dreams for the ideal society and youdreams for the ideal society and youdreams for the ideal society and you would have this kind of GDP per cap andwould have this kind of GDP per cap andwould have this kind of GDP per cap and everything you wouldn't designeverything you wouldn't designeverything you wouldn't design you wouldn't design theyou wouldn't design theyou wouldn't design the you wouldn't decide the inheritance ofyou wouldn't decide the inheritance ofyou wouldn't decide the inheritance of laws. you wouldn't I mean you just dolaws. you wouldn't I mean you just dolaws. you wouldn't I mean you just do all kinds of things differently butall kinds of things differently butall kinds of things differently but somehow it's workedsomehow it's workedsomehow it's worked but that doesn't mean thatbut that doesn't mean thatbut that doesn't mean that we can't do better I mean at allwe can't do better I mean at allwe can't do better I mean at all”

Mental Models for Running Startups and Businesses, SXSW 2026 on March 16, 2026

“and we should go all in. So, that's an example of another mental model where you combine model one and model 14, and it gets you somewhere which is a great place to be. I think if you read these three books, you know, Poor Charlie's Almanack, Influence by Robert Cialdini, who's a good friend, and the one I came across most recently because of the Founders Podcast is one by Kevin Kevin Kelly. I think these three books are better than any college degree. They're going to teach you a lot more than any college can teach you. And they're so accessible and they're so cheap. So, it's just really excellent. Best things in life are free. You know, this is not all the models, but there's a zillion more models that we're not going to be able to talk about today. So, with the first model, you know, fast is slow. There's a good friend of mine, Young Pin Duan. Let's call him Ping. I”

Buffett threatens to come back if Berkshire does this after he's gone

“Oh, it isn't going to go away. No, it's going to get worse. I mean, the, if you look at, I mean, the way compensation gets handled, you know, everybody looks at everybody else's proxy statement says we can't possibly hire a guy that isn't the, you know, and so on. And the human relations department, you know, work for the CEO, come in and suggest a consultant. What consultant is ever going to get another assignment? He says you should pay your CEO below the down in the fourth quartile because you're getting a fourth quartile result. I mean, it just, you know, it isn't that the people are evil or anything. It's just the nature of the situation just, it produces a result that is not consistent with how representatives of the ownership should behave.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Fireside chat with Ben Graham Centre on October 14, 2025

“that doesn't mean there can't be two more versions or three more versions of it. So we benefit a lot by standing on the shoulders of giants. we're not going to be able to figure everything out. I cannot figure most things out. So to me, cloning is I mean my life would be pathetic without cloning. It's one of our fundamental mental models is everything when I look at that I've done that has worked well has all been cloning. And if I look back at my life, there's hardly anything new that I came up with. It's just the way it is.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Sessions at UNO on May 2, 2025 and Columbia Business School on March 25, 2025

“Yeah, the checklist actually is a very useful tool and it's helped us in aviation a lot where air travel is become extremely safe mainly because of the use of checklists by pilots you know and before they take off before they land and so on and I had applied the same concept. So the aviation checklist came about from examining failures. So they when a plane crashed, the FAA would always go in and try to figure out why did the crash happen. And then the FAA actually takes a pragmatic view of reality. They have a definition of what a human life is worth. And I haven't kept up, but it used to be around $10 million a few years back. So when they see a lane crash and they see”

Mohnish Pabrai's Sessions at UNO on May 2, 2025 and Columbia Business School on March 25, 2025

“Well, the one issue is that if you bought something and it was 5% of your portfolio and then it became 95%. You are now rich. But if you just start off with the 95% in the best business, how are we going to get rich? What I'm trying to say is that now you have you so we just talked about that we cannot tell in advance which ones are going to do well. What you're doing is you're taking a yesterday's winner. You're putting everything into yesterday's winner and saying that yesterday's winner is going to be tomorrow's winner. That's effectively what you're saying, right? Because what I'm saying is we know that Amazon is great, right? And we put everything into Amazon today. It could work. The way I'm wired, I wouldn't be able to make that bet because I wouldn't be able to get the conviction. It would be easier for someone like me with my”

Mohnish Pabrai's Sessions at UNO on May 2, 2025 and Columbia Business School on March 25, 2025

“have to be able to go through several decades of no activity. Can you do that, Alex? It's the most important thing to learn. The most important thing. And you know, there's a hack, a very easy hack. Just find something else you're excited about which doesn't involve dollars or money or investing or anything. You know, you can become a bridge player. You can become a golf player. You can go race F1 cars. Whatever. Find something else activity number two which is going to suck up all the time so that you will live an excited life with the uh portfolio not being touched. So Nick sleep actually I think he's in Nirvana. You know that's where we have to get you to Alex. We have to get you to Nirvana before you enter the real world. Okay, we have very little time left. Can we have a course on it? Oh, thank you so much for the showering and I really appreciate the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview at the Investors Podcast on April 15, 2025

“still end up being more so to me the great challenge and I don't know whether I'll be able to meet this challenge and I'll be disappointed if I didn't meet the challenge but it's a really tough challenge is one day before I die June 10th 204 I want to have $10,000 left on maybe even 500 $5,000 left that'd be even better okay now if a day before I die there's 3 billion left I have failed I lost the game now the difficulty with this challenge is I don't want to give the money to red cross because the red cross is with due respect suboptimal right so for me the challenge is be left with 10,000 but to have it given away in a manner that any critical observer would to say that was fantastic not my friend saying that was fantastic someone who's a critic looks at it and says that was fantastic he may have had other flaws but this was fantastic okay so”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview at the Investors Podcast on April 15, 2025

“Nvidia, those are some more that are going to stay for some time because he got a head start and and ASML may stay forever. I mean, that's like black magic. So, it is really anomalies in capitalism that lead to modes. It's very difficult to actually conceive of a business and then start a business saying I'm going to have XYZ mode and actually be successful at doing that. Even when we look at a business like Coca-Cola or we look at business like American Express, these started moless, there were no modes. The founders had no idea what a moat is. They kind of stumbled along and in some cases their original business model died and a new business model emerged accidentally and they made it. So almost impossible to start out with the idea that I'm going to create a moat and moes are very rare. I would say that approach businesses and”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session with Ashoka Investment Club on April 22, 2025

“that speech every year because every time I read it, I find stuff that I'm sure I'm reading for the first time. Like I say, hey, I've never really thought about this. So for example, I mean these mental models they're they come from the fact that because evolution is a very messy process and because our brains are a mix of ancient and modern kind of mishmash together, there is a lot of quirks and weirdness in our brains and having an understanding of some of those quirks and weirdness can be quite important. So for example in the times of hunter gatherers someone would go hunting and bring down a big animal. Now when they bring down a big animal and they bring it to their community they cannot refrigerate that animal and eat it over a long period of time because there's no refrigeration. So what the hunter does is he calls all his neighbors and says I”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session with Ashoka Investment Club on April 22, 2025

“management fee. Zero. So now what that told me is wide openen opportunity right. So there are multiple mental models coming in here. The first is what my bridge partner Roger says. What is going on here? So well what is going on here is we already know humans are idiots about cloning model of the greatest investor ever the greatest returns. Nobody wants to touch it. Well the Indian guy is going to go touch it and take it because it's just sitting there. I saw that that model was not cloned. I know that humans are bad at cloning. That is why Walton did well and that is why Bill Gates did so well because people are not willing to stoop so low as to create a company like Walmart or Microsoft. They think that's beneath them. These are lowquality businesses and lowquality operations because they have done copying. So no one is interested in”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session with Ashoka Investment Club on April 22, 2025

“canvas to draw on. I've mentioned a few times in previous talks there was a very good friend of Charlie Mer John Ariga. Johnga was a real estate investor. He was a billionaire and in fact his daughter is married to Mark Andre. So that's billionaire to the power of billionaire you know. So anyway Johnga in his entire life only invested in real estate within 2 miles of the Stanford University campus. That's all he did. Nothing else. And he became a billionaire. So what is John Ariga's circle of competence? Well it's this small. It's really tiny. One can get extremely wealthy by having a very tiny circle of competence. One of my mental models which I actually came to realize it's a very simple model. I came to realize this during the financial crisis is that if you are a commodity producer and now when I'm going to describe it to you you're going to say like you know”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session with Ashoka Investment Club on April 22, 2025

“commonly used for construction of US houses. If something hits you in the head with like a cricket bat, let's say that in short 2x4, that's what we want. We want things that are like total no-brainers with like what's going on here, you know, take it from there. So, we don't need large circle of competence. John Arriga proves that to us. We we can have a very tiny circle of competence and we don't need to know a lot of things about the way the world works. We need to know a lot about a few things. So it's better to be an inch wide and a mile deep than to be a mile wide and an inch deep. So if you really understand very few businesses or very few industries but you understand extremely well and then you invest in them in periods where it you know appears you can't lose then that's over time may work.”

Berkshire can't compete with private equity in life insurance

“Yeah. I don't want to copy Berkshire's model, but usually they don't want to copy it by also copying the model of the CEO having all of his money in the company forever. And I mean, they've got a different equation. They're interested in, and that's capitalism, but they have a whole different situation, and they probably have a somewhat different fiduciary feeling. about what they're doing and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, they go on to other things. And if I, what we do here at Berkshire doesn't work, I spend the end of my life regretting what I've created. So it's just a whole different personal equation and there is no property casually company that can basically replicate Berkshire.”

Morning Session - 2025 Meeting

“No, I think you've touched it, but as you said, it's right up our alley. And I absolutely agree, Warren. believe we'll see some very large opportunities long term. And that's just been a great plus of that, that relationship.”

Morning Session - 2025 Meeting

“He didn't dream of the fact, I mean, men that would really be converted, or converted in energy, and the way that would change the world. When I was born in 1930, they had known about the law of physics that Einstein had come up with 25 years earlier. Nobody, to my knowledge, had thought, what can this do to change warfare in the future? And literally, it just wasn't thought. Einstein didn't think about it at that point. And then in 1939, Roosevelt got a letter. They got around August 1st. It's the most famous letter in history from Leo's the Lord. Leo's Lord couldn't get his letter in front of Roosevelt because whoever heard of Leo's the Lord, but he got Einstein to sign it. And Roosevelt probably understood about as much about physics as I do, so he didn't understand it, but he understood that Einstein signed it. So he calls in a general role, or may not have been general, then, and said, we should do something about this, and all we did was learn how to destroy the world. And we needed to do it, and Germany at Heisenberg, and he looked like he was, he was ahead of us. And he can't put that genie back in the waddle. And its role does change. And we've got all these ones, we've got wonderful things. We've got wonderful things, but we also have, we have a guy in North Korea, if we criticize his haircut, you know, who knows what he might decide to do with. What does North Korea need, need nuclear weapons for? I mean, can that be a good thing in the world? But they're not going to go away, so it's a world of change, and we are enjoying incredible change. We've treated everybody in this room living so much better than people were living a couple hundred years ago. But we haven't been able to, we haven't changed human beings very much so far. We've certainly changed weapons of mass destruction, but we haven't made much progress with the human race. And we'll see what happens with that, but in the meantime, we'll see changes in auto insurance, too, and cars. And the easier for us to deal with it than it was when we had to deal with the problems of turning out textiles in New England. And you deal with the world as it develops. And like I say, everybody here is living in the luckiest period. And you still try to figure out the answers to what's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. In all insurance, as we go along, and we've done. pretty well actually adapting to the answers. There's a few big problems in insurance.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview at The Money Mindset with Sonia Shenoy on February 15, 2025

