Charlie Munger
Former Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveauthorberkshirehathaway.com ↗
Munger was Warren Buffett's longtime business partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, where he helped shape its investment strategy. He also served as chairman of Daily Journal Corporation, sat on Costco's board, and authored Poor Charlie's Almanack.
2shows
2appearances
55statements
8resolved
5supported
1contradicted
63%fully supported
542said about them ↓ Everything Charlie Munger said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Munger says top venture capital earners are trend-chasers, not great investors
“The people who made the most money out of venture capital are a lot like investment bankers deciding which hot new area they're going to get in. They're not great investors or great at anything.”
Munger claims BYD founder Wang Chuanfu is better at manufacturing than Musk
“The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is.”
Munger says short-term gains should be taxed without any loss offsets
“If I were running the world, I would have a tax on short-term gains with no offset for losses on anything. And I would just drive this whole crowd every ball of business.”
Munger says consistently investing well in venture capital is nearly impossible
“It's very difficult to invest money well, and I think it's all but impossible to do time after time after time in venture capital.”
Munger claims most startup operators end up hating their venture capitalists
“By and large, having bumped into a lot of people in the businesses with venture capital financing, I would say the ordinary rule is that people in the business doing the work, they more or not, they hate the venture capitalists. They don't feel their partner t…”
Munger claims private fund managers enrich themselves while underdelivering to endowments
“The world is full of Goldman Sachs partners that formed a private fund, and they manage a billion dollars or something like that, and they charge two points off the top plus this, and that enables them to make very handsome livings themselves, but the endowmen…”
Munger admits he and Warren Buffett could not rebuild Berkshire today
“The answer to that is no, we wouldn't.”
Munger claims China's economy has better 20-year prospects than most
“Well, my position in China has been Well, that the Chinese economy has better future prospects over the next 20 years than almost any other big economy.”
Costco delayed its China entry for decades after refusing a $30,000 bribe
“The first store they tried to open in China, the first store somebody wanted a 30,000 dollar bribe. You know, Chinese culture. And they just wouldn't pay it. And that made such a bad impression on Jim Senegal. He wouldn't even talk to him going into China for …”
Munger claims excluding depreciation from earnings via EBITDA is lying about profits
“You got a big truck company and Take the depreciation out of the trucks, out of the earnings. You're ever lying about the earnings.”
Munger calls John Malone a great manipulator who avoided paying income taxes
“Well, I've never liked John Malone's extreme manipulations. I don't want to be known as the great manipulator like John Malone is. He paid less income taxes than anybody.”
Munger says business forecasting fails when CEOs like Bob Iger prioritize PR
“Well, I think a lot of companies are pretty good, but you can't confidently say what's going to happen because you may get some guy like Iger in that just wants to push everything and do the right public relations. So no matter how good the business is, it'll …”
Munger claims quant firms achieve high returns through increasingly massive leverage
“And the way they get their returns year after year is taking the leverage, the midday leverage up higher and higher and higher and higher. So they're making smaller and smaller profits on more and more volume, which gives them this big peak leverage risk, whic…”
Munger says investors must bet heavily on their best ideas
“When you know you have an edge, you should bet heavily. You know you're right. And most people, they don't teach that in business school. It's insane. Of course, you got to bet heavily on your best bets.”
Munger says Berkshire Hathaway would be 3x larger with slightly more leverage
“If we used a little bit more leverage throughout, we'd have three times as much now. And it wouldn't have been that much more risk either.”
Endowments across America are slashing effective private fund fees by 50%
“The endowments have started to say to the, all these people that charged three and 30 or whatever they charge, they said, we'll pay your three and 30, but we're going to put in twice as much money, and then the next half you'll get nothing on it, or you're jus…”
Munger says Walmart made a terrible mistake letting Costco win wealthy suburbs
“So it offended them to go against the rich suburbs and to have to pay up for the good locations, and Costco just specialized in the good locations where the rich people live. And Walmart just let them do it year after year. It was a terrible mistake.”
Munger says operating with personal wealth beats managing outside capital
“Once I had enough money on my own, I'd rather just operate with my own money. That is a much better way of doing it.”
