'Man is not immortal, money is something outside the body', Munger donated a large part of his wealth during his lifetime. But he did not sign the giving pledge, keeping 'cautious skepticism about a group of very smart people coming together to do charity'.
March 1988, Charlie Munger.
Billionaire Charlie Munger has died at the age of 99.
In addition to Berkshire's vice chairman, investment wiser, and value strategy guru, Munger is also labeled as a real estate lawyer, publisher, philanthropist, and architect. But he is best known for being "the world's richest Warren Buffett's right-hand man."
Traditionally, both Munger and Warren Buffett are standard capitalists: they do not participate in industry, and Berkshire Hathaway's core business model is to invest capital and hold it for a long time to obtain the surplus value after the growth of the industry. Even with long-term investments in Coca-Cola, Costco and China's automaker BYD, Munger or Berkshire have never produced a can of Coke or a car, but have been reaping the dividends of the company's growth.
But in both East and West, Munger's death has sparked widespread discussion and remembrance.
In part, it may be that Charlie Munger's life was a quintessential American dream: a smart, principled young man who overcame many hardships and amassed billions of dollars through hard work, honesty, and an obsession with self-improvement.
Part of the reason is that he was never a typical capitalist. He spends most of his time reading, researching problems, and communicating with peopleHe is often outspoken but caustic in his assessment of things, but he also has a strong sense of morality;He was stubborn because he was smart, but he was self-disciplined, had many friends, and lived a long life.
Omaha Boys, Bamang Combo
Unlike Warren Buffett, who was concerned about the success of investment as early as the 70s of the last century, it was not until 1996 that Charlie Munger was introduced to the world for the first time, Forbes made a cover story for him, entitled "Not So Silent Partners", in which Munger was described as the creator of Berkshire's investment philosophy and a master of investment philosophy.
Warren Buffett is a stock picker, while Munger is a skeptic, a champion of the devil," the article describes. For the first time, the story brought Berkshire's investment philosophy to the fore, and it also brought Munger from behind the scenes to the front of the stage. It was Munger who persuaded Warren Buffett to buy a 100% stake in Joyce Candy for $25 million in 1972. By 1995, the market value of Joy Candy had reached $500 million, and the annual pre-tax profit was about $50 million. It was Munger who made Buffett pay attention to "floating funds" and enter the insurance field, thus opening up a channel for Berkshire to obtain no-cost funds through the acquisition of insurance companies.
Now the whole world knows: even Warren Buffett admits that without Munger, he might not be one of the richest people in the world.
Since then, the friendship between the two has been talked about by the world. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, Munger even worked in Buffett's grandfather's grocery store as a child, and they had many friends in common and had always heard each other's names from friends, but it wasn't until 1959 that Munger returned home to handle his father's funeral that the two met for the first time and have been friends for life ever since.
Those who know them feel that Munger is very similar to Warren Buffett: they both like math, they both have a sense of humor, and they can also be rational and cold-blooded when making judgments. But in addition to the judgment of investment, the growth experience and life goals of the two are actually very different.
Warren Buffett was born in a wealthy family, his father was a two-term member of the United States Congress, and he owned a ** brokerage company. When Buffett was 8 years old, he was brought to the New York Stock Exchange by his father and received by the directors of Goldman SachsAt the age of 11, Buffett had already begun to learn to Xi and buy and sell at his father's companyAt the age of 14, Buffett bought 40 acres of land with $1,200 he had saved from delivering newspapers and subleased it to tenant farmers. In college, he attended Wharton School of Business and then Columbia Business School. It can be said that Buffett has been cultivated from an early age with the goal of a career in business and investment, and he has been on this path forever. By the time he graduated from college, Buffett already had $10,000 in personal assets, equivalent to $100,000 today.
Charlie Munger's grandfather became a local federal judge by self-education and personal struggle, Munger's father was a lawyer, but Munger was born during the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s, and the family's economic level plummeted, so Munger would go to Buffett's grandfather's grocery store to work, working 12 hours a day in exchange for $2 in pay.
He applied to the University of Michigan's Department of Mathematics simply because he could get an A without much effort in studying mathematics. After two years of college, just in time for the outbreak of the Pacific War, Munger enlisted in the army and was assigned to study Xi meteorology. When he was on duty at the weather station in the snow, he set a goal in life: I want a bunch of children, a house with a lot of books, and enough wealth to live a free life.
At the end of the war, Munger decided to follow his father's footsteps and enrolled in Harvard Law School. While in law school, Munger was married and had a second child. The student dormitory is too small, and the youngest daughter's bed can only be placed in the bathtub.