“was one of the most overpriced companies. It was the most overpriced companies. It was one of the best companies at that time in 2000, but it was very overpriced. So it is in the nature of equities that they are going to get get into some periods when they get severely overvalued. There'll also be periods when they get severely undervalued and there are periods when they may be normal. It's all of the above, right? And if you are a no nothing investor, buy the index. What's a no nothing investor? a know nothing investor who doesn't know whether a stock is oh no okay okay overvalued undervalued whatever who has no time to research and and so but I'm just saying if the the no nothing investor just buys the index and you know the next HTFC or the next Asian pays is in there we just don't know which one it is but it's in there and you just let it stay in that index for”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, no, of course everybody would rather have a business for a high return on capital. This is just like are you doing it.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, it's been a very, I took that because it was basically a losing hand. And I placed so many winning hands. winning hands, I thought I should force myself to play a losing hand.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“And I must say it's been very difficult.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I think a single-payer health system would work a lot better, yes. I think it will eventually come. I think the existing system is A ridiculous room goal. It's a ridiculous system.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“To recognize that he has some flaws. Okay. So you bet against the jockey, not against the horse necessarily?”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“He was just, you're sort of building a chain letter. It's intrinsically a sort of dishonorable thing to do. Because your nature, then you're doing something that can't continue on its own motion, you're making it look like a will. So it's intrinsically sort of dishonorable. So I don't like chain letter operators. I don't like drunks. I don't like drunks. I don't like people that help them to buy. I don't like people who raise prices on drugs that people have to have by 500% overnight. Just as over. Just a lot of flags were flying.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Yes, I know him slightly. Very slightly.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, he was a genius. On the other hand, he was a screwball. He absolutely was nuts about screwing a lot of different women. I'm going after the wives of his own graduate students. That's disgusting. So he had this blind spot. In physics and teaching, he was one of the noblest people we've ever had. But in his personal life, he was a little nuts.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Yeah, real estate. The trouble of real estate is everybody else understands it. And the people who you're dealing with and competing with it, they've specialized on a little 12 blocks or a little. 12 blocks are a little industry. They know more about the industry than you do. And you've got a lot of bullshitters and liars and brokers. So it's not a bit easy. It's not a bit easy. The trouble is it's easy. All these people, a whole bunch of things that love real estate. You know, Asians, the city, Jews, India's of India, they all love real estate. They're smart people. And they know everybody and they know the tricks and getting this. You don't even see the good offerings in real estate. They show that the big investors are dealing. It's not an easy game to play from, from again and some point of view, real estate. Whereas stocks, you're equal with everybody, if you're smart. In real estate, you don't even see the opportunities when you're a young person starting out. They go to others. The stock market's always open. It's adventure capital. Sequoia sees the good stuff. You could open office, Joe Schmo, venture capitalists. Startups come to me. It's starved at it in. You got to figure out what your competitive position is and what you're choosing. Real estate has a lot of difficulties. And he said, those Patels from India that buy all the motels. They know more about motels than you do. They live in the goddamn motels with their family. They pay no income taxes. They don't pay much in workman's compensation. And every day, time they get, they fix up the thing and buy another motel.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, first there's some very good people with his family. One of whom I worked under was Fred Buffett. So we had people we knew well that were really noble people. So we had bases to compare people against. And we had bases to compare really against in terms of capacity and talent. So we had a lot of data in our heads that helped us. I think we had some genetic advantages. Not IQ points, just absolute quirks of nature that made us better. Like, what was it, Harry Bottle? What was his name?”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I'd worked with them in an electronics business that had gotten terrible difficulties. He'd help us work out of that business trouble by downsizing. He knew how to do it. And Warren had a business that needed it. business that needed downsizing and Ward did not know how to do it. So I put those two together. Of course, it worked well.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“What I learned is easy money and easy leverage and so forth in investment banking. It creates a culture that's all envy, jealousy, craziness, overreaching, over leveraging. It's a very hard business. very hard business to manage. It was out of control. The envy was these people won versus CERC. If one jerk got four million dollars some year, the other guy was curiously only got three million. And they just seethed and caused trouble. It was a very difficult business to manage. I think a lot of easy money that comes into finance just ruins practically everybody. No thing so.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, it's a very odd thing. It's a very odd thing for us to do, and obviously we've got no special insights as to how sticky Apple's business is. Apple, whole supply chain is like one man with two million employees. That's very peculiar. And the man is not perfect. On the other hand, Apple has a very sticky bunch of customers.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“You've got a time shift of the power if it comes from either the sun or the wind. Of course there are going to be a lot of storage. This might sound like Max Planck, chauffeur kind of knowledge, but when it comes to find the sellout price, the intrinsic value of the company, you want to compare that to the market. Of what? Just BYD, let's say. How would you... Oh, that's hard. And again, we've learned things there. When we bought in, we could see that a venture capitalist were paid three times as much for that kind of a deal. So it was cheap as a venture, and we could see it was a good venture capital thing because the guy had worked minor miracles already. So we, that was a cheap stock, but it was one that took some special insight. And I wouldn't have had it, Lee What? It's, it's Lee Liu who found that. And once we were in it, I got to know on John Fu. I know Juan Chon Fu, even though he can't speak a word of English. And Juan Chon Fu is a genius. And he's shrewd. And he's honest and he's fanatic and he loves his company and so on and so on and so on. And what he can do is just incredible. He learns whole new technologies. So it's mostly qualitative? It's partly what they have. And it's partly what it's quality. Partly I'm betting on the horsemen. betting on the horseman out there. I mean, because he's on the, and he's got a bunch of Chinese, young Chinese. You can't believe what those employees do. He's got 230,000 Chinese working for him. Berkshire only has 460,000 employees. Why? It's a lot of employees. And they can do things you can't believe you look at those young Chinese girls. Would you? Would you buy the whole company if you, if they'd allow that? If they'd allow that? I don't think so because one of the reasons he succeeds is the Chinese are proud of a eighth son of a peasant that creates a little company all himself and is doing so far. And a lot of the other stuff they're doing joint ventures and automobiles. They're joint ventures with the West that was already had. So in a sense they love and are proud of their own man, the son of the peasants that did it all himself and it's still Chinese. So I wouldn't want to destroy it. I wouldn't want to destroy that Chinese image by buying BYD. It works better the way it's going. But you're right, I'm betting to some extent on a person. I was in their battery separator plant. There are about five companies on Earth's owning battery separators.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“That goo comes bilaterally and hangs together through its own chemical something cohesion. It's the most complicated damn process you ever saw. It's very hard to do. If you don't do it exactly, right, the battery fails. He just learned that. Boom, what he needs to know, he just figures out. There aren't many people who can do that.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“No, I think that Aunt John Fu knows what he can do and what would be really difficult. I think Elon Musk thinks he can do anything. I'd rather bet on the man. Some limit to his self-appraisal.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Way better than you think. Bezos is utterly brilliant and utterly remorselessly ambitious. I would never bet against Jeff Bezos.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“And a few nuts like you make us get something out of it. But in terms of the greater world, I bored the people. Some of my fellows sleep. It was the most failed talk I ever gave. And so I published it when they did Poor Charlie's Almanac. Because I still think the basic lessons are right. It's just it's hard to understand. hard to understand. Most people don't understand basic psychology very well.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, all I did was create a building. They already had the institute. But it looks fantastic, the whole idea and everything.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“No, I'm working on another student building in UCSC. UCSB.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I really am deeply aware of this agricultural revolution, and everything takes it for granted. It wasn't, you know, it isn't like agricultural productivity ever increased by 300% in a few decades. I mean, it was just amazing what happened. And of course, the world needed it terribly. terribly. And so I'm quite impressed. And more of that's coming. So all this stuff about gene splicing to make plants grow better, and gene splicing to make domestic animals produce better. All that's coming. Some are starting to work already. And they'll push this crossbreeding of seeds in the ordinary way. A few more. It's a hugely important thing that's happening, and the world needs it terribly. And it changed the whole world for everybody. We couldn't have this civilization without the food. And there's not that much arable land. We have to get more product out of our existing land. And our existing land, the way we're farming it intentionally, is degrading. And the reason we produce all this stuff is we pour chemicals and so forth into the land. Fungicides, herbicides, insecticides too. But it's just amazing what's happened. And we've made the miracle rice, the miracle grains. It's just, and so I'm quite impressed by the fact they keep doing that stuff. And to have 1% of the people produce all the food for America on their farms, when we used to have 80% of the people, it's a huge, huge change in the human condition.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“And we'd all be doing stoop labor instead of running around on airplanes to hear people talk. If it weren't for all these revolutions that our predecessors created for us. So I have, I always, I'm, I just find that quite interesting. And we need it. I'm, Costco, you know, buys a lot of produce now. For vegetables growing in hot houses. Let me grab, let me grab me. And by and large, those are, those are Chinese. The Chinese who are good, they, you know, funny, six-acre hot house they really know where every damn blade is growing and it's not that different from rice growing. I mean, they're just very good at it. And that has a lot of potential that isn't, that is coming. So I like the agricultural stuff. Most people will just ignore it. We take it for granted. But I'm quite impressed by it.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“What? I don't know TransDime. What is TransDimes?”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Oh, I don't know anything about Transdine. But of course, it's generally a little easier to cheat the government that is to cheat anybody else. And so a lot of people try and cheat the government on defense contracts. And of course, there's suppliers also if the whole culture has some cheating. So I regard it as a little bit dangerous territory. But I don't know nothing about Transign.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I'm sure it's way better. You'd stop stealing it. They'd already cut off your left hand. You wouldn't want to lose the other.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“it could have handled its succession plans differently for his businesses? Well, I never knew of Summner Redstone, but I followed him because he was a little ahead of me in law school. But Sumner Redstone. was a very peculiar man. Almost nobody's ever liked him. He's a very hard-driven, tough tomato. And basically, almost nobody's ever liked him, including his wives and his children. And he's just gone through life. There's an old saying, screw them all except six and save those for pallbearers. And that is the way Sumner-Richton went through life. And I think he was into the point. And I think he was into the pallbearers because he lived so long. So one thing I've used someone or rest of all my life as an example of what not to do to do. He started with some money. And it was very shrewd and hard driven. You know, he saved his life by hanging while the fire was up in his hands. He's a very determined high IQ maniac. But nobody likes him. And nobody ever did. And when he paid for sex in his old age, cheated him. You know, he's had one this of one with another. Yeah. It's not a life you want to admire. I've used Sumner Redstone all my life as an example of what I don't want to be. But for share talent driving shrewdness, you would hardly find anybody stronger than Sumner. And he didn't care if people like him.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, that's. They all, they all, they, they, our ancestors were pretty good at creating fragile moats, too. I think it's natural with what's up in one era. Think of what I've lived through in terms of the people. DuPont looked impregnable. General Motors was the strongest corporation in the world. Kodak was one of the, boom, boom, boom, but they're gone, Xerox. I mean, it is hard to keep winning, and the world keeps changing. Look, the daily journal, it's hard. Imagine going into computer programming, dealing with a lot of agencies all over the world, including South Australia, bubble company like this. It's not a bit easy. And if we hadn't done it, we'd just be one more dying newspaper.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I do not. I've always been troubled by the cable industry. For one thing, it was thinly disguised bribery when they got the franchises. I don't like to even think about a lot of scummy places that are getting their franchises by robbery. So I've just sort of ignored it. I didn't want to think about it. Malone is obviously something of a genius and he's a fanatic and doesn't like to pay taxes. And he's been very successful. very successful and I've just ignored it. I just don't want to think about it, so I haven't. I can afford the luxury and I don't have to think about everything. But the starting bribery that got the franchises, I just didn't like it. So I just haven't thought about it, and I'm still not thinking about it. And the movie business I don't like either because it's been a bad business. Career and labor unions, crazy agents, crazy screaming lawyers. screaming lawyers, idiosyncratic stars taking cocaine. It's just not my field. I just don't want to be in it. And these other stuff, I find out of the other stuff that I like. We've got so many places in Berkshire that just do their work pretty well. I like that. You'll be amazed. The Seas candy, they make the good candy they work out. We've got lots of places like that. Our utility business. We probably have the best run utilities in the United States.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“We care more about satisfying the regulators. We care more about safety records. We care more about everything we should care about. We bought Northern Natural Gas, which Enron owned. Of course, to show more earnings and more cash, they just don't know maintenance. The goddamn pipeline can blow up and kill people. And the minute the ink dried on that, we could, everybody took six months off and we spent all these pigs through the a big special name. We went through the pipelines, and we just caught up on all the deferred maintenance. We were not just killing people. That's the right way to behave. Enron is the wrong way to behave. Imagine deferring maintenance on a pipeline so you can show more cash. It's disgusting. It's like killing people on purpose so you can make more money. I mean, it's deeply immoral. And so, but they fix it fast. Of course, I'm glad to be associated with people who behave like that. Greg Abel is a terrific operator and a terrific guy. And he's actually in Iowa, Nebraska or side by Nebraska. Nebraska has public power. So they did not, they borrowed tax exempt, build a new plant, General Electric, they're paying 3% on the debt or something. And they could run a big public power agency. Our Iowa utility, the Greg A. well runs right across the river. His rates are miles below Nebraska public power entirely finances, you know, and the other utility in Iowa, our rates are half theirs. Of course I'd like being associated with a company that can deliver the power quite a lot. And more than 50% of all the power in Iowa comes from the wind. So we're, and the farmers are glad to have a few wind machines out among the corn. And so we've just quietly created a revolution there. The regulators, the customers, everybody likes it. Of course I like people who do that. And Berkscher's full of that stuff.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“That is very interesting. I don't want to be in the... the bottom 80% of the auto dealers. Sure. I think these people are well up in the top 20. And so if we've got 80 dealerships making 3 million a year after taxes, it's $240 million.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, it could. You could change things so much that Geico would be a bad business. Everything can change. That's the nature of the game is that your great business is that you're a great business. are being eroded by something at all times. I think it's a long time in the future. I think it's a very complicated subject. After all, if you're in a self-driving car, it works better if all the things are being self-driven by the same people. We have that already. The monorails don't have operators. Nobody's driving the monorail.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“The goddamn computer won't. He's not programmed to care about machine guns.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“On what? On investing, on just basically thinking, not just investing, but just... Well, I think we've had some effect. But they're still teaching the efficient market theory in the business. And the old ideas died hard. And by the way, it's roughly right. It's just the very hard form, which everybody believed. They believed it was impossible. It was rare. They thought efficiency was absolutely inevitable.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“It was like physics. I call it physics envy. That's what they had in the finance field. They wanted to make their subject like physics. Now, what kind of a nut would want to make stock markets like physics? It ain't like physics. It's more like a mob at a football game.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“interested? Well, I think I am interested, and I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. It's worked. It's just what I recommended. And he picks on the same stocks. Right.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I think what a simple way that was to get rich.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Of course. Of course I was surprised on election day.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, no, because I expect to be disappointed with politics.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I didn't change him that much. You know, Warren would have gotten there anyway. Maybe I accelerated it in six months. But Warren would have figured out that what he was doing wouldn't scale.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“So I was very fond of my dad. My grandmother, Munger, was more disciplined than my father. My father made a good income as a lawyer, which he carefully spent, except for his life insurance in his house, and so on. My grandfather always saved his money. And the Great Depression came, he could save the whole rest of the family.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“And so, actually, I remember more when I talk about the investors. And the Alfred Munger Foundation? I mean that for my father. That's not my grandfather. Right.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I'm going to give away all that money with where I'm dead if I'd last a little longer. It's not that much money.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Whatever appeals to me at the time. I don't ask anybody.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“What?”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Doing what? So we're giving away money. money?”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I do it. If I give anything off again, please. I regard this is a tax exempt, a bunch of munger money. I've got no staff. I just do it.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I do it when I want to do it and I give where I want to give it.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, naturally, we hope the grandchildren do well. In any grandchild, I've got one who's running a little tiny partnership. But my grandchildren are all doing different things. I've got one at Google. He's a computer software engineer.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I've never bought, I've read Fortune for 60. or 60. Fortune for 60.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I bought them for my wives. But I always bought a Cadillac that was about 3,000 miles on a way cheaper. Pull around and coach airplanes. He has to go to the Berkser-Hathaway meetings and coach. They were all the coach, too. They'd stand up and clap.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Yeah, well. That's the way he felt.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I don't have his idea that he was good at puzzles, because this was a big puzzle to him. So he actually loved that great puzzle on the puzzle maker in the sky.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I have a lot of children. I educated them all. And I take the results as they fall. Well, it's going to do with a family. I have a lot of very admirable children, some of whom are out there today. And that's a huge blessing. One of things I like about them is that they're decent, generous people. One of my daughters who was there. He had a friend who was married to a total church. go to the church, straightened circumstances, bitter divorce. My daughter just bought her a house. I think she owns the house, but his other family lives in it. What's your opinion? That's a nice, generous thing to do if you're rich. Wow. I'm glad my children like that and not like some arrest them. What's your opinion of the giving flag? I told Gates that I wouldn't do it. Because I've already found. Because I've already flouted it. When Nancy died, community property stay, I, she left it up to me to decide where it went. But I knew she would want to go to the children. Every wife, always afraid the old man will have his money taken away by some nurse or something. He's dotage. I knew Nancy would want to go right to the children. So I shunted more than half the monger portion, quite a bit more than a half to the children. I said, I've already totally violated. I've already totally violated the spirit of his plague. And I said, Bill, I'm not going to publicly be a spokesman for something. I've already totally flouted. And I flouted it because I knew my wife who had helped me all these years would have wanted it that way. I'm not a good example for his pledge. So I won't do it. I don't pretend to be doing something I really didn't do.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“A long life has many disappointments and agonies in it. I watched the sister die of horrible death of Parkinson's disease, dying young, 64. I lost my first son to leukemia, miserable, slow death. And at the end, he kind of knew it was coming. I've been lying to him all along. It was just so awkward. And it was just pure agony. You have some of those agonies that are going to happen. There's not so much agony when somebody's really old dies. You know, they deteriorate so much, you almost don't miss them. Which I'm doing a good job of. But, no, I think you just take the hardships as they come. You take the blessings as they come. You have fun out of figuring out the puzzles as best you can. It's really, we're very blessed to have the... We're in the United States. We're not in India. We're not in India. under some crazy dictator like Russia, live where everybody's like bribe India. We got a lot to be thankful for here. And we have a lot of options. We can change jobs. We can move around. We can do this to that. We get a huge admixture here with all the cultures of the world without having to travel. So we're not restricted to one narrow group of Bulgarian farmers making olive oil or something. We got this great mixture of people. great mixture of people who are quite interesting and quite different, and they're all cross-marrying, which makes it even more interesting. It's amazing to me there was a lot of anti-Jewish prejudice when I was young. And now every family I know, they got a thorough cross-married. I don't have a friend, hardly, but the big family doesn't have a Jewish in-law. It's all, and the old ideas have sort of died. How did you meet your wife? wife and how did she accept you? My wife, 52 years and died seven years ago. That was mutual friends who introduced us. We were both divorced, both the same age, both had two children. And I only say that I owe a gratitude to the people that introduced us.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Yeah. the stress that you had to go through because it looks like it was going to go under right at one point for a while, right? Well, take us the story about the buffoons. We were never the weakest in the town. So we were betting that we'd be the survivor. And we were. So it was unpleasant because we showed no return for a long time. But when the other guy finally turned up his toes, we suddenly started making a lot of money. So it just was delayed gratification. seven years of like no profits. Wow. And it disappears and the sky rings gold. On the note of... The earnings went from nothing to 70 million years pre-tax. Boom, boom.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“I don't know anything about radio assets, yeah, but it's a very mature market. And Godham radio is basically an auto market. I'm choosing the radio.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“saying if it all goes to hell, we'll give you your money back. That was the change you wanted. Now, you can imagine. how likely we were to see the next venture capital investment. And nobody has to tell Leloo to do that stuff. Some of these people, it's in the gene power. It's just such a smart thing to do. It looks generous. And it is generous. But it's also a huge self-enders down. Is there a little reciprocity opportunity there? Well, it's the right way to behave anyway. And the second way, it helps you. And Berkshire has helped you. And Berkshire has helped by its past behavior to see things that other people don't see. But how many people, would Sumner Redstone have ever done that? Would General Electric have ever done that? That whole culture of behaving otherwise. Ben Franklin talked about morality being the best policy. But then you see the Sumner Redstones and the icons and the Trump's doing really well by acting kind of the opposite. Yes. How do you reconcile that and still? and still come out with the, what no doubt is the correct answer, that it's wiser to be moral? Well, of course, Sautner Redstone, I graduated from Harvard Law School a lot a year or so apart. And he ended up with more money than I did. So you can say he's the success. But that's not the way I look at it. And so I don't think it's just a financial game. And I think it's better to do it the other way. other way and you sometimes you think you're getting by with this General Motors is a letter they file out when they take something over a letter says dear Joe Schmo major supplier to this business they've just bought we're going to accomplish wonderful things together we have to but we have to harmonize the systems of General Electric with the and you're going to evaded 90 days instead of 30 days, which is just horrible imposition on the supplier. But they got a whole department that's just organized and brutalize the suppliers and the furnishing all the money. They did that with one supplier that I know. And of course, the sales manager said, but I don't tell them to go fuck himself. And the guy said, no, I won't do that. He says, just bring me all the stuff where General Electric is my customer, where they've got no alternative. And he just raised the prices by about four times. I think it's a mistake to be quite that brutal. Now they do. They compete in GE based on who can get the suppliers to burnage more and more of the capital.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“that was Conwood. It's an addictive product. People are totally hooked. They're a number two person in the market. They all believe in their product. Every damn one of mature tobacco. And the figures were just unbelievable. That was virtually no financialist. You're going to know nothing but money. And the cancer caused by that mouth tobacco is maybe 5% of the cancer. percent of the cancer you get from cigarettes. But it's not still. You definitely are going to kill people with that product. They have no reason to die. It's the best deal we ever saw. We couldn't lose money to it. We passed. They didn't pay it out. Jay Pritzker, who was then head of the trustees or something at the University of Medical School. Fiskers were big in Chicago. He just snapped it up so fast. The visitors made two or three billion dollars out of that. Do we miss the two or three billion we would easily have had? Not an Iota. We had a moment's regret? Not an Iota. We are way better off not making a killing out of a product. We knew going in was a killing product. Why should we do that? On the other hand, it was just a marketable security. We wouldn't feel that the morality owe it was ours. But it's going to be our subsidiary.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, she was very very very very very. and bossy. She was illiterate in English, although she was fluent in Yiddish. And she could make arithmetic complications in her head that you can't make. She knew exactly how many yards there were in 26 and a half by 104 and a quarter in her head. And she was there, but she was a very bossy, domineering, hardworking woman. And it was a very bossy, was she worked herself a hundred hours a week. She had sons-in-law who were the nicest people, and they weren't maybe 50 hours a week after they were filthy rich. She called them those bums. It said, you know, a lot of characters. The other one is, is we bought a business from, it was half owned by a daughter of Moses, Salmon. She was a very rich woman, and she don't have this business, which was her husband's business. And she was driving cattle. Her husband died, but she had a company car and had a company car. And she wanted the catalog. So she told her lawyer to ask Mr. Bobbitt, give me the catalog. And she told the lawyer what to say. Tell warrant, she said, that a lot of people give money to poor people. money to poor people. But that's easy. They get the reward and fulfillment of knowing the poor and observing the tenets of religion. It's the real charity that's unusual, is giving money to the rich. And so she made that pitch to war and the lawyer was very embarrassed to do it. Tell her also to her a wholesale bluebook, which she finally did. But she said, but she first made the pitch that we should give her. the car because it was so much more generous to give to the rich. It was so more unusual. That woman had an adopted child who was a genius. And so she would rent Carnegie home and let the child conduct an orchestra. Rich can get quite except for you.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“The market. cap of the Washington Post was 75 million we bought in.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“and the clams. Now they've lagged by a point a year or whatever you know, it is. They handle that the way, by denial. They just don't face it. I was there the other day, and this very nice portfolio manager was very smart, a polished, generous, nice man. It's just a very nice, polished, intelligent woman. He said, well, you know, we outperform in my fund, which has $100 million by two percentage points a year. I'm going to raise my eyebrows. I was looking at it for a while. He said, well, I mean that we outperforming our competitors. outperform our competitors by 2% plus. And I said, yes, and in that overperformance, a lot of it was a long time ago, and he had way less money. And that was another horrified pause, and finally the woman says, he's on to us. We're not on to discuss something else. We're not on to discuss something else. Anyway. It's awkward. You know, you want to keep getting paid. You like your money to work. You're flying around interviewing management and so forth. And what all said and done. And they did it for a long time before. It just got harder. And then I see people leave. They say, I can't manage $30 billion. I'll manage $3 billion. And now I'll outperform. And they've had that happen two or three times. And the new guys don't outperform either. either because the new client still wants 10 stocks or something. Oh, and there's another experiment. They've done about five, not five, three times at Capital Guardian. Follow what the great investors are doing. That's one way. They said, we get the best idea from our best people and we'll make a portfolio just of our best ideas from our best people. Nothing can be more plausible. I've done it three times and failed every time. Now, how would you predict that? Well, I can predict it. because I know psychology. When you pound out an idea as a good idea, you're pounding it in. So by asking people for their best ideas, they were getting the stuff that people had most pounded in, so they believed. So of course it didn't work. And they stopped doing it because it didn't work. They didn't know why it didn't work, because they haven't read the psychology books, but they knew it didn't work, so they stopped. And it's so plausible. I don't think that's true at Berkshire. I think that's true at Berkshire. at Berkshire, if you asked me and Warren for our best ideas, that would have worked. But it didn't work in a place like that, the more conventional manager.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“By the way, I don't think it would have worked that perfectly at Berkshire. I think it would work better than did at Capitol Guardian. Isn't that interesting that that would not work? Does it still occur you talk to Warren once a week now? No, no. It'd be like talking to yourself. We don't have any new ideas. 87 and 93 ago. I mean, what the hell? Anyway, the, but the young man makes some contributions. They caused us to think about things we wouldn't have thought about before. We would not have bought the airlines or the, or the Apple, if the young man hadn't come up with the idea. But once they did, Warren ran with it. And Warren's pretty great. It was hard to buy that much airline stock. Doesn't sound like much airline stock. You know. by Berkshire standards, but we had to be a hell of a percentage of the market in those years for a pretty long time. It's very hard to manage a lot of money. It must be an awkward conversation with Bill Gates after he bought the apples. What? I said it must be an awkward conversation with Bill Gates after that Apple has gone by. I don't, Bill Gates does not have any illusions on that subject. Bill Gates bought that $150 million with Apple, I think they sold it. Right. That was a good buy. Yeah, but it was not a good sale. Oh, I got another story where you would like. I guess another story. I have a firm investment. That thing around all of you. Al Gore. Al Gore has come into you fellow's business. And Al Gore is in your fellow's business. And Al Gore is in your business. He has made three or four hundred million dollars in your business. And he's not very smart. He drank a lot. He smoked a lot of pot as he coaxed through Harvard with a gentleman's seat. But he had one obsessive idea that global warming was a terrible thing, and he understood that he'd protect the world for. So his idea when he went into investment counseling is he was not going to put any CO2 in the air. So he found some partner. partner to go into investment counseling with. And he says, we're not going to have any CO2. And, but this partner is a value investor and a good one. So what they did is, is Gore hired staff to find people who didn't use, put CO2 in the air. And of course, that put him into services. Microsoft. And all these service companies were just ideally located. And this value investor picked the best service companies. So all of a sudden the clients are making,”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, it's all emitable. If your marriage reasonably works, and if your family life reasonably works, that doesn't mean perfectly, because nobody's family lives perfectly, particularly with the children. And if your partnerships work well, we have had marvelous partners. Warren's been a marvelous partner for me. I've been a good partner for him. All of our other. subsidiary partnerships, which don't overlap totally a bit marvelous. I did not have a big failed partnership with any kind. But that's because I am a good partner, and Warren is a good partner. And so it's like, you want a good spouse, deserve one. If you want to be a good partner, be a good partner. It's a very simple system, and it's worked very well. Of course, it wouldn't work without it. And also get rid of the bureaucracy. You deal with good people you trust. people you trust expense trouble lawyers checking we're always closing something with no audit we basically are very old-fashioned we bought the”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, I don't think Kendra Morgan is anything like Enron in the sense of it. Enron is total fraud and bullshit and craziness and regulation. They went for CERC and Kendra Morgan made puff a little and pretend that cash flow is really cash and there isn't. really an obligation to replace a debris. He may, but it's not Enron. Enron was just pure, disgusting, awful. And I think most of those limited partnerships have a slight touch of the old mining companies on the San Francisco Exchange. They've all paid monthly dividends as they got into the ore. And of course, once they'd done that, they had two divisions. They had a shuck the suckers division. on the mining exchange in San Francisco. And a bunch of miners that went in the mine. It was like a two-handled pump. They'd flood the mine. Stock would go down and they'd buy it. They'd pump the water out of the mine, pay a big monthly dividend. A shocking suckers over here by kind of fraudulent, illegal, by modern standards. And the mine, they were, it was disgusting. But to some extent, the master limited partnerships, they pretend that the cash is really free. When a lot it really isn't, it's sort of, it's, it's, they're taking out money, they really, the business is going to need to replace what it's doing. In that sense, it's sort of a mildly, a moral way of doing things and they're doing it, because they can get by with them.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Yeah, well, it was kind of dishonorable. You know, I, yeah. Well, I, the old con dominole. I had the old condomerate business with he issued the stock and then the stock sell 30 times our needs to keep buying a bunch of ordinary business. That was like a chain letter, yeah. It was dishonorable. There's a lot that goes on in finance. It's dishonorable.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“Well, it's hard for all that. Benjamin Franklin has already taught me what I want to know because he left such a record, and his biographers have been so good, and he was so famous in his own lifetime, and for so long. So I already have had my conversations with the Franklin. He actually gave us the autobiography. And then the various biographies I've read, and the rest of the story. It was interesting, in the end, he failed in his relationship with his only surviving son, who was loyal to the crown. That rupture never healed. And it was just too much. Ben thought his son had a duty, not to publicly have a big fight with his father who had raised him and gotten his fancy position with the crown for him and everything else. And the son felt that, you know, protected position. in the protected position he had. You could understand that I'd feel that way. Most people wouldn't do that. They would reconcile somehow or pretend to reconcile. But that really erupts. He didn't even talk to that son at the end. Which is interesting. Franklin was capable of having more resentment than I have. I have conquered resentment better than Franklin did. I'm not that mad about the people that disapproval. That's why I kissed off that Trump stuff by making up. off stuff by making a compliment today. I don't want to... I don't think much of Trump, as you can imagine. Imagine me voting for Hillary Clinton. It was very hard to push the pen. But I did.”

