Charles Munger is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the most successful investor, philanthropist.
For this book Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger, Janet Lowe(author) did extensive interview/research to bring every aspect of Charlie Munger’s life to the world.
The book also covers share of failures Charlie had in early days of his career, divorce from first marriage, death of his father and how he lost one of his eye later because of unsuccessful operation.
Charlie Munger studied law, likes playing poker and voracious reader. He follows Benjamin Franklin way of living life.
I kind of loved authors narrative in each scenario, it was like am watching a movie or sitting next to Charlie Munger and watching all his actions. It will be a hollywood blockbuster in my opinion if gets adopted as story.
These are some notes from the book, it can be by Charlie himself or his friends, authors or quotes from some of the books from his favorite author.
- Charlie is generous in the deepest sense and never lets ego interfere with rationality.
- Hunger for the world’s approval, Charlie judges himself entirely by an inner scorecard-and he is a tough grader.
- I’ve been associated with Warren (Buffett) so long, I thought I’d be just a footnote.’ Charles T. Munger, when he was first named to the Forbes magazine list of richest Americans in 1993
- Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich,” said Charlie, who early on earned his living as a lawyer. “Not because I wanted Ferraris-I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted.
- Being surrounded by right values from the beginning is an immense treasure.
- Humor breaks the tension, provides psychological protection, and allows them to assert dominance over their circumstances.
- I play golf with a man who says, “What good is health? You can’t buy money with it.”‘
- We try to be realistic and smart and logical all the time, but there is another side to it.
- What you learn from Nancy is never give up on yourself. Just keep working on your stuff.
- What you learn from Nancy (Charlie’s 2nd wife) is never give up on yourself. Just keep working on your stuff.
- “As parents, part of their success was in transmitting values, human morality, and ethical codes to their children,” said Emilie (Charlie’s daughter).
- The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price.
- In order to be truly wealthy, a person needed to build ownership in a business.
- “Hard work, honesty, if you keep at it, will get you almost anything.”
- “the lesson of his business life is that you don’t want to do business with people you can’t trust. The economics are irrelevant if you don’t have trust.
- “Never wrestle with a pig because if you do you’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy”
- There are a million business traps. You can get sloppy, you can get alcoholic, you can get megalomania, you can not understand your own limitations. There are a million ways to gum it up.
- Munger and Buffett realized how much easier and pleasanter it was to buy a good business and just let it roll along, than to buy a deeply discounted but struggling business and spend time, energy, and sometimes more money setting it straight.
- Smart, hard-working people aren’t exempted from professional disasters of overconfidence.
- “If you just keep pressing on and don’t let anything that happens get to you, your life is so much better.”
- If you try to predict the future of everything, you attempt too much. You’re going to fail through lack of specialization.
- When serious problems arise, the reaction of top management must be both swift and thorough.
- If Warren and Charlie believe in the principle of something, they don’t deviate from it, even if it’s not popular with the individuals around them.
- You live it in the middle of the field, and you don’t cut corners.
- Anyone who struggles to make the box of his life larger discovers that the box has walls that must be burst open.
- I don’t think you can get to be a really good investor over a broad range without doing a massive amount of reading.
- Every time you think some person, or some unfairness is ruining your life, it is you who are ruining your life.
- To become a great investor Charlie says “Each person has to play the game given his own marginal utility considerations and in a way that takes into account his own psychology. If losses are going to make you miserable-and some losses are inevitable-you might be wise to utilize a very conservative pattern of investment and saving all your life. So you have to adapt your strategy to your own nature and your own talents. I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all investment strategy that I can give you.”‘
- Though few companies last forever, all of them should be built to last a long time, says Munger.
- “It’s … necessary to accommodate a lot of failure, and because no matter how able you are, you’re going to have headwinds and troubles,”