After graduating, he became a successful lawyer, earning $275 a month, more than many ordinary people, but he was far from being rich. Later, he divorced his first wife, his 9-year-old eldest son suddenly suffered from leukemia, he was close to bankruptcy, and he could not save his son's life, and his youngest daughter, who did not know the hardships of the world, laughed at the broken car he drove. He was 31 years old.
But at the age of 40, Munger was already a millionaire. First, he engaged in real estate development and construction, and earned the first 1 million in his lifeLater, at Warren Buffett's suggestion, from 1962 to 1975, he independently managed an investment consulting firm called Wheeler Munger & Co)。During this period, Munger's compound annual return was 198%, compared to the average annual compound growth rate of the Dow Jones of only 5% over the same period. It is these experiences that have enabled Munger to gradually explore and summarize his own investment philosophy.
On September 30, 2010, in Beijing, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett and Gates attended the opening conference of a new store of Warren Buffett's brand.
It wasn't until 1979 that Munger dissolved his company and merged the assets into Warren Buffett's Berkshire, becoming Berkshire's majority shareholder and vice chairman. At this time, Munger was 55 years old and had known Buffett for 20 years.
I tried to imitate Benjamin Franklin's life in a bad way. "At the age of 42, Franklin retired from business and focused more on becoming a writer, politician, philanthropist, inventor and scientist. That's why I shifted my interest away from business. ”
Warren Buffett has always been conscientious in running the company, supporting the Democratic Party, and living in Omaha, Berkshire's headquarters, all year roundMunger, on the other hand, has always lived in Los Angeles and is a registered Republican, reading a lot, seeing friends, enjoying life, and cultivating a hobby of being an architect. With the exception of the Berkshire Annual Meeting, most of the year, they are only in contact through **.
Warren Buffett has been in the spotlight of the investment community for many years, and Munger was 72 years old when he was introduced to the world.
This is what is surprising: two people with very different family backgrounds have been able to maintain honesty and trust with each other for most of their lives, creating and maintaining a sophisticated compound interest machine, and continuing to write the investment myth for nearly 50 years. Munger's share price was $38 when it was merged into Berkshire, and it has since risen to a value of $340,000 per share in 2019. Despite a number of crashes in the three years of the pandemic, on the day of Munger's death, Berkshire's share price was well ahead of its pre-pandemic level, reaching 54$750,000.
Outspoken realist
Munger is known for his outspokenness.
For example, he described Bitcoin as "poison", "rat poison", and "transmitting sexually transmitted diseases".He has commented on Wall Street more than once as "extremely stupid";He also slammed the U.S. health care system as a "national disgrace."
No exception is true for yourself. In one of the discussions, the moderator talked about Munger's real estate business and spending more money than others to plant trees, and he replied frankly, "You may do it out of love, but I know it will make me more money." So, I don't deserve a lot of praise. ”
But Munger is not a mean person in life. On the contrary, he is very kind to people. The famous Chinese investor ** wrote an experience in his preface to the Chinese edition of Munger's "Poor Charlie's Book" in which he and a young Chinese entrepreneur went to meet Munger, but Munger had a lunch party before him, so he was late. "When he arrived, Charlie apologized to the two young men and explained in detail why he was late......The Chinese young man was both surprised and moved, because there was probably no elder in the world whose status as Charlie would repeatedly apologize to the junior for being late. ”
He is also not a businessman who cares about investments. When buying a poorly run company, they discovered that the factory owed the founder's two aunts $80,000 each a long time ago. Generally speaking, the debt of a company that is ** due to poor management will be discounted, but Munger insists on paying in full.
His original partner was out of the project for some reason, and according to the agreement, his shares were bought by Munger. While negotiating the purchase price, the partners gritted their teeth and offered a $200,000 takeover**, very worried that Munger would not agree. But Munger said: You miscalculated, your share is now worth $300,000.
All of this is due to the fact that he is a realist. A well-known story is that when a woman asked Munger to summarize the reasons for his success, Munger thought about it and said, "Reason." But this is not rationality in the usual sense, but an honest and objective way of thinking about knowledge, self, and things. Warren Buffett directly calls him a realist.
It is a rational realist who makes him not complain when he is divorced, his children are dead, and he is close to bankruptcy, but strives to expand his investment territoryIt was reason that led him not to indulge in pessimism when he lost his left eye and faced the prospect of blindness in his right eye, but to learn Braille Xi cope with his blindness – and he eventually saved his right eye. "You should never let one tragedy turn into two or even three tragedies because you lose faith in the face of some incredible tragedy," he said. ”
It is precisely because of rational realism that Munger will form his long-term compound interest value investment system. He believes that the best of a well-run company will not be undervalued often, so even if it is not low, it is still a good deal in the long runAt the same time, he pointed out an issue that is often overlooked: a capital gains tax, which is essentially a transaction tax. As long as you hold ** and don't sell it, you save a lot of tax costs. "But if you sell and go to ** to find the next such a good company?”