RARE Charlie Munger 2017 Daily Journal AFTER Interview

“No, I'm fine. I'm getting riddle. I'm going to leave with a minute. Is Oscar out there?”

Mohnish Pabrai's Talk with GreenHaven Road Partners Fund on October 29, 2024

“Daka has done very little outside of its core model I mean I think one time I gave 10,000 to Joel to have lunch with him with a donation to Success Academy and you know I had lunch with Buffett that was a donation as well to the Glide Foundation when there was a turkey earthquake we made some contribution because we've got investments in Turkey so I didn't feel like we should just be taking without giving but in general I say no almost 99% of the time and I don't look at other causes I think it's really important in philanthropy to be focused so I think in your Asheville situation”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“Conwood it's an addictive product people”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“Conwood it's an addictive product people”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“Conwood it's an addictive product people are totally hooked they're the number”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“are totally hooked they're the number”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“are totally hooked they're the number two person in the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“two person in the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“two person in the market they all believe in their product”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“market they all believe in their product”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“market they all believe in their product every damn one of them shw tobacco”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“every damn one of them shw tobacco”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“every damn one of them shw tobacco and and the Figures were just”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“and and the Figures were just”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“and and the Figures were just unbelievable”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“unbelievable”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“unbelievable that was virtually an open anist you're”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“that was virtually an open anist you're”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“that was virtually an open anist you're going to know nothing but”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“going to know nothing but”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“going to know nothing but money and the cancer caused”

Mohnish Pabrai's Guest Lecture at University of Nebraska, Omaha on October 15, 2024

“money and the cancer caused”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session with YPO Delhi on July 9, 2024

“back and buy another one for 4050 cents and it took me like 25 years to figure out that is so stupid that these compounding machines that come along are so rare and if you find yourself in the happy position of having one of those then you should even keep it when it is overvalued you shouldn't keep it when it agre iously overvalued but you should keep it when it's overvalued so give a lot of benefit of Doubt to the Holdings that you have in terms of whether or not they're overvalued give them a lot of benefit and try to keep them for a longer period so if you have a family business you do not do a calculus every year saying what can I sell this for should I sell this you just don't do those types of things if you have a house that you really like you really don't care what somebody will pay you for it you know I bought a home I moved to Austin Texas recently I”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session at The Investor's Podcast on April 1, 2024

“was small Stakes you know but if I lost $100 or$100 or$100 or $150 Charlie was very delighted to$150 Charlie was very delighted to$150 Charlie was very delighted to collect that from me okay he was likecollect that from me okay he was likecollect that from me okay he was like truly like twinkle in his eye monish istruly like twinkle in his eye monish istruly like twinkle in his eye monish is 125 coming to me you know and likewise125 coming to me you know and likewise125 coming to me you know and likewise when I took money from Charlie there waswhen I took money from Charlie there waswhen I took money from Charlie there was some very special about that right sosome very special about that right sosome very special about that right so the small Stakes worked with socialthe small Stakes worked with socialthe small Stakes worked with social bridge and it was okay I'm okay withbridge and it was okay I'm okay withbridge and it was okay I'm okay with social bridge but I really enjoysocial bridge but I really enjoysocial bridge but I really enjoy duplicate bridge duplicate bridge is theduplicate bridge duplicate bridge is theduplicate bridge duplicate bridge is the one which is purely skill-based there'sone which is purely skill-based there'sone which is purely skill-based there's really no money in the picture we do itreally no money in the picture we do itreally no money in the picture we do it for points points really have no valuefor points points really have no valuefor points points really have no value other than psychological value andother than psychological value andother than psychological value and that's fine so I think you know we trythat's fine so I think you know we trythat's fine so I think you know we try on different gloveson different gloveson different gloves and some gloves fit well and work andand some gloves fit well and work andand some gloves fit well and work and some well gloves don't fit well andsome well gloves don't fit well andsome well gloves don't fit well and don't work I have played poker dozensdon't work I have played poker dozensdon't work I have played poker dozens and dozens of times right many times inand dozens of times right many times inand dozens of times right many times in social situations with very good friendssocial situations with very good friendssocial situations with very good friends and all of that it just never gotten”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session at The Investor's Podcast on April 1, 2024

“and all of that it just never gotten into the point that I wanted to do it all the time bridge I'm playing at least you know four to six hours a week of bridge and Warren is playing even more than that I think Warren is probably playing more than 10 15 hours a week”

Afternoon Session - 2024 Meeting

“I'm going to have to use that nothing, sorry, nothing to add.”

Afternoon Session - 2024 Meeting

“But it was just so popular that if we didn't have it, people left the store and went to Best Buyer someplace. And if you know, the Blumkins, they can't stand or anybody leaving the store. So, yeah, they behave according to you. But then you learned, you know, that had the interest in the brand. And then you have a million different inputs. But I think the psychologist called this apperceptive mass, but there is something that comes along that takes a whole bunch of observations that you've made and knowledge you have, and then crystallizes your thinking into action, big action in the case of Apple. And there actually is something which, which you have. I don't mean to be mysterious, but I really can't talk about. But it was perfectly legal, I'm sure you're that. But it just happened to be something that entered the picture that took all the other observations. And I guess my mind reached what they call that perceptive mass, which I really don't know anything about. But I've, I know the phenomenon when I, when I experience it. You know, that is, we saw something that I felt was, well, enormously underpriced. Maybe I've used this example before. But if you talk to most people, if they have an iPhone and they have a second car, the second car costs them 30 or $35,000. And they were told that they never could have the iPhone again or they could never have the second car again. They would give up the second car, but the second car cost them 20 times. So now people don't think about their purchases that way, but, but I think about their behavior. And so we just decide without knowing, I don't know, have the fainted, there may be some little guy inside the iPhone or something. I have no idea how it works, but I also know what it means. I know what it means to people, and I know how they use it. And I think I know enough about consumer behavior to know that's one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time, and the value it offers is incredible. And I think it has, in Tim Cook, I think it has somebody that, in his own way, is the equivalent of a partner with Steve Jobs that could do one thing extraordinarily well and more than one application. But one thing, and Tim was the perfect partner to serve sequentially with him. So it's, you sort of know it when you see it. I actually saw it with Geico when I went there in 1950. I didn't know exactly what I was seeing.”

Morning Session - 2024 Meeting

“Charlie, I'm so used to. I had actually checked myself a couple times already, but I'll slip again. That's a great honor word.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session at the SumZero Virtual Investor Summit 2024 on February 8, 2024

“kind of profit margin so I would not be surprised if in the end the Fords and GMs of the world really have a tough time they may even become terminal because you know if you have a negative margin and the ice cars are gone that's a really tough place to be and I think when you have Elon you know who is an anomaly when you have someone like Elon that you're competing with the only thing you should do is go find something else to do it's not good for your health or wealth to compete with El and then you know we have Chun Fu Wang at byd in China Chang Fu Wang is Elon to the power of Elon when you have to compete with Elon and Elon squared or Elon to the power of Elon you definitely want to take your ball and go home go find something else to do so yeah the auto oems I think long run they have some difficult times ahead now on Turkey we didn't we didn't we didn't get to uh”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session at the SumZero Virtual Investor Summit 2024 on February 8, 2024

“so Charlie Charlie goes on to say that there was a company in California where this Maverick entrepreneur had come up with auto erative that would go into an engine where if you put this kind of liquid in the engine it would seal all small leaks like it would make the engine not leak anymore and this guy basically was like a super salesman so what he used to do is he used to go to these auto mechanic shops and whatever and he'd take his gun with him and he shoot the gun into his engine block of his car and then he would pour the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Session at the SumZero Virtual Investor Summit 2024 on February 8, 2024

“he said it was a no-brainer to beright he said it was a no-brainer to beright he said it was a no-brainer to be a junior partner to Warren Buffett somea junior partner to Warren Buffett somea junior partner to Warren Buffett some things are total no-brainers that was athings are total no-brainers that was athings are total no-brainers that was a no-brainer so he said yes even though itno-brainer so he said yes even though itno-brainer so he said yes even though it went against my natural grain I justwent against my natural grain I justwent against my natural grain I just knew that that was the right thing to doknew that that was the right thing to doknew that that was the right thing to do”

Mohnish Pabrai's conversation at Schroders - The Value Perspective podcast on October 10, 2023

“well I I think probabilistic thinking is very important”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A Session at Boston College, Carroll School of Management on October 12, 2023

“factors are important not important all these different things in a sliver of cases small sliver of cases we can figure out the jig so I don't know whether Jet Blue will lend itself to being figured out or not but let's say it can be figured out if it can be figured out what's going to happen is in my head I'm going to have a model of JetBlue which I can give to a 10-year-old in about five or six sentences and explain to the 10-year-old why this company is going to do well and why it's worth investing in them right I mean how many sentences do I need to explain ipsco how many sentences do I need to explain level three how many sentences do I need to explain Ras in Turkey none of these need models or Excel or anything you know it's just so what starts off as being something complicated if the job is done right and if you've actually latched onto the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A Session at Boston College, Carroll School of Management on October 12, 2023