Munger reveals he does not carry fire insurance on any properties
“I carry no fire insurance anywhere.”
Investors need significant participation in a few top market leaders
“What everybody has learned is that everybody needs some significant participation in the 12 companies that do better than everybody else. And you need two or three of them at least.”
Munger reveals he holds roughly 18% China risk in his family portfolio
“So naturally, I'm willing to have some China risk in the Munger portfolio. How much China risk? Well, that's not a scientific subject, but I don't mind whatever it is, 18% or something, whatever, whatever's worked out in the Munger family, it's okay with me.”
Munger believes nearly all investment assets worldwide have become overpriced
“Damn near. Of course it could be possible. It's not only possible, it's likely, and it's actually happened.”
Munger warns modern democracies risk becoming dysfunctional like Europe after blow-ups
“Yes, an unpleasant blow up of some kind. And God knows what happens after an unpleasant blow up with our modern democracies. You would get to see a lot like Europe, which is quite dysfunctional.”
The other half of the tape: Charlie Munger's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 499 times in 91 episodes across the shows. 43 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Shane Parrish 138David Senra 75David Rosenthal 54Christopher Davis 37Ben Gilbert 35Sanjay Bakshi 29Tom Gaynor 23Derek Sivers 11
Statements about Charlie Munger, by other people (43)
Charlie Munger believed the intelligent loss of sales actively improves businesses
“Charlie's phrase was the intelligent loss of sales. He said, you're young and you just think more is better. More is better. More is better, but more is not necessarily better. It's who do you keep out?”
Charlie Munger warned that forcing children to live below parents causes resentment
“It was Charlie who told me, and I had never thought of it this way, he said, you get into a lot of trouble when you want your kids to live a different lifestyle than you're living. When you're getting a chauffeur to drive you to work, and you're telling your 1…”
Munger: Wealthy Parents Must Inherit Wealth or Children Will Hate Them
“And he's like, he definitely feels that some of them are going to be less motivated because they're born rich, but he said this was the most surprising thing. But he goes, you have to give them the money anyways or they're going to hate you for it.”
Charlie Munger told Zweig he fears the loss of media oligopolies
“Charlie Munger told me last year when I was at the Daily Journal meeting in Los Angeles that he really fears for the future of the Republic, as he puts it that newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times no longer have the, I guess I would s…”
Munger: Parents Cannot Raise Kids With Middle-Class Values While Living Lavishly
“He said you basically have to live the life that you want your kids to live, and so if you want your kids to grow up with a middle-class life, you can't live in a mansion and then force a middle-class life on them. You can't be chauffeured to work while you're…”
Parrish: Compounding psychological tendencies drive major corporate and historical outcomes
“In real life, Psychological tendencies rarely operate alone. They consistently combine and reinforce one another, creating effects larger and more unpredictable than the sum of the parts. That's what changes history. That's what builds and destroys companies.”
Parrish: Emotional detachment from envy provides investors a massive advantage
“Munger and Buffett's advantage was that they genuinely didn't seem to experience envy. When asked about missing opportunities, they'd shrug and move on. When competitors succeeded, they'd analyze what happened objectively. This emotional detachment is a massiv…”
Munger: Imposing artificial hardship on affluent kids only breeds resentment
“One of the only pieces of advice Charlie Munger gave me about parenting over dinner once was the parents that try to artificially impose a different lifestyle on their kids than they are living. And he gave an extreme example of a guy getting, like, chauffeure…”
Davis: Money does not ruin kids, parents and genetics do
“Well, I like what, you know, Charlie said that, that money doesn't ruin kids, you know, parents do, and I would add genetics can too.”
Davis: Charlie Munger Dressed Conventionally to Mask His Eccentricity
“Charlie always talked about dressing conventionally, you know, wearing, he said he's so eccentric in other ways that by wearing a suit and tie, people assume that he's more conventional than he is, and that serves him.”