In Omaha, USA, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Chairman of the Board of Directors Charlie Munger speak at the company's annual shareholders' meeting.
But Munger said he was just a "conservative." He likes to quote a farmer's proverb: If I knew I was going to die in **, I would never go to that place. There is nothing profound about success: avoid the bad companies, stay away from the bad people, just don't get contaminated with things that are harmful to you.
Therefore, he does not touch any moral red lines, does not invest in any industry that is harmful to society, even if it is very profitable;He only makes friends with people of integrity, and he only does business with people who are willing to treat him as friends. He pursues a win-win situation in real life, "a win-win is the only effective formula that can be repeated and sustained". His friends all followed him to make money, which in turn continued to invest in his company.
So I'm just an old-fashioned guy who relies on common sense and wields a little bit of math power. ”
"Man is not immortal, but money is something outside the body."
According to Forbes, before his death, Munger's total net worth was $2.6 billion, ranking 1,182 on the world's richest list. In contrast, his close partner Warren Buffett has a net worth of more than $120 billion, ranking fifth on the list of the world's richest people. This is not only because Munger himself does not own as much Berkshire as Buffett, but also because he donated a large part of his wealth during his lifetime.
He said he would rather donate his own money now than give it as a legacy. "Why not donate more when you can enjoy it?”
However, Munger did not sign the Pledge of Endowment. Co-sponsored by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, the Giving Pledge encourages billionaires to pledge to donate at least half of their wealth to charity during their lifetimes or in their wills. As of May 2023, the organization has received 241 commitments from 29 countries.
Munger did not sign, which is quite remarkable. Munger explained that it wasn't that he didn't want to sign. But his wife, who died in 2010, wanted to pass on half of her estate to her children and grandchildren, so he transferred about $1 billion to a charitable trust. If I join them and say that I am a big philanthropist and will give more than half of my wealth to charity, I am seeking false credit," he explained several times: "I have transferred more than half to my children. So I can't join them. ”
March 1988, Charlie Munger.
A month before his death, Munger also donated 77 shares of Berkshire Class A** to the Huntington Library and Museum of Art in San Marino, California, for more than $40.3 million in market capitalization.
After the last donation, Munger still holds 4,033 shares of Berkshire Class A**. According to the earliest disclosed data, Munger had 1880,000 Berkshire Class A shares**, which would be worth more than $10 billion today if he held them all.
I deliberately reduced my net worth. He said in a 2013 interview. Half of that is because his goal for wealth is to stay under the Forbes rich list forever. One year, his name rushed into the top two hundred, and he was very upset about it. The other half is because he feels that "people are not immortal, but money is something outside the body".
He has his own criteria for giving. He loved his second wife so much that he donated all the middle school and college she attendedHe will also give him Berkshire's ** because he likes the author of a certain book.
But he also commented publicly: he believes that companies like Costco will contribute more to society than Rockefeller**, "[they] are more efficient, innovate more, progress faster, and benefit consumers around the world." He also said he was cautious of "a group of very smart people coming together to do charity."
These politically incorrect statements are extremely rare among the plutocrats of the United States. But Munger is not in the opinion of the unexpected world. He has full confidence in his moral level and does not need to be judged by others.
"I tried to be a useful person."
In addition to reading, Munger's other major interest is architectural design.
I've always thought of architecture as the queen of art. I think it's more useful than painting or sculpture. When done correctly, it can be of great benefit. "But I think a lot of people get into the construction industry because they're frustrated sculptors." They don't use enough common sense or extraordinary knowledge to think about what exactly they're doing. ”
He cites the example of a public restroom, "Anytime you go to a football game or event, there is a long queue outside the women's restroom. Who doesn't know that they pee differently than men?What kind of idiot would make the men's restroom the same size as the women's restroom?The answer is, an ordinary architect!”
Munger never had formal training as an architect, but he designed his own residences. In many of his endowments, if they are related to architecture, there is also an unusual condition: the school needs to accept Munger's design, or he will not pay for it.
Munger designed a rendering of a dormitory for the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Munger would come up with his own design concept and entrust it to a professional and licensed construction firm until the building was completed and put into use.
Most of the time, his designs are positive. For example, in 1995, at the high school science center he funded for the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, Munger strongly recommended that the women's restrooms be larger than the men's.
In 2008 Munger donated a new library to the school, featuring adjustable, self-detachable panels made of steel frames and thermal insulation materials. These panels can be easily dismantled and assembled. The design quickly worked: the computer lab, which was very advanced at the time, could easily be converted to other uses after students switched to laptops en masse.