“basically grew for really good reasons it was a great place to build cars no it was a great place to build cars no it was a great place to build cars no other place had these advantages it got other place had these advantages it got other place had these advantages it got diluted away and destroyed because of these crazy you know Union contracts and these crazy you know Union contracts and these crazy you know Union contracts and so on so anyway when I was studying it I so on so anyway when I was studying it I so on so anyway when I was studying it I went from hatred to love and then when I went from hatred to love and then when I went from hatred to love and then when I was studying it I was studying all the was studying it I was studying all the was studying it I was studying all the players you know Ford and Fiat Chrysler players you know Ford and Fiat Chrysler players you know Ford and Fiat Chrysler and so on and I realized Fiat Chrysler and so on and I realized Fiat Chrysler and so on and I realized Fiat Chrysler had hired a rockstar manager Sergio had hired a rockstar manager Sergio had hired a rockstar manager Sergio Maron and when I read about Serio Maroni Maron and when I read about Serio Maroni Maron and when I read about Serio Maroni it just floored me I said and it just floored me I said and it just floored me I said and Sergio had given a five year forecast he' Sergio had given a five year forecast he' Sergio had given a five year forecast he' given five year guidance of what cash given five year guidance of what cash given five year guidance of what cash flows were going to be so this was a $5 flows were going to be so this was a $5 flows were going to be so this was a $5 billion market cap and he was saying in billion market cap and he was saying in billion market cap and he was saying in 5 years my cash flows will exceed 5 5 years my cash flows will exceed 5 5 years my cash flows will exceed 5 billion and the market didn't care no billion and the market didn't care no billion and the market didn't care no one believed him I believed him but one believed him I believed him but one believed him I believed him but nobody else believed him and so it nobody else believed him and so it nobody else believed him and so it became a no-brainer so what I'm saying became a no-brainer so what I'm saying”

#330 Les Schwab (Charlie Munger recommended this book)