BYD's Founder Succeeded by Ignoring Munger and Li Lu's EV Advice
“That Charlie and Li Lu Lu Li Li Lu gave the founder advice and he ignored it. And he was right. He's like, don't go in electric cars or whatever it was that he did.”
Collison: Berkshire Hathaway and Koch Industries prioritize applied epistemology and structured doubt
“It's very striking to me how Warren and Charlie at Berkshire and how the folks at Koch Industries are so into a kind of epistemology and structuring of doubt and accounting for biases and mechanisms for clarity of thinking like to a very striking degree.”
Parrish: Pavlov found any dog breaks under stress with zero exceptions
“One, he could predict which dogs would break down easily, and which would be harder to break. Two, the dogs that were hardest to break were also the hardest to fix afterward. Three, any dog could be broken with enough stress. There were no exceptions. Four, he…”
Parrish: Co-Pilots in Simulations Fail to Override Fatal Captain Errors
“Co-pilots get simulator training specifically teaching them to ignore foolish orders from boss pilots. From the captain. But even after this training, co-pilots in simulators will still allow the plane to crash because of some obvious error created by the chie…”
Parrish: Raising Prices on Ordinary Products Frequently Drives Up Sales
“Knowing this, some seller of an ordinary industrial product will often change his product's trade dress and raise its price significantly, hoping the quality-seeking buyers will be tricked into becoming purchasers by mere association of his product and its hig…”
Parrish: Delaying Intuition Across Separate Dimensions Produces Better Decisions
“When I talked to Daniel Kahneman about this, he said, you delay intuition by focusing on the separate problems. Take the separate dimensions and really think about each dimension separately and independently. Don't allow people to give the final judgment. Say,…”
Munger: Elderly people naturally disguise age-related deterioration through social conventions
“He said, old people like me get pretty skilled without working at it, at disguising age-related deterioration because social convention like clothing hides much decline.”
Parrish: Inability to Find Any Virtue in Disliked Entities Proves Cognitive Bias
“The antidote here is to force yourself to see the virtues, even in what you dislike. Ask yourself, what is this person, company, idea doing well? If you genuinely can't think of a single thing, that's the hating tendency at work.”
Munger: Evolved risk heuristics fail like an untaught golf grip
“The mental rules of thumb that evolution gives us to deal with risk are not adequate, Munger writes. They resemble the dysfunctional golf grip you would have if you relied on evolution instead of golf lessons.”
Parrish: Maximal stress can flip loyalties and reverse prior beliefs
“First, extreme stress can completely flip your cognitive patterns and loyalties. People under maximal stress don't just think worse. They can end up thinking the complete opposite of what they believed before.”
Parrish: Authority Misinfluence Protects Incompetent CEOs from Removal
“Munger's observation is that undue respect for authority is so strong that terrible CEOs remain in control of important institutions long after it's obvious they should be removed. Authority misinfluence tendency protects them.”
Parrish: True Incentive Alignment Requires Monthly Profit-Sharing and Internal Promotion
“Give people real ownership, not promises. Share profits monthly, Not maybe someday. Promote from within, not from above.”
Charlie Munger attributed Berkshire's success to rarely being forced into bad decisions
“At dinner one night, I was talking with Charlie Munger, and I asked him for the unconventional sort of things that people don't appreciate as much about Berkshire Hathaway's success as he might think that they should. And one of the things that he mentioned to…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the Knowledge Project 317
Acquired 182
2026 16 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
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2025 81 mentions in 26 episodes 3 per episode
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2024 128 mentions in 12 episodes 11 per episode
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2023 142 mentions in 11 episodes 13 per episode
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2022 26 mentions in 11 episodes 2 per episode
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2021 21 mentions in 4 episodes 5 per episode
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- #100 Matt Mullenweg: Collaboration Is Key
- Complexity Investing & Semiconductors with NZS Capital (Extended Cut) · Acquired
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 15 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
2019 14 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2018 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2017 10 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
2016 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2015 36 mentions in 2 episodes 18 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Charlie's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACQUIREDLEDGER | Former Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway | 1 | 50 | 57% 4/7 | full record on Acquired → |
| KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Former Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway | 1 | 5 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |