Lessons From Charlie Munger

We all have good friends who enrich our life. They provide emotional support, give us a listening ear, share in our joys and sorrows. We value and cherish them.

Very few have “great” friends, friends who are willing to tell us what we need to hear, not want to hear. Friends who are willing to embrace confrontation with us, telling us “We are not thinking straight” offering sage advice and wisdom. Warren Buffett had that kind of friend in Charlie Munger.

On Tuesday, days before he was to turn 100 years old, Munger passed away. Munger was titled the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, yet his role, influence far exceed the job description. Munger, a life longer learner and reader was the driving force in changing how Buffett approached investing. “The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” Mr. Buffett once wrote in an annual report. Buffett continued, “He was the architect, and I was the general contractor.”

For over 50 years these two men worked side by side building one of the most successful businesses in the world. Munger was a polymath, sharing his knowledge with the world often quoting, Mark Twain, Marcus Tullius and Cicero. During a commencement speech at USC in 2007, Munger explained the lessons from Cicero:

“Cicero is famous for saying, “A man who doesn’t know what happened before he was born goes through life like a child.” That is a very correct idea of Cicero’s. And he’s right to ridicule somebody so foolish as not to know what happened before he was born.

But if you generalize Cicero as I think one should, there are all these other things that you should know in addition to history, and those other things are the big ideas in all the other disciplines. And it doesn’t help you just to know them enough just so you can prattle them back on an exam and get an A. You have to learn these things in such a way that they’re in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life.”

Those words define the life and times of Charlie Munger. Munger often explain the difference between having Planck Knowledge and Chauffeur Knowledge by telling the story of Max Planck, when he won the Nobel prize and went around Germany giving lectures on quantum mechanics. And the chauffeur gradually memorized the lecture and he said, “Would you mind, professor Planck, just because it’s so boring staying in our routines, would you mind if I gave the lecture this time and you just sat in front with my chauffeur’s hat?” And Planck said, “Sure.”

And the chauffeur got up and he gave this long lecture on quantum mechanics, after which a physics professor stood up in the rear and asked a perfectly ghastly question. And the chauffeur said, “Well, I’m surprised that in an advanced city like Munich I get such an elementary question. I’m going to ask my chauffeur to reply.”

Munger then said: One is Planck knowledge — the people who really know. They’ve paid the dues, they have the aptitude.

Then, we’ve got chauffeur knowledge — they have learned to prattle the talk and they have a big head of hair. They may have fine timbre in the voice. They really make a hell of an impression. But in the end, they’ve got chauffeur knowledge.

Munger spent every day of his life, acquiring knowledge, becoming a little bit better than the day before. He never stopped reading, learning, and applying. He lived a growth mindset life. We can honor the lessons he shared by doing the same.

R.I.P, Charlie — and thank you.

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