“A lot of people jump off, right? And they get mired in the shallows. That's what Charlie says. And so he says, was there some way that Schwab could have caught? The minute you ask the question and the answer pops in, the Japanese had a zero position in the tires in America, zero. And they got huge. So this guy must have ridden that wave in the early times, but his slow following success has to have other causes. And so this is where he goes into this Lollapalooza result that less gets. This is something that Charlie was intensely interested in. He would collect a bunch of instances. He would constantly read about this. And so he says, and that's probably what happened here. This guy did a hell of a lot of things right. And among the things that he did right is he must have harnessed the superpower of incentives. He had a very clever incentive structure driving his people, which again is why Munger said at the annual meeting, you should buy the book. You're managing people. Just read it just for his incentive structure. It was a bunch in the book. And he must be pretty good at advertising, which he is. He's an artist. So he had to get a wave in the Japanese tire invasion. And then a talented fanatic had to get a hell of a lot of things right and keep them right with clever systems. Again, it is not that hard of an answer. We hire business school graduates and they're no better at these problems than you were. Maybe that's the reason we hire so few of them. Well, how did I solve this problem? Obviously I was using a simple search engine in my mind to go through checklist style. And I was using some rough algorithms that work pretty well in a great many complex systems. And those algorithms run something like this. And so he's saying this applied to Lashua, but it also applies to a lot of these other super successful companies. And he gives four factors here. He says, extreme success is likely to be caused by some combination of the following factors. Number one, extreme maximization or minimization of one or two variables. Number two, adding success factors so that a bigger combination drives success, often in a nonlinear fashion, as one is reminded by the concept of break point and the concept of critical mass in physics. Often these results are not linear. You get a little bit more mass and you get a Lollapalooza result. And of course I've been searching for Lollapalooza results all my life. So I'm very interested in models”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, I hope it'll be interesting. It's certainly a peculiar example of one life.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, sure. To take things from different studies and different models in life.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Of course. I could see the power of it.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, it came naturally to me, and that was what I would call naturally arrogant. And it wasn't that good of mind. You know, 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 in order to get as much advantage as I could.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Very young. 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.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“They had some crazy idea. For instance, my Latin teacher was a maladjusted woman who was a devote follower,”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Sigmund Freud. And I recognized that Sigmund Fred was a horse assassin. I still first read him when I was in high school. And, of course, it was an odd little boy whose Latin teacher is 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 Segment Freud from the American Library. It was one big book. And I went through it very laboriously. And I realized he was a goddamn lunatic. And so I decided I wasn't going to learn that from my Latin teacher. And that's the way it is. That's what I went through all my life, trying to turn every teacher into my Latin teacher. Just a poor fellow. poor fellow. I hadn't quite learned to understand it right yet. Now, I didn't always succeed. I had some very unusual teachers. 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 an economics that came along with Adam Smith and all those people. And of course, I could see the integration, and so could this landfowler was a damn contract teacher. I had been the leading contact teacher in some other law school, I was 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 in the immediate aftermath of a long, long range, in which 15 professors handled 1,500 graduate students. This is unheard of. Nobody had ever done anything like that. 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. is that are strewn through the system that are useful, and as some borrassar that sees it. And that's what Lund Walter did. He really saw the old dam. He integrated the 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 contracts. 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, well, that's an ideal teacher. You had this idea of mental models before you got to him, though. Yes, and I just naturally came to it. But it was very much a Lonfoller-esque thing.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“I was just awestruck by Lon Fuller. I have never been awestruck by any other teacher in my whole life. including some gifted mathematicians and physicists who did some remarkable things. But Fuller really, really had him, he really changed my life. He almost made me a law professor. I considered being a law professor. And I knew I'd be pretty good at it. Did you keep in touch with him for a long time after law school? I never kept in touch with him. He was so remote a figure. to me. And he was like Moses or something going down to the mountain top. And I was pleased he was there for ordinary. And he'd put it all in a book I didn't need Hunt Fuller. That's the way I handled almost all my teachers. I didn't need him. And... Let's talk about Benjamin Franklin. Yeah. He's one of the framers of our nation. He very famously gave out very... And he was a prodigy. And he was a prodigy. And he was a prodigy. in lots of different disciplines. Well, and he self-trained himself with like two years of grade school education. This is a very remarkable thing. And when he found late in life, he needed something like algebra. He went back and pulled down the textbook and taught himself algebra. How old were you? He was a very much a self-educated man. And that was a very much an interesting story for that reason. How could a man who taught himself everything? everything, you know, like Latin. And it was just, how could a man like that going to so many different fields and be the top guy in the whole country? And weren't we lucky to have him? Yes. Yeah. No, all those five or six people whom we now consider the founding fathers have worn pretty well. But you found Ben Franklin when? How young were you when when when you first came across what Ben Franklin had done? what Ben Franklin had done. Well, I think high school. And that's when you started modeling yourself after some of things? I don't know when I started modeling myself after Franklin Franklin, but I certainly tried to model myself a little. I like the mixture of financial life and regular life. And I couldn't copy. I didn't have any musical ability. And so Franklin was, he played four different. musical instruments, one of which he invented. Well, this is a lot of musical ability. God simply left out of me. And so I don't, I can't do it. So I never made any effort to annotated Franklin's musical ability. But any other ability he had, of course, I tried to imitate.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Because I could get an A& without doing any work. That's why I took mathematics.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And that obviously I had to start with physics. So I took physics.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“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 has happened, in civilization, has occurred in the last two centuries. And I lived in the immediate aftermath of one. And it was a very important cemetery. That cemetery that ended when I was born, because in that, in that century, we figured out so very, very much that was quite important as a start. You stopped to think about the technical. revolution. It happened in that century. That's when they, you know, opened all these coal mines and created all these steam engines and, and so on. And so it was just, and of course, that was what brought the economic system up. So, man, had enough leisure, had enough time to think”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“who hired as much many brilliant people as Old Eastman did, could take the company into bankruptcy. I figured that lesser people could easily take big companies in the bankruptcy, eventually, in spite of their best efforts. It wasn't like Kodak didn't try. 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. 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? Sure, and I was going to be a common shareholder someday in some company, and it would help me to know that it was very easy to wipe out the common shareholders, even a great company run by a genius. I mean, that's an argument for being diversified, but... No, not, no, I, that, it's a, yes, it is an argument. for being diversified. But that's not really what the lesson you took away. There's some argument for being diversified. But there's also some argument for being non-diversified. And the argument for being non-diversified, better for a few people than the argument for being diversified. So the lesson I would take out of that is to be diversified. That's not the lesson you took out. What's the lesson you took out? Well, it was going to be very difficult to be excellent enough at anything to make any money. That's the lesson I took out of it. And then, and I could look around me. And I was lucky there too, because one of my father's two best friends, was a guy named Eddie Davis Senior. And Eddie Davis Sr., was the leading urologist probably in the United States at the time. And just working as a private physician who taught medical students, students, urology, without charging for 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 those and courtesy to the noble profession. And if you read the Hippocratic Oath Carefully, which I'm the kind of a fellow who did, It doesn't sound like nobility. What he was telling the doctors to do was to keep their secrets away from the people who might compete with them practicing medicine. Do not reveal the secrets of our craft, Outsiders. That's the great rule of hypocritees. Not do no harm?”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, he gets credit for that one. But what he really emphasized don't tell anybody else how to do this. the people who have the modern system of this are the magicians. Okay. They have kind of a code of not telling fully how they're doing the tricks. Right. 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. Right. And I could smell a panther. And I knew panther smell. And I thought that is a hell of magic trick. They're fooling my sense of smell. And I couldn't figure out how they were doing it. I could figure out how they were filling my sense of smell. They were bringing in panther smell. But they weren't, 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 me by some guy who broke their code, like the code of Apocrates, don't tell the outsiders our tricks. 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 very French of a button would slat, move out. It would show you a different image. And it was just a very, it was a clever goddamn contrivance to fool the eye and mind of man. But you saw a different, and smell a woman turning into a panther. I never saw that drink. It was a tiger more often than a panther. Yeah. But that's the way they did.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, but I was an unusual child. And I was curious. And I saw what was happening. And it was just clobbering my family everywhere it looked. And it wasn't a little clobber. little clobber. It was a major clobber. What happened? Clobber, clobber. Well, my mother had two sisters, and my father had two sisters. And all four of those sons-in-law, who were my uncles, got utterly clobbered by the Great Depression. One was an architect and to be able to stop building practically everything. And he finally got a job doing drafting work for the kind of of Los Angeles, and they paid him 10808 for a 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.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And 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. And he set the standards for that. He wouldn't let the subdivider get by with much. You know, there was a rule as how many later a lot of outlets there had to be in every bedroom. And he'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. Right. And so the FHA, which was then fostering a great percentage of the total building that was going on in terms of houses. Just the guy, if you're going to build a house, you've got to have so many hours. Let's fill out, lots for a bedroom. Well, it was useful work my uncle was doing. Yeah. And he was enough of an architect that he could force in a little bit of grace too as well as the right number of electrical outlets. But... One of the things he was very interested in was the plaster screen. And most people don't even know what the plaster creed is even though they live in a building. But if you've got plaster that goes down into the ground, you get capillary attraction that sucks a lot of water up into the plaster. It's not desirable. It doesn't always do that, but it sometimes does it. But it's a tiny little incremental cost to stick as a little... a little thing on the bottom of the flaster as it comes to the end near the ground. And you put in that flaster screen, it can't suck that water out of the ground into your flaster. He made out, my uncle made everybody put in the plaster screen. And saved all these houses as a result. Yes, yes, yes. And of course, it was a good example for somebody like me to watch that being done. To put in the hard work early on and the extra step. No, it would. the extra thing that could be added at a tiny incremental cost and would last for a hundred years. Wow. You saw your family getting clobbered on all sides on the Depression. Yes. One was an architect. But how did that? One was a builder who was broke. He had loans he wasn't even paying off from the 20s, boom. Well, bubble when he was a builder. And he became, he made himself an appraiser. And finally he was almost as best appraiser. best appraiser. And he made a good living too. But he had terrible years in the early 30s. And he had a terrible medical problem with one of his children died very slowly of”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“meningitis. And it cost a lot of money. He just couldn't pay it. He had not paid off that fully until the war came. So what did that? He finally paid it off and got quite full. got it quite prosperous in the Boz War Boobo. But he had a long period of his being utterly without money. And all these impressions aren't you? He moved into an extra house that my grandmother, grandfather Russell owned. And then he didn't have to pay ransom. What did all these impressions mean for you? I mean, these are formative years for you as you're watching this. Well, it's quite serious. It's a little boy of his cousin who's the same age, is dying next door and takes forever and causes a wards. And there's no money to pay the doctors, the hospitals, anything. That's a serious growing up experience. And I turned the other side of me, who lived Madeline Duffy, my great female flame. And Madeline and I were just inseparable living side by side. And Madeline Duffy and I were playing and I were playing with this little dog that was a stranger to us. We were very young. But I can remember her and the dog, so it must have been nearly four years old. Or four years old, more or less. And that dog was inches away from my cheek, but it bit her cheek instead of mine. And they didn't quite get the fast-door treatment in time. They got to it, but it was too late. And she died after terrible. after terrible trauma. And she was a very outstanding little girl who might have grown up to be a Becky Quake if the world had been different. And she never grew up. So I'm sitting there two dead children. Feel don't realize how high the death weight was among children until about the middle of the century that preceded the one in which I was born. which I was born. And in those days, if you wanted six, three children, you had six, and you shoveled three out of the graveyard before they even grew up. That was the system. That was mankind's system. That's an awful system. It was an awful system. The agony of doing that was just, you see the agony with somebody like Lincoln who loved his children so much and did not have a really functioning wife. and a man who has no functioning wife to have his children die one by one. So he lost three out of his four sons. They never grew up. And the one who grew up never had any children. As a little boy, I carried more money and all the other little boys. When I used to shoot agates in the schoolyard to make money playing competitive”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“If you go into the intelligent people, if you go into the... decisions that the teaching profession makes with its IRA money and its pension money where it gets any choice. A lot of it is indexed and a lot of it is invested in shrewd. Shrewd investments held for a long time. So a lot of what I do is being done now, and that wasn't true when I was young. I couldn't just look at somebody else and see some. I saw some people who've gotten rich by by holding a few good things. So you think it's harder to make money now?”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And of course it's harder. It's so much harder you can't believe it. The people that have found it harder are the people that made Warren so rich. Ben Graham and his colleague Dodd in a damned adjunct course at Columbia. And by the way, Graham was invited into three different... in the three different economic departments at Columbia on the full ten-year track and turned him down. He was that good at literature and math and so forth, both, which is rare. And Ben Graham was interesting. Ben Graham was polymathic, like the Davis is a different way. And the same thing, also somewhat musical. And so I saw something like a dancer. He liked a dancer, well, he left out of me. And anyway, what Brandon Graham did that was so interesting is that he taught that you should find a few good things and stay with him for a very long time. But a long time to him was a few years. It wasn't a few decades. And he did that for like 40 or 50 years and a little investment partnership with incentives and so on. And his... investors who were, by and large, not very rich, did very well with him. After he got his share, they got a good cut that was higher than what other people got after fees. And so he did a valuable product. And he taught you got into things, he could be a lousy business, but they were cheap enough, they're still all right if they had enough assets for share. So you're getting at least twice as money assets as you were paying for. And he just floated around for the best. available stuff among companies good and bad. That was his system. And he had worked for 50 years. His clients had good returns. Well, after he became so famous, partly with the help of Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett's success, everybody tried to do the same thing. And of course, everybody crowded in, trying to be a little bit grand.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Whoever, but I did not really think that we'd ever have one that would, in the so many hundreds of billions in Berkshire. I did not anticipate when Warren and I were starting with our little piddly start than we'd ever get to a hundred billion, much less several hundred $100 billion. It was an amazing occurrence.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, we got a little less crazy than most people, and a little less stupid than most people. And that really helped us. Then in addition, we were given this much longer time to run than most people because something kept us alive in our 90s. And it gave us a long track. It was a long track from our little fiddling start, all the way to the 90s. Those are the two things that really happened. And, of course, we wise up over time. We got into better and better companies. We understood more and more of the bad things that could happen, you know, and how easy they could creep in. And we avoid them even more assiduously when we were old than we did and we were young. And it all worked. I think that.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“The main trick that Berkshire shows is the power of what I call the Wooden effect. And Wooden was the most famous basketball coach of the whole era. You figure out what the hell he really did, which of course, somebody like Warren and me, we just automatically do it. He concentrated at about 90% of the playing time in seven players. And everybody else was just a sparring partner for the people. And that turned out a great system for winning a basketball because you identified your best player and concentrated so much of the playing time and your best player. And more playing creates better, better, better. You learn by playing. In a way, you can never learn just by shooting practice baskets. And they concentrated all this playing time in his best players. Simple idea. That's what, that's what Berger did. Of course it worked better. And everybody's not. learned it. You've talked about... Everybody would know it automatically if it were just a little more obvious. If all of us had to make a living, backing people in chess tournaments, but there's very little revenue to pay anybody, anything, we'd all recognize we have to get into the top seven players or something like that or have no chance of winning, you know, chess tournaments. And everybody would be trying to play the wooden style to get the bet, but...”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“But an investment picking it, people think anybody can learn it who just goes to Harvard or Columbia or something. And of course, anybody can't learn it. It's like chess or mechanical ability or a lot of other abilities. It's somebody who does it a lot and has a natural attitude for. Who's the outlier? Who gets the big results? And that's what happens in the investment world. Just a few outliers make money. money. Now, we've also created a whole lot of people who get the reputation of being geniuses, run venture capital funds and so forth, and do pretty well for themselves because they get paid so outlandish. But they don't really get the bottom 80% of the people invest in venture capital. When we had a row, they didn't even look at it. So they're just making... The other people who stumbled into Sequoia in the right year were different. They got a long long run when Sequoia didn't try and grow and they got the advantage of milking Sequoia. But that was rare. Nowadays, everything is quite different. I do not think venture capital will win in the future the way Sequoia once did. And I don't think Sequoia will win in the future the way Sequoia once did. It's too hard. It's too damned hard. Meaning that it's... There's too much failure, difficulty. accident in the world. It's really hard to have a stretch like Sequoia has had as an investment firm. Now everybody thinks if they sort of copy the method, they'll get the result. And of course, it's like a meeting with John Wooden's example. You can compete in John Wooden's example while you in fact do something else, which is what they're doing. And of course, but they're not going to get something else. They're going to get lousy results, not wooden results.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, of course, who doesn't like to happily enjoy extreme success accumulated with people who are extremely admirable. That's what Warren and I have gotten to do. Well, of course that's a lot of fun. And a lot of the people at Sequoia have had a lot of fun because they've been a lot of similar things.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, I've often favorites, but again, BYD is a good lesson. I didn't find BYD. LeLoo found BYD. And he encouraged me, I didn't, I encourage him to get this partner's And he found, as his, occasionally would do a B-Y-D-A-A, a venture-held of investment in his early life, something I would never do, or notherst tell them to do anyway. And so he did one or two similar transactions that were a lot like Sequoia. He went into B-W-D-A-M- and was so small that it would have been appropriate in an early stage, support investment. And it was a public company, but it was just so small. It was barely a public company. And he went into it. And this little nothing company headed by this, we could see that two things about Munchon Fu. One, he worked 70 hours a week, and the other was he was a genius. And of course, the idea of having somebody was a genius and had all this mechanical aptitude that Warren and I lacked was interesting, at least to me. And so I was willing to take what was piddling money by hunger standards and have some of it invested by Louis Lidou and Lim. But then he came to me and said, Juan Chon Fu wants to buy a bankrupt auto plant in China and starting there, go into the auto business. And I said, let us mind. God, this is a horrible news. I said, it's a really dumb idea. Who in hell has ever seen? succeeded in creating a new auto competition with older companies that are as admirable as Toyota and so forth than Mercedes and people really know a lot about autos and have a big lead and I said let's talk him out of it so we tried to talk bunch on food out of going into it he paid no attention to us he charged into it well this year he'll probably sell two billion automobiles at huge profits for automobile, mouthwatering to lead to delicious profits for auto. It's a huge stunt. And we, Warren and I share the, not Warren and I, but Oh, and Genu, Bon John, I mean, Lee Lou and I share the distinction of urging him not to do it. Thank God he didn't take you up on it. Well, he did. That's what geniuses do. They don't listen. It's just amazing when he's done. Of course, he's been lucky, but all the great records are partly work, partly talent, and partly luck. That's what you expect to win. With this many people in the game of investment, of course the big winners are going to be people who get luck and who get work and talent and luck. That's what we've had.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, my worst trade was buying a block for the Bunger family in Alibaba, which is a pretty good company. But I think it got overhyped. And Jack Ma was made mistakes in dealing with Chinese goods. dealing with the Chinese government. I had some bad, everybody has some bad ones.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“I think people learn more from their mistakes sometimes than the successes.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Making sure. sure you don't use leverage?”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“That comes in my too hard pile. hard pile.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“That was a funny way to raise grandchildren. And I was the first grandchild on that side. And so I went down. I don't live there for weeks on end sometimes. And so I got doses of all these lessons from Sunday school and also from Robinson Crusoe. And of course, I really absorbed the Daniel Crusoe lesson. Then I was lucky with my ancestors on the other side of the family. I am very good at learning things from dead people. That's what everybody should learn. And so I had one grandfather on the other side. grandfather on the other side whose life never overlapped mine. He was dead before I was born. But he was the richest man in his town, had an immense old house. And he invited all the grandchildren to come in and stay every summer, as many of us want them. And of course, it's fun to go stay with a rich old grandmother. You know, who kind of owns the town. And he was the majority owner of the main bank. And Army's a grandchild. And the old man had been a pioneer. He'd come there as a pioneer and lost all his money in some bank failure in the East. So from absolute nothing as a pioneer in Iowa, he had eventually made himself the richest man in his town and so forth. And he lived to be an old man, as you can imagine. And what he loved to do was talk about the hard old days of living in a sod house, which is a cave. You moved into a. a cave in the winter. How many people want to raise two little children? In a cave, you can imagine yourself doing it? No. In Iowa winter, living in a cave with two little children. Well, that's what he gave his wife in marriage. And they, from that poor start, ended up with this huge success. And by the standards of his time and place. And he did that, he said, he loved to talk about the early days, because he was so proud of having survived them. the Indian wars and everything. And so he was pleased to talk about, reminded him of all he'd surrounded. My grandmother, Ingham, wouldn't talk with the grandchildren about the early days. They tried to talk about it and they said they were mean hard days. I don't like to remember them. Get them out of them, don't know, don't talk about it in front of me. And that was her reference. So she wouldn't allow people to talk about the early days. But Grandfather Ingham just talked endlessly about the inner days. Now he'd surmounted all these hardships. And when he taught the grandchildren of a fiscal nature, he says, you know, he says, people think I was the best farmland in the world and I own a lot of it.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yes, that kind of thing has been done in some places that got enough trouble. And it has worked. It can't physically be done. He's certainly right about it. It can be done. Whether it will be done, neither one voter, I can tell you. But is that the proper situation that's just setting up the right incentives? Well, we may come to a place where we simply have to, where we mismanaged to the place where it's obviously we have to go back to something that's more like, that's more like Adam Smith, and just take the inequality. It's dead of the poverty. I like inequality a lot better than I like poverty. I mean, is this modern monetary theory that's gotten out of control at this point, do you worry? Of course, modern monetary theory. Modern monetary theory was a level of indebtedness, which in the past would have happened only during a war, can now be routinely created to avoid any kind of unpleasantness from some families getting squeezed by hardship at the very bottom of the very bottom of the at the very bottom of the economic order. I'm not sure the whole damn system works when some families aren't being squeezed at the bottom of the economic order. That may be our path to civilization, and maybe the only one we got. In that case, we just have to be financially responsible whether it feels good or not, even whether it works well or not on a temporary basis. Maybe we just have to do it. And that may come, by the way. I mean, the most recent news is that 87 for, there was an 87% increase in the U.S. cost for borrowing money over the last year.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Interest rates are high, but they come down to ridiculously low levels. I was going to say they're high, but not high historically. Well, talking economically. Yeah. When the English console didn't lose purchasing power way back in the 1800s, early, 2.5%. Where did we get the idea that every endowment? that every endowment should get 5%, 5% real, 2% or 3% of inflation. That was written in the stars. I do not think it's written in the stars. We may have to do something so unpleasant, but it looks like we're bringing you back.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And the Chinese said to the Russian peasants, earn your own grain by farming your own farm. And if it fails, it's your problem, not mine, which is what they say. said, that was a hardship lesson at the time. It happened to work. It was, it was, it was, it looked like a hardship lesson. But it really was an invitation to plenty. It was say, eat this spinach and it'll really be good for you. It's capitalism. And you've said all along that capitalism is the best system. Well, it works. If I like your little medallion, and you like my $7 restaurant. And we trade. them I may think your little medallion is worth X and you may think my little wrist budget is worth $7. And we may work out some kind of trade, but if yours is worth $1,000, if yours is worth $1,000 and mine is worth $1,000, we both made $1,000 because that's the way we value them, and the voluntary exchange hasn't goes to government in anything. The GDP just goes up by $1,000. dollars in the United States. I'll exchange my watch for your medallion. And there's nothing else that will do that except capitalism. And do it automatically. You need capitalism plus somebody that creates a sound currency, that uses a medium exchange. When you got those two things, now you and I can have a simple system of exchanging watches for medallions. And we both want to do it.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“something we can do and it's just that was the stuff that somebody like Ron Fuller he was interested in that stuff and in seeking out to make his own work more meaningful he tried to understand it and you guys see him struggling with it and it was early in the history of economics of the discipline when this was going on now the main ideas had been discovered but but the main ideas had not been discovered in law schools. I mean, Lon Fuller was one of the very few people who had some vague understanding of how economics interwoved with law.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And of course, it's the combination that helped me do as well as they didn't want. You've said that proper incentive structure should be set up for public policy too, that you have to think about it very carefully. If you want to go into public policy, you should go in and think about what the end results are going to be from some of your actions they take. Well, it's not that. in the business of saying to make it fairer so that the hardships of life are more widely distributed. If you call it fairer, you can call it more generous. But either way they mean the same thing. They want the hardships of life to be mitigated for some people. That means other people can sell things to the government that they use in helping unfortunate people. And people have a different idea of about the government. They think it's mildly cheating. The government's all right. It's a big, dumb bureaucracy. Everybody's, they're engaged in manipulating us so they can live well. Of course, we can finagle a little so we can live well. And therefore, it's okay to cheat the government. And the cheating of the government is so extreme. If I could just wave a wand and take all the cheating out of the workers' comp system, who can not be in favor of the workman's comp system? system. It says if you're injured in course of doing your job, that makes you a living and feed your children, and now you can't function for a while, the government will lift down and give you a lifting hand. That's why they created compulsory workers' comp insurance, because it just seemed unfair that some people got so utterly clobbered by things that weren't their fault. And yet that wonderful system, it is ripe with fraud. They puffed their injuries up so they can get time off, they puff their injuries up so they can have extra much cash. They puff their injuries up so they can get permanent disability pay. And they have doctors and lawyers that help them do it. I mean, mislead the government in an unfair fairness. So in an effort to cure an unfairness, we may find that there are whole areas where the way human nature works, we have to endure more hardship. And the endure. and the unfairness that comes with it. There was... The ordinary rich person who talks that way is talking, because he wants to hold all his wealth and keep a great, and make the disparity between his wealth and the ordinary people get greater and greater.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“That's his ambition. But it doesn't work that he gets what he wants. The ordinary outcome of the well-to-do families is they go back to the mean. If you look to somebody as rich as the Rockefellers. And that was really, And that was really rich by the standards of a near human being. Even the Rockefellers will eventually go back to the main. Pretty close anyway. It just happens. There's a lot of misfortune out there, both fiscal and other kinds. And it takes it down one after another.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“I don't regard Elon. Musk is truly that rich because I don't think it's sure that everything he's working on can work. I think he could get his ass handle to him in autos. I would not invest in Elon Musk's autos myself.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yes. Who cannot? Again, that's another lesson. What is the lesson of Elon Musk? The Musk is, it's always an outlet, somebody who has a, a very ridiculous amount of money. It almost always has an element of luck in him. He's been quite lucky in what he's picked to double down, double down, double down, double down. And then he's used leverage so much that he's doubled down right to the edge of extinction, maybe two or three times. How many people can go to the edge of extinction without stepping into it? He's done three times, maybe he's got six more in any, I don't know. I put Elon Musk in a file. in a file. I never read against him and I never read with him. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist. My life works better if I treat the world as though he didn't exist.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, yes, even the fiction, which includes a good deal of the Bible. The Bible and the Shakespeare and the... and great novels and all that stuff. The people were good at painting pictures and painting and telling stories. And people learn best when they learn a story. It looks more like a piece of a life story. So it works.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, and now is it, my life is, people know I'm on books. And they kind of like for Charlie's Almanac or something.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, I mean, every one in America is too old to be president. It may be just too hard a job. The way things have worked out, maybe this is like my cousins, my cousins. meningitis, maybe it's just a hand too tough to play. Maybe you're not going to be allowed to play it out. We don't know.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“No, I'm talking about the atomic war factor. Just the idea of being president at all.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“I don't know much time on it because I can't fix it. because I can't fix it. It goes into my too hard file. Even if I had all the power, I couldn't fix it. If you gave me the power to write all the laws of the world, I would sit down, even if it happened a day, and try and help you write those laws. I would think it was the most important thing that mankind could possibly do because there's a lot of laws that are stupid and cause bad results. And if you know what they are, where you would just eliminate the ones you didn't like and put in ones that. would help and I think somebody like Warren who naturally thinks the way I do on this issue, he'd be quite happy making laws for the whole United States.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, there are all kinds of things. I would, where the fraud just gets too much. I think you just have to take it out. But there are whole professions that go out. And there's a whole half progression that goes out. Half the chiropedic progression should go out. It should not exist. Chiropractors.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, it's horseshit. Because?”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah. To try and do things they couldn't help. You've seen that with other. Modern medicine. doesn't really allow it. A licensed does not allow you to practice medicine. I can't give Becky quick penicillin because I'm a chiropractor.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, taking the fraud out is also important. How can a whole lot of fraud be a good thing? And almost everybody has known that. And the early legislators, legislators made, they made creating an artificial currency. You tried to pass it off as real. They made that as a very serious crime. Of course, they killed you for it. And that was probably a good rule of that step in mankind civilization, was to kill the counter herders. One thing I'll guarantee you is the counterfeiter who's dead is not going to counterfeit it any more currency. They can't do it after they're dead.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“But I consider some people so damn mischievous that it's a very good place to have them as dead as soon as possible. So you bring back more capital punishment? Yes. I might have less in some places and more than others. I'm sure I would.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah. Yeah, of course that's true. Yeah, of course that's true. And that's the kind of problem you weren't into. The great rulers are people like Leek on You and Lonfowler and Leek on View. He said, figure out what works and do it. That was his sole message. Figure out what works and do it. And of course, mathematically that translates, figure out what doesn't work and avoid it. Right. And both rules are correct. And you have to get it right or as close to right as you can get it right.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, sure. I have a hard time thinking of a time when you set your expectations low though.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Invert, invert, and try and figure out where you don't want to be.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yes, of course. That's what everybody's life is with any sense. All the people I know. and my friends now, they never would become alcoholics. It was too dangerous. They would, they just don't, they don't, they don't get near it if it takes that many fine people into deep trouble.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“that all the people that had had very, very early heart trouble, the males that had very early heart trouble. Had one thing in common. They all smoked a lot of cigarettes. Oh. So I could see that coming fairly early. I tried to learn to smoke so I could be a cool kid, like the other kids in high school. I tried to ruin my life, but it nauseated me. And so I said, I said, how well this? People have lured me into a goddamn thing. You've got to get nauseated, boy, learning to do it. And I said, I'm not. interested enough in going through a lot of nausea that I want to smoke, so I just didn't smoke.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, sure, but I didn't. Again, I was, and I even drank to ex a few times. But I was always, there were enough alcoholics and near alcoholics and my own family to make me worry about liquor.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“cautious about drinking liquor. Now, I did occasionally get drunk and throw up. That gave me the nausea, which enabled me to give a liquor.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, I don't know the secret. I avoided the standard ways of failing because my game in life was always to avoid all standard ways of failing. You teach me the wrong way to play poker and I will avoid it. it. You teach me the wrong way to do something else I will avoid it. And of course, I have avoided a lot because I'm so cautious. But you do things you like, like, like you'll eat peanut brittle or...”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Okay. I drink that coke. Yeah. I'm sure that I go shortens my life a little. But I don't give a damn if the last week of lying there and consciousness goes away. It's only the good part of life I want anyway. You know, there are all of these billionaires now, Silicon Valley types, who are trying to do anything they can to extend life, like crazy things. They find they've got a family full of Parkinson's. And because I watched my mother and my sister die of Parkinson's disease. And so I'm familiar with that one.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“I do not like the last month of Parkinson's disease. I've seen it up close.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“It's no fun of the people in it. the people around them. It's no fun at all. And Dad Coatman will be helping me skip it.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Who knows? He's helping me skip the last month, not the first month. There are some new ways that people think that they can extend life, though. And one of the crazier things I've heard is this idea of doing a blood transfusion with younger people, so you get younger blood. I mean, there's like some silicon ballet types that are doing those things. Well, but that was crazy. You got to remember the practice of medicine and my father's boyhood was Charlottons for depression. People learn to make a living at it, and they gradually learned a few things they can do with the help with patients. But they, but basically they did a lot of nonsensual things. If other people want to know what the best way to live is, you would just tell them, avoid the crazy things. Avoid the things that take you down.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Of course, of course, of course, of course. Of course. I think another thing you've said is whatever you are, wealth and age will make you more so.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, but not like Warren. More than half of the munger money is already even best of the descendants. So I've made exactly the opposite. It was a smaller wrong money. But I made exactly the opposite decision for the majority of our money.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Well, that's an interesting question. I am so old and weak compared to what I was when I was when I was 96 that I no longer want to catch. a 200 pound tuna. It's just too got that much work to get it in and takes too much physical strength. So I don't know why I would have paid any amount to get you a 200 pound tuna. When I was younger, I never caught one. And now I give me the opportunity. I would just decline going. I won't even go out after them. There are things you give up with time. You're pretty active. You've got a business. social schedule? You're on Zoom. You have breakfasts and lunch?”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“And when it happened, I welcomed it. I am very good at recognizing unfair advantages. And I got unfair advantages in old age. The way I got unfair advantages in old age, the way I got unfair advantages in non-old age. And when they came, I just grabbed them. Boom, boom, boom. The one grab I never made was for her third wife. Too late. Why? It's too late. There are people for whom it's a necessity. Necessity. They're so much more comfortable in marriage than they are outside it, that they really need it to be human. That's just the way they're put together. And for sure. such people, I represent the 100-year-old dating app. But you'll find that if you put it in, that not many 100-year-olds want it, they're just lying there.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Of course, everybody struggles. The iron rule of life is everybody struggles. I try and think back of what the toughest moments might have been and how you got through some of those. And I mean... Well, we all know how to get through them. Through, the great philosophers of realism are also the great philosophers of what I call soldiering through. If you soldier through, you can get through almost anything. It's your only option. You can't break the dead, you can't cure the dying child, you can't do all kinds of things. You have to soldier through and you just... somehow you soldier through. If you have to walk through the streets crying for a few hours a day, as part of the soldier, if you go ahead and cry away, but you have to, you can't squit. You can't cry all right, but you can't quit. You've had time in your life when you've done that? Sure. I cried all the time when my first child died, but I knew I couldn't change the fate. In those days, the fatality with the childhood leukemia. but leukemia was 100%. That's gone away. Now the cure rate is way up in the 90s. And it's an amazing development. Think of how much pleasure it's given me to watch the cure rate for leukemia.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah, sure. I assume you've done the same thing for yourself.”

