Scan barcode
A review by _walter_
Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Peter D. Kaufman
5.0
Charlie Munger set out do in life what others have spent decades learning and researching in academic settings. He got very wealthy in the process.
By the time his talks started drawing stadium-sized audiences in Nebraska and other places, he was already old, wise, ornery, and quite the iconoclast. You'd be happy to know that this collection of talks do a great job of bringing all of Charlie's wit and wisdom to life in its pages.
Most refreshing about these talks is that they are never dry or boring, Munger knew how to keep audiences engaged and you're just about guaranteed to chuckle more than a few times per talk listening to him recount some poor bastard's misfortunes and how he and Buffet avoiding the same pitfalls.
How did Charlie do it, and more importantly, what does he want you to start doing more of? Nothing too exotic really, just fundamental, "old-fashioned" things, peppered with some basic rules from across various disciplines in the arts and sciences.
1. He wants you to be honest, dependable, and reliable.
2. He wants you to build a lattice-work of mental models incorporating insights from psychology, economics, physics, biology, etc. He wants you to use these models checklist style to be more multi-disciplinary in you thinking and better navigate complex situations and avoid costly biases. He was a huge fan of behavioral economics and developmental psychology.
3. He wants you to think long-term, be patient, and let compound work its magic.
4. He wants you to focus on value and quality, not short-term gains nor increasing "shareholder value" for the sake of it. See (3) above. In particular, focus on businesses with a strong competitive advantage (a "moat"), competent management, and sustainable growth prospects at a reasonable price.
5. Most important of all, he wants you be a curious lifelong learner.
Keep in mind that since this is a collection of curated talks gathered over a span of several years, you will run into some of Munger's most cherished stories and advice several times. Some of it could get repetitive.
Highly recommended.
By the time his talks started drawing stadium-sized audiences in Nebraska and other places, he was already old, wise, ornery, and quite the iconoclast. You'd be happy to know that this collection of talks do a great job of bringing all of Charlie's wit and wisdom to life in its pages.
Most refreshing about these talks is that they are never dry or boring, Munger knew how to keep audiences engaged and you're just about guaranteed to chuckle more than a few times per talk listening to him recount some poor bastard's misfortunes and how he and Buffet avoiding the same pitfalls.
How did Charlie do it, and more importantly, what does he want you to start doing more of? Nothing too exotic really, just fundamental, "old-fashioned" things, peppered with some basic rules from across various disciplines in the arts and sciences.
1. He wants you to be honest, dependable, and reliable.
2. He wants you to build a lattice-work of mental models incorporating insights from psychology, economics, physics, biology, etc. He wants you to use these models checklist style to be more multi-disciplinary in you thinking and better navigate complex situations and avoid costly biases. He was a huge fan of behavioral economics and developmental psychology.
3. He wants you to think long-term, be patient, and let compound work its magic.
4. He wants you to focus on value and quality, not short-term gains nor increasing "shareholder value" for the sake of it. See (3) above. In particular, focus on businesses with a strong competitive advantage (a "moat"), competent management, and sustainable growth prospects at a reasonable price.
5. Most important of all, he wants you be a curious lifelong learner.
Keep in mind that since this is a collection of curated talks gathered over a span of several years, you will run into some of Munger's most cherished stories and advice several times. Some of it could get repetitive.
Highly recommended.