In his old age, Munger turned to designing a kind of academic dormitory marked by windowless bedrooms.
What young person would want a bedroom without a window?Munger has a point. First, the student dormitories he designed are all single bedrooms, and windowless bedrooms can provide twice as many bedrooms as windowed bedrooms, thereby reducing the cost of living for studentsSecond, he expanded the common areas to provide more and richer public spaces, encouraging students to step out of their bedrooms and interact with others. "If we build the right dormitories, students will be better able to educate themselves and each other."
People refer to his design as the "Munger Dormitory".
In 2013, he designed another one for graduate students at his alma mater, the University of Michigan. Because of the windowless design, the space that could only accommodate 300 students ended up with 600 single bedrooms.
In 2016, he pledged $200 million to provide a "state-of-the-art student housing room" for the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). At 92 years old, he still spends hours a day making architectural drawings. The larger, 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot "Munger dormitory" can accommodate up to 4,500 single bedrooms, 94 percent of which have no windows, but unlike the University of Michigan dorms, Munger has added a type of illuminated electronic window panel that mimics daylight and is inspired by the artificial portholes on Disney cruise ships.
University of California, Santa Barbara student residence.
Munger sees the dorms as "the best undergraduate dormitories in the world," and at the same time, the building will also reduce the cost of housing for undergraduates by 60 percent.
But this time, the "Munger dormitory" was met with a boycott.
Dennis McFadden, an architect who served on the university's design review committee for nearly 20 years, was the first to resign**. From my point of view as an architect, a parent, and a human being, it's unbearable. McFadden believes that if completed, the building will be the eighth densely populated community on the planet, after Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka;He also cited the fact that the largest single residence hall in the world at the moment is the Bancroft residence hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, which can accommodate 4,000 students, but the building consists of multiple wings that surround numerous courtyards with more than 25 entrances. "In contrast, Munger Residence Hall is a 4,500-student block with two entrances. ”
Recognising that the Munger Residence Hall might not be acceptable to everyone, the co-architect team issued a statement explaining the design idea: the virtual windows would be equipped with a fully programmed circadian control system to fully reflect the lighting levels and color temperatures of natural daylightEven without windows, there is a state-of-the-art fresh air ventilation device to ensure fresh indoor airIn addition to the 2 main entrances, there are 14 additional entrances and exits, and a large number of simulation studies have been done for evacuation scenariosWindowless bedrooms allow for an abundance of communal spaces in the building, such as a market, bakery, fitness center, games room, and ......kitchenette
Of course, not everyone is against the "Munger dormitory". It has been argued that "it is true that there is no need for windows in places to sleep";Someone left a message on the website: If you want to experience nature, please go outside. This is an amazing donation to be commendable.
But a boycott is already brewing. More than 14,000 students signed a petition calling for the closure of the Munger dormitory, and the teachers also started the campaign, garnering more than 3,000 signatures from construction industry professionals and concerned citizens across the country.
* Evaluate this as a reaction to the unequal status of entrepreneurs and academics. Munger represents the bottom-line-driven spirit of entrepreneurs, prioritizing quantity over quality;And academia, due to a lack of funds, must bow to those who can pay the bill.
Munger never showed any signs of changing his mind. In a 2021 interview with CNN, he said, "I went to the University of Michigan last month, and the students there were happy. All I can say is that I've been doing this for a long time and no building has ever failed. My mistake was that these faux windows weren't installed at the University of Michigan. ”
In 2022, he explained at the shareholders' meeting that windowless bedrooms are just a trade-off between getting more bedrooms and common space, and windowless bedrooms are not necessarily worse. "On luxury cruise ships, rooms with faux windows are more expensive. In a prophetic tone, he commented, "It's not that the Jews didn't enter the Promised Land, it's just that Moses didn't get to ......."So it doesn't matter, people's recognition will come after I die. Of course, I don't mind if it comes to fruition while I'm still there. ”
After three years of controversy, in August of this year, UCSB announced that it was abandoning the design of the "Munger Dormitory" in favor of other solutionsMunger also said he would no longer be involved in the project, while withdrawing his previous support pledge of up to $200 million.
Three months later, Munger died.
This incident has become the last footnote of Munger's life in the past 100 years, which is quite intriguing.
A reporter who knew Munger well once asked Munger what kind of epitaph he wanted. Munger replied, "I tried to be useful."”
Not "I worked" - this will be judged by others, but "I tried".
Author: Jiang Fei.
Visual China.
*Editor: Zhang Xu.
Duty Editor: Yang Yongjie.