Charlie Munger's final CNBC interview | November 14, 2023

“Yeah. When a rich family, you think your duty is to use the wealth that live grandly. That's whatever he's doing with the money. You will learn from the people that are doing it. Is the plan for your life, the obituary you would write in your 30s the same you would write today?”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“Barber and people get used used to it you know we kind of creatures of habit you know we kind of creatures of habit you know we kind of creatures of habit and they like him and if he's very and they like him and if he's very and they like him and if he's very talented they might be willing to pay talented they might be willing to pay talented they might be willing to pay him 10 15% more than anyone else just him 10 15% more than anyone else just him 10 15% more than anyone else just because even though they are other because even though they are other because even though they are other Barbers available they now have a habit Barbers available they now have a habit Barbers available they now have a habit of coming to him and so on so sometimes of coming to him and so on so sometimes of coming to him and so on so sometimes what should be a non-durable competitive what should be a non-durable competitive what should be a non-durable competitive competitive Advantage ends up becoming a competitive Advantage ends up becoming a competitive Advantage ends up becoming a competitive Advantage by accident and competitive Advantage by accident and competitive Advantage by accident and that's the same thing that happened with that's the same thing that happened with that's the same thing that happened with the the the patels what should have been a patels what should have been a patels what should have been a non-durable Advantage actually became a non-durable Advantage actually became a non-durable Advantage actually became a a sustaining advantage over a 50-year a sustaining advantage over a 50-year a sustaining advantage over a 50-year period they just you know took over that period they just you know took over that period they just you know took over that industry and we see this over and over industry and we see this over and over industry and we see this over and over so this heads I win Tails I don't lose so this heads I win Tails I don't lose so this heads I win Tails I don't lose much is actually the way almost all vent much is actually the way almost all vent much is actually the way almost all vent non-venture back businesses get started non-venture back businesses get started non-venture back businesses get started if you look at a small M and pop Chinese if you look at a small M and pop Chinese if you look at a small M and pop Chinese restaurant that opens they go through”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“upside and because we function in aution driven markets and because auctiondriven markets and because auctiondriven markets and because auction driven markets have a tendency todriven markets have a tendency todriven markets have a tendency to overshoot or undershoot things getovershoot or undershoot things getovershoot or undershoot things get either too richly priced or tooeither too richly priced or tooeither too richly priced or too pathetically priced the richly priced wepathetically priced the richly priced wepathetically priced the richly priced we can leave aside you know don't need tocan leave aside you know don't need tocan leave aside you know don't need to go byy noia that's fine I mean sorrygo byy noia that's fine I mean sorrygo byy noia that's fine I mean sorry don't don't need to buy Nvidia but youdon't don't need to buy Nvidia but youdon't don't need to buy Nvidia but you can look at things which are hated andcan look at things which are hated andcan look at things which are hated and unloved and there's always things thatunloved and there's always things thatunloved and there's always things that are hated and unloved and when you getare hated and unloved and when you getare hated and unloved and when you get things that are hated and unloved youthings that are hated and unloved youthings that are hated and unloved you can get mispricing in the rightcan get mispricing in the rightcan get mispricing in the right direction and if seven moons line updirection and if seven moons line updirection and if seven moons line up where once in a while some greatwhere once in a while some greatwhere once in a while some great businesses hated an unlock for temporarybusinesses hated an unlock for temporarybusinesses hated an unlock for temporary reasons or you know some temporary issuereasons or you know some temporary issuereasons or you know some temporary issue and then that can lead to a good resultand then that can lead to a good resultand then that can lead to a good result so that's what we try toso that's what we try toso that's what we try to do”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“I'm so sorry to break it to you CharlesI'm so sorry to break it to you CharlesI'm so sorry to break it to you Charles but they wasted yourbut they wasted yourbut they wasted your time they have filled your head withtime they have filled your head withtime they have filled your head with mush you need tomush you need tomush you need to reprogram you need toreprogram you need toreprogram you need to detox you know you need to go into rehabdetox you know you need to go into rehabdetox you know you need to go into rehab and then come out the other sideand then come out the other sideand then come out the other side with no need for Excel ever again andwith no need for Excel ever again andwith no need for Excel ever again and life will be great so one of the thingslife will be great so one of the thingslife will be great so one of the things I found which is The Quirk about humansI found which is The Quirk about humansI found which is The Quirk about humans that I know the Quirk exists I'm notthat I know the Quirk exists I'm notthat I know the Quirk exists I'm not exactly sure why it exists and I'veexactly sure why it exists and I'veexactly sure why it exists and I've”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“23 when I was investing the Turkish L was five L to thewas five L to thewas five L to the dollar now it's 28 L to the dollar it'sdollar now it's 28 L to the dollar it'sdollar now it's 28 L to the dollar it's collapsed okay in dollars the market capcollapsed okay in dollars the market capcollapsed okay in dollars the market cap is over 700 million in dollars in L myis over 700 million in dollars in L myis over 700 million in dollars in L my result is my return is infinite but whoresult is my return is infinite but whoresult is my return is infinite but who cares about that and the business is nowcares about that and the business is nowcares about that and the business is now worth about a billion ion and a half Iworth about a billion ion and a half Iworth about a billion ion and a half I mean they've increased the value of themean they've increased the value of themean they've increased the value of the business over the years so the thebusiness over the years so the thebusiness over the years so the the dollar bill was just sitting on thedollar bill was just sitting on thedollar bill was just sitting on the ground and no one was interested and Iground and no one was interested and Iground and no one was interested and I remember Templetonremember Templetonremember Templeton funds who was in a hurry to get out offunds who was in a hurry to get out offunds who was in a hurry to get out of turkey they sold me a block 5% block ofturkey they sold me a block 5% block ofturkey they sold me a block 5% block of that company I own onethird of thethat company I own onethird of thethat company I own onethird of the company but 5% block of that company forcompany but 5% block of that company forcompany but 5% block of that company for a million dollars you know $1 milliona million dollars you know $1 milliona million dollars you know $1 million for 5% of that company which is todayfor 5% of that company which is todayfor 5% of that company which is today worth uh a billion and a half so it' beworth uh a billion and a half so it' beworth uh a billion and a half so it' be about 75 million you so it be about 175about 75 million you so it be about 175about 75 million you so it be about 175 of the current value is what some guy inof the current value is what some guy inof the current value is what some guy in New York decided he wanted to sell thatNew York decided he wanted to sell that”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“invert always invert so what I said is okay the only causes I'm going to look at a causes where measurements are easy so we have you know we could go into Environmental Health Care homelessness education poverty whatever there 100 different causes you could go focus on I said I'm going to focus and the ones where we can measure outcomes easily and one of the things that happens in education when you focus on education is there's a report card and there's you can measure those outcomes you know like the Gates Foundation thought that if you reduce class size you would get better outcomes and they put a lot of money behind it later discovered that reducing class size actually didn't have the outcome so they gave up on that but they measured it and they found that it didn't work so they went and did something something else so in our case we said okay if we prep”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session at the Harvard Business School on September 15, 2023

“approach it from the point of view of a game player and I want to have fun at all the games I play so investing has to be fun DNA has to be fun Bridge has to be fun and if if we doing things that are fun we will do them well we'll enjoy them we'll do them well so I don't really have any big plan I have no idea where the next investment idea will come from it's a very opportunistic uh thing I don't know where D will be in five years I have no idea you many things so there's really no kind of blueprint or plan it's just that there's a high level idea that we want to you know end up at zero and and you know so that's kind of the there's a guy I think I'm forgetting the name the there a book called the billionaire who wasn't his name will come to me but anyway he succeeded in doing that you know he he created a bunch of businesses made billions and”

Mohnish Pabrai's Presentation and Q&A at MDI, Gurgaon on December 26, 2014

“peculiarity in humans where they don't like to copy what I think is obviously good and so the perfect Partnerships I were the most successful investment Partnerships in the history of of investing and such and when Warren Buffett punished a partnership in 1969 and we terminated it when I started to drive from the 1999 30-year period I could not find a single a single example of a case where the very large headphone industry had cloned them on and I found that it was it was tremendously valuable for me that that had actually happened built it was it was not the way most most money is gone you know things like no management fees basically focusing on long-term returning a set of investors that are with you for the Long Haul you know a few beds big beds in treatment beds all of those sort of investing and so obviously the other day that was a significant Advantage for me”

Mohnish Pabrai's Presentation and Q&A at MDI, Gurgaon on December 26, 2014

“talk to me because I really have nothing to add to anything”

Mohnish Pabrai's Presentation and Q&A at MDI, Gurgaon on December 26, 2014

“I really have nothing to add to anything you do become popular so Charlie said”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview with Weekly on Stocks on June 28, 2023

“kind of a confusion principle to help the one who is most capable and so hethe one who is most capable and so hethe one who is most capable and so he studied in the case of byd he studiedstudied in the case of byd he studiedstudied in the case of byd he studied the very very early history of thethe very very early history of thethe very very early history of the company very carefully and then he alsocompany very carefully and then he alsocompany very carefully and then he also studied the trajectory so for example instudied the trajectory so for example instudied the trajectory so for example in the case of byde they were trying tothe case of byde they were trying tothe case of byde they were trying to manufacture these batteries whichmanufacture these batteries whichmanufacture these batteries which required clean rooms in in Japan theserequired clean rooms in in Japan theserequired clean rooms in in Japan these batteries were made in Japan and theybatteries were made in Japan and theybatteries were made in Japan and they were very large clean rooms which arewere very large clean rooms which arewere very large clean rooms which are very expensivevery expensivevery expensive and the one of the first innovationsand the one of the first innovationsand the one of the first innovations that byd made was that instead of makingthat byd made was that instead of makingthat byd made was that instead of making the room clean they made a small boxthe room clean they made a small boxthe room clean they made a small box clean and the women would put their handclean and the women would put their handclean and the women would put their hand in gloves through the box and work onin gloves through the box and work onin gloves through the box and work on those things so basically he was able tothose things so basically he was able tothose things so basically he was able to drop the cost a lot of manufacturing bydrop the cost a lot of manufacturing bydrop the cost a lot of manufacturing by rethinking how it was done andrethinking how it was done andrethinking how it was done and repeatedly they uh kind of excelledrepeatedly they uh kind of excelledrepeatedly they uh kind of excelled really in terms of the Innovation andreally in terms of the Innovation andreally in terms of the Innovation and the tenacity the other thing is thatthe tenacity the other thing is thatthe tenacity the other thing is that Chung Fu Wang lives with his workers”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview with Weekly on Stocks on June 28, 2023

“Chung Fu Wang lives with his workers so you know they have the large residential blocks of Apartments here he lives in one of those blocks with with the workers and so that type of a culture means that your people will do anything for you you know because they and so I think he very carefully studied individual pieces about changfu Wang he was aware of people like Thomas Edison he was aware of people like Henry Ford he was aware of people like Bill Gates and he could make a connection with the way Chang Fu Wang was with the way some of these people were and in the end you know that led to the investment and it did really well so I think that's kind of a very he didn't he did not just accept that the byd investment should be made because lilu thinks it's great that's not the reason why he made the investment he did his own analysis”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview with Weekly on Stocks on June 28, 2023

“of like honesty and integrity and humility and so I think those were things that appealed to Charlie and you could see that in 10 minutes of meeting”

Mohnish Pabrai's Interview with Weekly on Stocks on June 28, 2023

“have is they have a higher propensity to gamble Macau is very popular and Vegas is very popular and chai and Charlie Sees that as a negative so one of the outlets the math ability finds is in gambling which is a negative and if it if it can be used in a positive way which it has been used a lot in a positive way by many Chinese so the the way I look at China is that you have a very very very hard-working population people are willing to work very hard it's a smart population now unfortunately we have negative population growth in China because people are not having enough kids so that is a negative it's not as bad as Korea Korea I think is in really bad shape in terms of the amount the population is going down in Japan is going down significantly so if China can figure out some way to arrest the decline in population that would be a positive otherwise it's going”

Warren Buffett I HBO Documentary

“That was a pretty silly way to behave, as Warren has recounted in retrospect. One of the reasons Warren's successful is he's brutal in appraising his own past. He wants to identify mis-thinkings and avoid them in the future. But it was an accident that he chose Berkshire Hathaway. If the chairman hadn't tried to cheat him out of an eighth, there wouldn't have been any Buffett-Dash-Ber-Hathaway history. If you're emotional about investment, you're not going to do well. You may have all these feelings about the stock.”

Warren Buffett I HBO Documentary

“I think it just sobered him and hurt him. But Warren's soldier's on. Both Warren and I could look at our fathers and see. what they did right and what they did wrong. Warren's father was a real old-fashioned right-wing ideologue. And his father was so intense about it that Warren just decided that it was a mistake. It cabbaged up your head to be that much of ideologue. So he loved his father, but he didn't want to become that much of a true believer in anything. My politics became more overt after my dad died. Civil rights changed my view. Civil rights changed my view. You know, in 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote, all men are created equal. And then when they wrote the Constitution, they all of a sudden decided that, no, it was just three-fifths of a person if you were black. I mean, that struck me as kind of crazy. I was talking to him one day about some racial issue. And he said to me, wait till women discover they're the slaves of the world. Now, how many men were cognizant of that, and even women then? The initial examples, really, my model, She came from a generation where the main function of the wife was to help her husband in the job. And my sisters are fully as smart as I am. They got better personalities than I have. But they got the message a million different ways that their future was limited, and I got the message that the sky is the limit. And it wasn't due to a lack of love or anything of the story. It's just, it was the culture. On the other hand, you can look at the flip side and say it's quite encouraging. I'd say it's quite encouraging because if you look at what this country accomplished only using half of its talent, you know, just think of the potential for the future. I'm enormously bullish on America over the future. And part of the reason is that we, by some rather stupid decisions, essentially put half our talent on the sidelines. Warren is probably the most rational person I've ever met. Charlie Munger would be a close rival. And Charlie became a man that Warren depended on heavily. And I think that Warren depended on heavily.”

Warren Buffett I HBO Documentary

“Well, I want to know. I thought he was a prodigy, and I got a lot of criticism. My wife said, why are you paying such enormous respect to that young man with a crew cut who won't eat vegetables? He's ungodly smart. He's got a much broader intellect than I do. And he's magnificent at being able to condense important ideas into just a very few words. If you're not interested in the economic scene right now, you're mentally dead.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with members of the Finance and Investment Cell at SRCC, Delhi on June 14, 2023

“well you know there are practicalities in the sense that basically when we pursue degrees we don't have a lot of choice about you know what what courses we take and what professors we get and which classes are interesting which classes are not so so a lot of that is going to be hit or miss we don't have a whole lot of choice in there because you know the only choice we have is whether we do the degree or not so try to make make sure that the degree is as closely aligned to what you're interested in and I think I”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with members of the Finance and Investment Cell at SRCC, Delhi on June 14, 2023

“workforce and so on and with a lot of Independence and equal rights and so on the natural outcome is a drop in the birth rate and the United States actually amazingly has been able to keep keep up a birth rate over 2.1 it's now I think uh right on the edge or actually below that now but with the inclusion with the inclusion of immigration so if we didn't have immigration in the United States we would have a declining population The Birth has been below 2.1 for a while but when you add immigration to the US when I came to the country you know two score years ago when I came two score years ago there were about 250 million people so in the country we are now approaching about 335 million in the country so it's gone up it's it's a good 30 plus percent increase over 40 years which is great and so I I think I think my my general take is that one will face some”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with members of the Finance and Investment Cell at SRCC, Delhi on June 14, 2023

“yeah I think the tree huggers have kind of gone nuts and I actually don't think that they have a balanced view on life so you know for example whole is treated as a four-lettered word you know anyone using coal is a bad person anyone mining coal is a bad person the reality is that we would not have a civilization if we don't have steel and you really cannot practically”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with members of the Finance and Investment Cell at SRCC, Delhi on June 14, 2023

“well I would say an investor who ends up with a poor outcome has only himself or herself to blame no one put a gun to the head and ask them to buy X or buy y or buy Z it is in the nature of investing that we have a lot of snake oil snake oil salesmen investment bankers and and Underwriters and so on who will bring things to public markets and package them in manners that look really exciting and we've seen this story for a 100 years and our job as investors is to sift through all that so one of the simple rules an investor can use is not to invest in IPOs and not to invest in any businesses that have less than five or 10 years of history as a public company so if you just put that filter in you wiped out the salesman and the salesman's pictures don't mean much so I do not believe venture capital is evil and I do not believe that it's a zero sum game or”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session with the Finance Club of IIT Patna on May 10, 2023

“that he went into early stage venture capital Did extremely well with that and then he started investing so Charlie said I didn't really have to do much analysis on Lilo I could just look at the record and from the record it was obvious that I was dealing with someone who was highly unusual and who was going to do extremely well so lilu is a very focused person he's a a driven guy he's a natural leader and he is very comfortable in situations that might make other people uncomfortable so for example he used to have a lot of investments in Korea you know he doesn't speak Korean he has the same disadvantages in Korea than I do but he was able to navigate that country really well so in general when you're trying to figure people out do not listen to what they are saying just look at the track record just look at the history don't try to”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A session with the Finance Club of IIT Patna on May 10, 2023

“yeah we don't we don't need to meet them to get the information because we want to look at the track record and the track record is available in black and white so with brothers and Sumi we can look at the history and it's a large company so”

Buffett rules out Occidental Petroleum acquisition

“Yes, no, it wasn't before. It was, but it was, yes, it was, it was just before. You're right.”

