By Aarav Sapra
On November 28, 2023, Charlie Munger, once Warren Buffet’s partner and Berkshire Hathaway’s vice-chairman, died at 99. The world has lost one of its most influential figures, who has helped shape Berkshire Hathaway into the successful company it is today.
Charlie was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on January 1, 1924. As a teenager, he worked at Buffet and Son, a grocery store his grandfather owned. At 17, he enrolled in the University of Michigan, where he studied mathematics. However, in 1943, he dropped out of school to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he became a second lieutenant. After receiving a high Army General Classification Test score, he was ordered to study meteorology at Caltech in Pasadena, California. A couple of years later, he applied to Harvard Law School. Charlie Munger excelled in law and graduated with a J.D. in 1948. He then moved to Los Angeles to become an investment partner. Before he met Buffet, he was incredibly successful, able to amass a fortune.
In 1959, he met Warren Buffet in Omaha at a dinner party. Buffett and Munger enjoyed each other’s sense of humour and stayed in contact for a while. Their partnership and friendship flourished over the years as they discovered their similarities regarding business and investing. As their friendship grew, Buffet told him to give up his passion for law to concentrate on investments. When Charlie Munger arrived in 1963, he fit right in with Berkshire Hathaway and was able to shape the company it is today. Eventually, Berkshire Hathaway shifted its focus from textiles to investments under the guidance of Buffett and Munger. Warren Buffett has often spoken highly of Charlie Munger. Buffet has stated multiple times over the years how Charlie has made him one of the greatest investors ever. It shows how each other’s strengths have characterized Buffett and Munger’s partnership, and they were both able to produce billions of dollars from just a textile company.
Most of Munger’s net worth at the time of his passing was in the form of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock, of which he owned 4,033 shares. At $546,869, the company’s share price on the day of his passing, his 4,033 shares would be worth over $2.2 billion. During his investment career, Charlie Munger was not as successful as Buffet due to the early decision to give a significant portion of his wealth early in his career. Nonetheless, it’s essential to recognize that Munger’s contributions to Berkshire Hathaway have been substantial and extend beyond comparing individual financial outcomes.