Bad bankers should be punished

“you will have to have a punishment for the people that do the wrong thing and if you take first republic for example you could look at their 10k and you could see that they were offering non-government guaranteed mortgages to in jumbo amounts at fixed rates sometimes for 10 years before they changed to floating and that's a crazy proposition if it's to the advantage of the bank they get it they get the guy coming in and says i'll refinance at one and a half percent and then one percent and if it's if it's advantage the other way the fellow keeps it out 10 years you don't give options like that but but that's what first republic was doing it was a plain sight and the world ignored it till blew up and uh some of the stock in some of these banks that were held by insider was a sold and who knows whether they had a plan or whether they some plan that was innocent or whether they started sensing what was coming but but you do know that the directors are not going to be able to read some book or anything like that but they do they do have the ability to hold the CEO accountable. CEO gets the bank in trouble both the CEO and the directors should suffer. The stockholders of the future shouldn't suffer. They didn't do anything. It doesn't teach anybody any lessons or anything. It teaches the lesson is that if you run a bank and you screw it up, you're still a you're still a rich guy and the clubs don't drop you and the charity groups don't put asking it to their benefits and the world goes on. That is not a good lesson to teach people who are holding the behavior of the economy in their hands. Well, I'm so old-fashioned that I kind of liked it better when banks didn't do investment banking. That makes me very outmoded in the modern world. And the country decided it was contrary to public interest for a while and then the banks wanted to get back into it. Did they ever? Yeah. No. I don't think having a bunch of bankers, all of them are trying to get rich, leads to good things. But I think a banker should be more like an engineer. He's more like in avoiding trouble than he is getting rich. I've got my own personal money, and I'm probably above the FDIC limit, and I've got it with a local bank, and I think, I don't worry about it in the least. But in terms of owning banks, events will determine their future. You've got politicians involved. You've got a whole lot of people don't really understand how the system works. And I would say that you've had something less than a perfect communication between various people and the American public. So the American public is probably as confused about banking as ever. And I like Bank of America. I like the Bank of America. and I propose the deal to them, so I stick with it. But do I know how to project out what's going to happen from her? The answer is I don't because I've seen so many things in the last few months, which really weren't that unexpected to me.”

Elon Musk doesn't need to 'overestimate' himself

“Well, yes, I think Elon Musk overestimates himself, but he is very talented, so he's overestimating somebody who doesn't need to overestimate to be very talented. There's a Bill Maher program about a week old, maybe two weeks old, but he interviews Elon, and Elon does a terrific job, toe-to-to-to with Bill Maher, who, it's worth watching. And Elon is a brilliant and brilliant guy, and I would say that, you know, he might score over a 170, but he, you know, he might score over a hundred and seventy. You know, it's, he dreams about things, and he, his dreams have got a foundation. He would not have achieved what he has in life if he hadn't tried for unreasonably extreme objectives. He likes taking on the impossible job and doing it. We're different. Warren and I are looking for the easy job that we can identify.”

Buffett: We don't own too many Apple shares

“charlie do you want to add anything to your earlier comment well i think one of the in name things that's taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks that is an insane idea it's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified and if you've only”

Munger: I accept that my grandchildren won't think the way I do

“Well, I have more grandchildren, but I am quite philosophical about my grandchildren not thinking exactly the way I do. It seems to me that's almost the natural course of life. And I just live my life my own way and they can observe it as an example if they want to. And if they don't, they can try some other way. I don't like it when they try some other way. And I have to pretend that I like some of the boyfriends and girlfriends I don't like. But I just struggle through like everybody else. And usually I just bite my tongue and keep silent. That's my way of handling it.”

'We love our business'

“I think Warren and I are naturally so ridiculous that we don't need very many funny stories. We each do things that are peculiar enough so that we can keep one another amused.”

'Not everything that should happen does happen'

“Well, I think what we do, yeah, you kiss that one off beautifully.”

Hard to predict if there will be electric vehicle winners

“Well, the electric vehicle is coming big time, and that's a very interesting development. At the moment, it's imposing huge capital costs and huge risks. And I don't. like huge capital costs and huge risks. And we're subsidizing it in the United States, and we're actually doing it, try putting in a pro-labor. I mean, it is subject to politics like you can't believe, too. But it's going to be with us. We're not going to quit driving cars. And American public has a love affair with them. But I think I know where Apple's going to be in five or ten years, and I don't know where the car companies are going to be in five or ten years. And I don't know where the car companies are going to be in five.”

'I do not sign a will until my children have read it'

“Well, but that doesn't fit everybody, Charlie. I mean, you know.”

Elon Musk doesn't need to 'overestimate' himself

“You know? We have a whole different way of going in life. It's a whole way. Yeah. But we don't want to compete with Elon in a lot of things. I mean, you know. We don't want that much failure.”

Munger: I accept that my grandchildren won't think the way I do

“Well, I know. No, but you needed a lot of help.”

Elon Musk doesn't need to 'overestimate' himself

“But, you know, there are going to be, well, there have been important things done by Elon already. And it requires fanaticism isn't the word.”

Munger: I accept that my grandchildren won't think the way I do

“to the ground, I did not see it coming. Now, I would, to be that ignorant, and that as I was at that age, it was a sin, and my professors by and large were even more ignorant than I was. We just, nobody had observed the basic economics of business in a scientific way at all when I was young.”

Elon Musk doesn't need to 'overestimate' himself

“Okay. Well, it isn't quite the word. But it's a dedication to solving the impossible and every now and then it'll do it. But it would be torturous to Mayor Charlie. And I like the way I'm living. I'm living and I wouldn't enjoy being in his, but he wouldn't enjoy being in my shoes either.”

Buffett: We don't own too many Apple shares

“got three. I'd rather be in my best ideas instead of my worst. And some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst. And in the act of deciding that the investment is good, they get to thinking it's better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people. And that is a blessing to us. We're not so smart, but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness is. is a very important part of practical intelligence. And a lot of people who are geniuses on IQ tests think they're a lot smarter than they are. And what they are is dangerous. And but if you know the edge of your own ability pretty well, you should ignore most of the notions of our experts about what I call de-worsification of portfolios. Okay.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“from that were just incredible. So there are second order and third order and fourth order effects that are somewhat unpredictable as to what they will be and the sequence and all that. But things change. And if people think deposits are sticky anymore, they're just living in a different era. You know, you can press a button. You don't have to get in a line and wait for days and have to tell her counting out the money slowly in gold so that you hope the line goes away. You can have a run in a few seconds. So the way it hasn't been addressed properly is a problem, and who knows where it leads. But you will have to have a have to have a punishment for the people that do the wrong thing. And if you take First Republic, for example, you could look at their 10 K and you could see that they were offering non-government guaranteed mortgages to in jumbo amounts at fixed rates, sometimes for 10 years before they changed the floating. And I mean, that's a cramble amounts at fixed rates, sometimes for 10 years before they changed the floating. And that's a crazy proposition. If it's to the advantage of the bank, they get it, they get the guy coming in and says, I'll refinance at one and a half percent, and then one percent. And if it's, if it's advantage the other way, the fellow keeps it out 10 years, you don't give options like that. But, but that's what First Republic was doing. It was a plain sight. And the world ignored it until it blew up. And some of the stock and some of these banks that were held by insider was a sold and who knows whether they had a plan or whether they some plan that was innocent or whether they started sensing what was coming but but you do know that the directors are not going to be able to read some book or anything like that but they do they do have the ability to be able to read some book or anything like that but they do have the ability to hold the CEO accountable. The CEO gets the bank in trouble, both the CEO and the directors should suffer. The stockholders of the future shouldn't suffer. They didn't do anything. It doesn't teach anybody any lessons or anything. It teaches the lesson is that if you run a bank and you screw it up, you're still a rich guy and the clubs don't drop you and the charity groups don't put asking it to their benefits. The world goes on. That is not a good lesson to teach people who are holding the behavior of the economy in their hands.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I'm so old-fashioned that I kind of liked it better when banks didn't do investment banking. That makes me very outmoded in the modern world. And the country decided it was contrary to public interest for a while, and then the banks wanted to get back into it. Did they ever? Yeah. No, I mean, I don't think having a bunch of bankers, all of them are trying to get rich, leads to good things. But I think a banker should be more like an engineer. He's more like in avoiding trouble than he is getting rich. Yeah, and they could do fine. They can do fine that way. And I think we had a big mistake when we get a bank where everybody who joins its plans to get rich. It's a contradiction in values. And we came to that conclusion. I don't know when Glass Stiegel was passed or anything, but then they want to get back. And how many of you know, and maybe I'm wrong on this, I haven't looked lately. But the Federal Reserve actually was given the responsibility for setting margin requirements. And they changed margin requirements a lot of times because it was known that people that borrow a lot of money caused a danger to the bank system. You get too many in the picture and all of that sort of thing. And what's happened? The banks figured out a thousand different ways to get so you borrow on a hundred percent margin. I mean, through derivatives and everything, it's just totally distorted. All the lessons that were learned in the 29 crash. Imagine taking banking into derivative trading. Who in his right mind would have allowed that?”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, that's why they're in it.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“That's what those Senate committees decided back in 1931 and 32. And then in the late 1990s particularly, I mean, you know, very decent people, but, you know, Bob Ruman and some of the people, you know, they said, this is the modern world. And here's what the modern world has turned out to hand us. And banking can have all kinds of new inventions, but it needs to have old values. And we don't know what's going to happen, you know, because there are a lot of things that could happen out of the present situation.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, I have nothing to add.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“And sometimes it's to your advantage, if you really understand it, not to say exactly what you feel. And here we are. Charlie, yeah. Well, a lot has happened in banking in my lifetime. I welcomed all that early banking of the deserving immigrants by the early Bank of America. And I think all the credit cards when they came in as original bank cards were a great contribution to civilization. But the game year it gets and the more it looks like investment banking, the less I like it as a citizen. I don't want, I am always, I am deeply distrustful of situations in which everybody wants to get rich and envies everybody else. I regard that atmosphere as utterly toxic. And the people who like one story, which is, again, a true story. And I'm not naming the name, and it wasn't Pete Jeffers because he might fit this name, but it wasn't Pete. But our hero, Gene Abeck, was going to have to retire at some point. And so we hired a future replacement. It's kind of a little problem I talked before about having the perfect business. and now we're going to bring in somebody. We actually bring in some money that went to Central High with Charlie. In my class. Yeah. And Charlie didn't know I was picking out of this guy, and he wasn't. If you asked me, we wouldn't hire him. Well, if I asked you, I probably wouldn't hire anybody, but that's another question. But this guy comes over, a perfectly decent guy, but presentable, you know, it looks like a banker and everything. And of course, the first thing he wants to do, we've got this wonderful bank. wonderful bank, but we have the crumbious looking building in Rockford. And we don't need a great building. We just need a great banker. And naturally, this guy wants to build a new building, because we were the most profitable bank, but we didn't look like we're the most profitable bank. So I told him he could have any building you wanted as long as it was not higher than, it had to be shorter than our nearest competitor. And he lost interest totally. He wanted to be on the top floor of the biggest building in town. And I told him he could horizontally do anything he wanted it, but he couldn't do it vertically. And it taught me a lot about the guy's motivations in life. And he didn't end up running the bank anyway. Anyway, that's all I know about banking, probably more.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah. Have we ever made an emotional decision? No. No. That's in business we're talking about. Yeah. No, you don't want to be a no-emotion person in all of your life, but you definitely want to be a no-emotion person in making an investment or business decision.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, yeah, you agree totally with it. And I'm glad we behaved the way we did at Westco.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, we didn't go crazy.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, at some point, printing money to buy votes will be counterproductive.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, of course not. But Japan bought back most of the national debt and a lot of the common stocks,”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, that's exactly right. In Japan, everybody's supposed to suck out and cope. And in America, we complain.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“yeah and we know how to do it and we actually came from a money printing money printing economy in world war two which was required and we suffered significant inflation the price level I mean there are a million ways to judge it but it's maybe ten times what it was then or something like that”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“yes it it's difficult i like what we do better”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“We are making less.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, we never thought we could manage $508 billion. No, we never...”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, it's so simple to spend less than you earn and invest shrewdly and avoid toxic people and toxic activities and try and keep learning all your life, et cetera, et cetera, and do a lot of deferred gratification because you prefer life that way. And if you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“There is so much money now on the hands. of so many smart people, all trying to outsmart one another, and out promote one another, getting more money out of other people. And it's a radically different world from the world we started in. And I suppose it will have its opportunities, but it's also going to have some unpleasant episodes. But they're trying to outsmart each other in arenas that you don't have to play. I mean, if you look at that government bond market, the Treasury bill market, I mean, you've got this one bill that's out of line with the others. We want over three billion of it's the other day. But those are people. The world is overwhelmingly short-term focused. And if you go to an investor relations call, they're all trying to figure out how to fill”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Oh, yes. The toxic people who are trying to fool you. or lie to you who aren't reliable in meeting their commitments. A great lesson of life is get the mail out of your life.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I like, we agree on that, incidentally.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yes. Yeah, I don't mind a little tact. Or even a little financial cost. But the question is getting them a Hell out of law.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“I have nothing to add, we're, we're, we're, okay, station five.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“I have nothing to add.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, I never have. I don't even wear them. It wouldn't fit.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, but that doesn't fit everybody, Charlie. I mean, you know.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, it only fits 95%.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Oh, that's another question, but if you're going to place it somewhere, I just as soon as”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah. my view. The talent will make the money. The agents will make the money. And if you've got a theater, you know, the theaters are now doing 70% of the business that they did before the pandemic. And big hits, you know, have enormous grosses. But you can't reduce the supply. People have only got so many hours in the day. They've only got two eyeballs. And they've got more choice than ever before. And they've got stuff that's cheaper. offers them the same experience and some of them like the experience, you know, particularly the big hits of going. But it isn't like you can double the number of people or double the eyeballs or anything like that. And you've got a lot of people. The talent will always get paid. And when you essentially are packaging that talent one way or another, and you need to get higher prices and you've got a lot of strong companies that don't want to quit, that's an interest an interesting equation. If you think the movies are tough, try to invest in a New York show on a conventional stage. There they think it's a breach of faith in that business to let the person put up the money, ever get any money back.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, it's a business that everybody's tempted to go. They love the idea of going in it, you know, and I get a certain amount of psychic income. I never own any race horses either.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Charlie Youngman, you've watched it. Well, I have, and I'm not personally at all sure how bad the global warming is going to be. I think, I don't think anybody knows for sure whether the seats are going to rise two inches or 20 feet. And so I think there's a lot of false claims here in the world where much is not known.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yes. No, it wasn't before. It was, but it was. Yes, it was. It was just before. You're right.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, it really dies fast, those shale wells. If you like quick death in your oil wells, we have them for you. No. But accidental, they're doing a lot of good things. Yeah, they deal a lot of new wells. Yeah. They're doing it a profit, but it's a different thing. It's a different kind of oil business. It's just different. Yeah. Yeah. And that's true of almost half the oil produced in the United States. And there's times... There's a lot of oil down there that nobody knows how to produce. And they've been working at it for like 50 years. But they worked at the existing shale production for about 50 years before they figured it out. And it was weirdly complicated when they finally were able to do it. There's only one type of sand that works. Can you imagine a horse? horizontal pipe, you know, maybe a mile and a half or something. It's just so different than what you think about. And it goes laterally for three miles, two miles down. Yeah. How the hell do you build two or three miles laterally when you're already two or three miles under the earth? They've mastered a lot of very tricky technology. Do we able to get any oil out of these wells at all? Yeah. And we love the position with us. Occidental. Yeah. We love having Bickey run it. And they've been... And there's a lot more oil down there if anybody can figure out another magic trick. That's all we need is another magic trick. But Occidental has some other things, too. Yes, yes. But the price of oil still is incredibly important in terms of the economics of short-lived oil.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“I've got nothing to add.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Warren and I are looking for the easy job that we can identify. Yeah. If we can do it playing Tick-Tac doll, we'll do it, you know. We have a whole different way of going to the whole way. But we don't want to compete with Eli. in a lot of things. I mean, you know. We don't want that much failure. Yeah. And it takes over your life in a way that it just doesn't fit us. But, you know, there are going to be, well, there have been important things done by Elon already. And it requires fanaticism isn't the word.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Okay. Well, it is. That wasn't quite the word, but it's a dedication to solving the impossible, and every now and then it'll do it. But it would be torturous to Mayor Charlie. And I like the way I'm living, and I wouldn't enjoy being in his – but he wouldn't enjoy being in his – but he wouldn't enjoy being in my shoes either.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I'm slightly less optimistic than Warren is. I think the best road ahead to human happiness is to expect less. I think it's going to get, I think it's going to get, I think it's going to get tougher. And I think the solution of having a huge proportion of the young and brilliant people all go into wealth management is a crazy development in terms of its natural consequences for American civilization. We don't need as many wealth managers as we have.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Okay, maybe fine.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I'm not sure I quite caught all of that, but I don't think I have a lot of advice about how to succeed as a lawyer. I have a son-in-law who describes modern law practice in a big firm. He says, it's like a pie-eating contest where if you win, you get to eat, more pie. And I advise you to avoid that kind of a law firm. Life is too short to just do nothing but eat pie.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“1962.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, we, we, I don't spend much time worrying about something that can happen 50 years ago after I'm dead. I think if you sort of take care of each day's responsibilities pretty well and think ahead as well as you can, then you just take the results as they fall. So I'm philosophical, but I'm not, I'm spreading unnecessarily.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, we would cover this subject earlier. Yeah.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Tell them what you told the lawyer when we were buying a hosha cone. I don't remember, you tell them.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, I don't.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, it is.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I think what we do. Yeah, you kissed that one off beautifully.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“I think we have a pretty good one. We've been very lucky. And I don't know. It seems to be that most of the people who are going to end up the way we did, they almost already know how to do it. Well, the most important purchase in retrospect that we may have made was national indemnity. Not because specifically what it did, but what it led to. And Jack Ringwall controlled the company. And I knew him and liked him, and he knew me. And once a year, he'd get irritated when the Nebraska Department of Insurance or somebody would come around. And he said they always came around when the exorbin racetrack was open, you know, so they could. I mean, he had all these theories about why it was a pain in the neck to be regulated. And I told Charlie Haider, next time Jack is in that mood where he's ready to sell just because he's tired of fooling around with all these guys, be sure and find him. And so Charlie called me one day and he says, Jack is in the heat. And I said, bring him over. And we made a deal. Well, that's why Jack sold. And he was happy after he made the deal. And I was happy after we made the deal. So there's a man that controlled the business, but just decided. These people didn't seem to bother them as much once they were my problem and not his. And you just can't tell when lightning will strike. And that didn't do magnificent things for us initially, but just look at what it led to, you know. And then, so you never, you know, if you knew, if you knew how you were going to, again, if you knew how you were going to shoot all 18 holes, it wouldn't be any fun playing, you wouldn't get on the first T. I mean, it's, it's. It's the uncertainty, the fun of playing the game, the opponents, all kinds of things that make a game interesting. And I think Charlie and I are in the most interesting game in the world.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, it was pretty simple. I mean, I, you know, other, back when I started, other people were going through Playboy, and I was going through Moody's, you know, basically. There's a movie out called Turn Every Page, which I saw again for the second time a couple of days ago. Lizzie Gottlieb, and I recommend everybody in this world watch that because I turned every page in the past. And I did it for thousands. and thousands of pages and moody's and i did it at the department of public utilities in in boston i did it in new insurance department that it just kept turning pages well that that that goes on for for a while but now we need big ideas in order to find things and uh and what was your question charlie tell them about the japanese”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“well the japanese thing was was simple i mean it then i like looking at companies every i mean i like looking at companies every i mean i like looking at figures about companies and and here were five very very substantial companies understandable companies most of them uh maybe all of them we'd done business with in a dozen different ways if you go a couple miles from where this place is uh our last coal generating plant”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“charlie well not yet's been remarkable you can argue that it's worth as much as any airline now”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, we get by working very hard, we could make a minor amount of money.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“well i think one of the inane things that's taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory and investing in common stocks that is an insane idea it's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified and if you've only got three i'd rather be in my best ideas instead of my worst and now some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst and in the act of deciding that the investment already is good they get to thinking it's better than it is i think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people and that is a blessing to us we're not so smart but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness it is that is a very important part of practical intelligence and a lot of people who are geniuses on IQ tests think they're a lot smarter than they are and what they are is dangerous and and but if you know the edge of your own ability pretty well, you should ignore most of the notions of our experts about what I call de-worsification of portfolios.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah. It was. It was. It was pretty minor at the time, even.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“I don't know where we're headed with all of this. It's been very extreme. I think that you could be pretty extreme in fighting depressions and so forth if you reverted afterwards to a period of some discipline. But if you're just... Some decibelin, but if you're going to just keep borrowing, printing money and spending it. I think eventually it causes bad trouble. And you can see it in Latin America. Latin America let its currency get out of control all the time. And of course, it lagged the United States in economic achievement greatly. So I think we pay a price if we ever give up our old ways entirely and go into a new world where we just try and print money to make it easier to get through the year. We paid a price in World War II. I mean, everybody, school kids and everybody else, myself included. We bought what we originally called war bonds and defense bonds and savings bonds and all that. But from 1940, due to 1944 or five, you paid out 1875, I mean, I got $25 back, and every kid”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, we're bidding a subject to death, but it is a problem. I wish we had a solution.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, my view is that Warren ought to feel comfortable if you wants to. Put that in the minutes.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, one of the really interesting things about Benegra. He was a really gifted teacher, a very honorable profession. And that is what has lasted. However, an interesting fact that he was sheepish about in his old age was that more than half of all the investment return that Ben Ben Graham made in his whole life came from one stock, one growth stock. Keiko, Bircher's subsidiary. And at the time he operated, there were a lot of sort of lousy companies that were too cheap, and you could make a little money floating from one to another. But the big money he made was one growth stock. Buying one”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“country looking backward. Yeah. That may be why we have 25% of the world's GDP, starting with a half a percent of the population in a few centuries. I mean, it's just, it's a miracle. And it wasn't because we were smarter. Well, you've got to say that there must be something to the system that's worked pretty well, even though it's produced a civil war and all kinds of things, you know, and women, you know, not getting a shot at anything, you know, even after they passed the 19th Amendment. It's a work in progress. I think actually there's been progress, but it's mankind's nature to see the things wrong with it if you've... Even worse, it's man's nature to take the progress as a right, not something to be earned or strive for, but something that should automatically just flow in over the transom. And that attitude is poison. It doesn't do anybody anything. doesn't do anybody any good.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah. We want owners who understand what they own. Now, that doesn't mean they have to understand the detail of it. But that's why we have people that have been around 50 or 60 years. That doesn't mean that they read the 10 queues or anything like that. they feel worth telling it to them like they live next door to us. I don't know what the accountants were thinking when they made that change. It strikes me as bonkers.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah. You get a bunch of people who are all being drawing a lot of pay out of the income. complicated system and rising in it like so many officers in the Army, God knows what they'll do if you put them in a little room by themselves and tell them to invent new accounting standards.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“No, you can square what you just said. You're totally right on everything.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I have more grandchildren, but I am quite philosophical about my grandchildren. not thinking exactly the way I do. It seems to me that's almost the natural course of life. And I just live my life my own way, and they can observe it as an example if they want to. And if they don't, they can try some other way. I don't like it when they try some other way. And I have to pretend that I like some of the boyfriends and girlfriends I don't like. But I just struggle through, like, through like everybody else. And usually I just bite my tongue and keep silent. That's my way of handling it.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, I know, but you needed a lot of help. That is for sure.”

Afternoon Session - 2023 Meeting

“Well, if we're getting into confession time, I have to tell you, it's 3.30. So we don't want to keep going on. Who knows what we'll be saying in another half hour. So I thank you all very much for coming. At 4.30, we will have the shareholders meeting here, and the, we're continuing to sell goods for another 20 or 25 minutes. We've already broken all kinds of records, but let's really make it tough for comparisons next year. And again, I thank you for coming, come next year, and maybe we'll figure out the answer to a few more of these questions.”

Morning Session - 2023 Meeting

“Yeah, sure.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Chat with students at the Rotman School of Management on March 03, 2023

“wants to meet the yo-yo for lunch the wants to meet the yo-yo for lunch the yo-yo is very ready to meet him and so I yo-yo is very ready to meet him and so I yo-yo is very ready to meet him and so I used to meet lilu once a month for lunch used to meet lilu once a month for lunch used to meet lilu once a month for lunch okay and I told lilu look so whenever I okay and I told lilu look so whenever I okay and I told lilu look so whenever I meet somebody for lunch meet somebody for lunch meet somebody for lunch I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke but I do like great food so I said lilu but I do like great food so I said lilu but I do like great food so I said lilu listen near your home is Din Tai Fung listen near your home is Din Tai Fung listen near your home is Din Tai Fung have any of you heard of Din Tai Fung have any of you heard of Din Tai Fung have any of you heard of Din Tai Fung a few nods that's awesome we have a few a few nods that's awesome we have a few a few nods that's awesome we have a few knots it hasn't come to Toronto yet but knots it hasn't come to Toronto yet but knots it hasn't come to Toronto yet but it'll come soon in the meanwhile it'll come soon in the meanwhile it'll come soon in the meanwhile whenever you go to other cities you can whenever you go to other cities you can whenever you go to other cities you can have Din Tai Farm anyway there was a have Din Tai Farm anyway there was a have Din Tai Farm anyway there was a great it's a Taiwanese dumpling place great it's a Taiwanese dumpling place great it's a Taiwanese dumpling place so I said listen while we are having so I said listen while we are having so I said listen while we are having great conversation we'll meet at Din Tai great conversation we'll meet at Din Tai great conversation we'll meet at Din Tai Fung once a month he said yeah that's Fung once a month he said yeah that's Fung once a month he said yeah that's fine fine fine so I immediately one time so I immediately one time so I immediately one time and he's telling me about this obscure and he's telling me about this obscure and he's telling me about this obscure Korean company Korean company Korean company called Amor Pacific okay and and he's called Amor Pacific okay and and he's called Amor Pacific okay and and he's trying to explain there like the trying to explain there like the”

Mohnish Pabrai's Chat with students at the Rotman School of Management on March 03, 2023

“and all of you when we start out our circular competence is very narrow you know because we haven't had a lot of experience and only really understand products that we've used in the past and a small sliver of them we could probably understand the economics but that's okay over time the circle will expand naturally we don't really need to worry about it but even if it doesn't expand like it never expanded for John ariega it never really expanded for Sam Walton every entrepreneur for the most part has very narrow circle of competence you know they're uh inch wide and a mile deep and that's how they succeed by being an inch Wireless so we want to be we want to really make sure that the bets we make our businesses we really understand about”

Mohnish Pabrai's Chat with students at the Rotman School of Management on March 03, 2023

“which is in the South African company called process but in effect it's an investment in in 10 cent I mean we still own it I think 10 tencent is a very remarkable business but there are aspects of that business which are difficult for someone like me to figure out how the Chinese government thinks of them and all of that it's also a mega cap one of the issues is there's a law of large numbers so if I want to focus only on 100 baggers and you know tenth Center the 300 400 billion dollar market cap you know to get 100x we're looking at 30 40 trillion and and there are no 30 40 trillion market cap businesses anywhere on the planet they've cap out at about five percent of that number currently so that's the other thing we we may do okay on it if I find something better I would switch it cool thank you very much for your time today I think that”

#295 I had dinner with Charlie Munger

“There isn't a single formula. You need to know a lot about businessand human nature and the numbers. It is unreasonable to expect that there's a magic systemthat will do it for you. People are looking for a simple methodthat they can learn from reading one bookthat will make them rich. It doesn't happen that way. One is actually better off reading a hundredbusiness biographies and a hundred books on investing. Why? Because if we learn the historyof a hundred different business models,we learn when the businesses had tough timesand how they got through them. We also learn what made them great or not so great. And so on the next page, it goes back to this ideawhere it's like, hey, we made a lot of moneybecause we had the cash and we can move fast, right? And essentially saying, hey, these opportunities,they present themselves. You gotta make a decision right then. They're not gonna like, oh, it's on the open market. It's gonna sit there for months. And so he says, you have to be ready to pouncewhen the opportunity presents itselfbecause in this world,opportunities just don't last very long.”

Mohnish Pabrai's Presentation and Q&A at the Boston College on October 9, 2014

“investment managementinvestment management at all institutional approach means thatat all institutional approach means thatat all institutional approach means that you need to identifyyou need to identifyyou need to identify and find elusive the way Geico did andand find elusive the way Geico did andand find elusive the way Geico did and then give the entire Investmentthen give the entire Investmentthen give the entire Investment Portfolio to do something and then tellPortfolio to do something and then tellPortfolio to do something and then tell them card blocks do whatever you wantthem card blocks do whatever you wantthem card blocks do whatever you want and no one's going to look over yourand no one's going to look over yourand no one's going to look over your shoulders and so the there are two orshoulders and so the there are two orshoulders and so the there are two or three skills needed to do that one isthree skills needed to do that one isthree skills needed to do that one is the biggest stumbling block would be anthe biggest stumbling block would be anthe biggest stumbling block would be an ability to identifyability to identifyability to identify a person like Lou Simpson which would bea person like Lou Simpson which would bea person like Lou Simpson which would be very hard to do I think Warren Buffettvery hard to do I think Warren Buffettvery hard to do I think Warren Buffett is extremely good at that so most ofis extremely good at that so most ofis extremely good at that so most of these companies have no abilityand the second is that after youand the second is that after youand the second is that after you identify New Simpson you've got to takeidentify New Simpson you've got to takeidentify New Simpson you've got to take a non-institutional approach and givea non-institutional approach and givea non-institutional approach and give that person full freedomthat person full freedomthat person full freedom again that's really hard to do in a kindagain that's really hard to do in a kindagain that's really hard to do in a kind of very regulated and cut and dryof very regulated and cut and dryof very regulated and cut and dry industry like Insurance where we handsindustry like Insurance where we handsindustry like Insurance where we hands off if you willoff if you willoff if you will and and so when I formed tando I wasand and so when I formed tando I was”

Fireside Chat with Jeff Pintar on my lifetime Blackjack ban at a Vegas Casino on May 21, 2020

“conclusion that they would lose to me consistently and they were not so I tried to explain to them that they normally have problems with card counters and I don't count cards and they said yeah that's what took us a while because we realized you weren't counting cards and it took us a while to figure out that a system which doesn't rely on card counting can still beat them”

Fireside Chat with Jeff Pintar on my lifetime Blackjack ban at a Vegas Casino on May 21, 2020

“it wasn't like that I mean they ran the Vegas of the 60s with mob run and the wages of this era is a bunch of listed corporations and I think the mob is relegating to running the taxis in Vegas and they're quickly dwindling down so yeah I think Vegas has been corporatized”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with London School of Economics on January 18, 2023

“40 50 billion of oil from that oil field and it's still flowing today but this company in Turkey not only is it was it a three cent dollar bill it's growing its value and in fact in the last three years it may have doubled its value I was buying something with a market cap of 20 million that was probably worth at least 600 or 700 million it's probably worth something like at least a billion and a half today and it's going to keep going so I may not need to do a cross connect all I may need to do which is very difficult to do is do nothing for a very long period of time like Rip Van Winkle just go to sleep so I could either go to sleep for 20 years or I could spend 20 years talking to the wonderful students at lse so I hope you will invite me back because I need something to do for 20 years because I do I've literally got nothing to do now I just have to twiddle”

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A with London School of Economics on January 18, 2023

“what it's kind of Pavlov's dog conditioning You're Gonna Act actually think that it's a cork that made you happy right and so the association tendency is something that advertisers understand really well and it's one mental model that coke uses and if you start overlaying these other mental models with that then you start getting these kind of unusual effects that's the same reason why Coke uses celebrities right so if we have some George Clooney type character drinking Coke we're going to think oh we'll be like Clooney too if we drink the Coke and so the associated tendency kicks in there as well so I think that building an arsenal of mental models and one doesn't even need to be that I don't think I'm that good at it I've just got a few models that I think a lot of humans ignore that I don't think one should ignore that can give you a good”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“And then Munger goes into the fact that because they spend so much time gaining wisdom and preparing, that allows them to actually make decisions really quickly. When you have the few great opportunities in your life, they're presented to you. He says, we actually make decisions very rapidly. That's because we've spent so much time preparing ourselves by quietly sitting and reading and thinking.”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“And then Munger says, if you get into the mental habit of relating what you're reading to the basic underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“Munger says, we both hate. This is something that I've really adopted. I think it's one of the best ideas that they have, and it's this idea that you have to schedule time to think, and you cannot. Munger's going to say something funny, where it's like most people, most business people schedule themselves like a dentist. He's like, well, if you do that every single minute of your day from the time you wake up to you go to bed is accounted for. When the hell are you thinking? And I'll get into why Jeff Bezos picked up on this is such an important thing in one second. Munger says, we both hate to have too many forward commitments in our schedules. We both insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. I've heard various stories over the years about this, but for example, like let's say you wanted to meet with Warren Buffett. You wanted to schedule something and say, you know, hey, can you meet, you know, the third week of next month? He's just going to say, no, if you want to meet me Friday,”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“Munger then continues, while an excess of self-regardis often counterproductive in its effects on cognition,it can cause some weird successes from overconfidencethat happens to cause success.So what does that mean?That's kind of a weird language there.This is, he breaks it down into a maximthat I've heard Munger repeat several times.And he says, never underestimate the manwho overestimates himself.”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“That is very much my approach to wisdom. I go around figuring out what doesn't work and then I avoid it. Invert, always invert. I sought good judgment mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then pondering ways to avoid such outcomes.”

#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

“I think history is very helpful. It enables you to keep things in perspective. So the history of civilization and the history of finance and investing, it is very useful.”