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- đź‘‘ R.I.P... the man, the legend
GM everyone. This is 2036. We scroll for gems all day so you don’t have to.
Here’s what we’re serving up today 🍲: Yesterday, Charlie Munger passed away at age 99. He was a legend in the investment world - and even though he hated crypto, there are still incredible nuggets we can learn from him.
Let’s dig in.
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely heard of Charlie Munger.
Charlie was the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (brainchild of Warren Buffett) - one of the most valuable companies in the world.
During his tenure, Charlie became one of the most successful and quoted investment managers.
His book - Charlie’s Almanack - became a must-read for anyone interested in mental models for living a better life.
In fact, Charlie was obsessed with mental models.
He famously said there were about 100 of them you needed to understand to navigate through life successfully.
Some of these include:
embracing simplicity (“take a simple idea, and take it seriously)
ruthlessly facing reality (“one should recognize reality even when one doesn’t like it. Indeed, especially when one doesn’t like it”)
being mindful of opportunity costs (“if you have one idea that’s available in large quantity that’s better than 98% of ideas out there - you can just screen out the other 98%”)
going all-in (“not investing big when there’s an opportunity is as much of a mistake as not investing at all”)
But Charlie wasn’t just a mic-drop kind of guy.
Warren Buffett credits him with moving Berkshire Hathaway away from short-term value stocks towards long-term compounders.
Munger believed it was better to buy excellent businesses at good prices than good businesses at excellent prices.
He also believed it was better to be calm than smart. Your temperament, he said, is what gets you to the long-term compounding gains.
That’s how Berkshire Hathaway held onto stocks for decades.
Now - you’ll probably see a lot written about Munger today.
Most of it will refer to his wisdom on investing - and life.
He famously said “the first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations, you’re going to be miserable all your life”…
… and “the way to find a worthy mate is to become worthy of a worthy mate.”
He also notoriously only owned a handful of investments in his personal portfolio, was largely against diversification - and spent most of his days reading.
But you may not hear much about the hardship he endured throughout his life.
Yes - he was a respected billionaire investor.
But Charlie also went through a world of pain.
When he was 29 years old, he divorced his wife of 8 years.
Their son died of leukemia a year later. He was only 9 years old.
At 31, he was broke and burying his son.
Later in life, an eye surgery left him blind and in so much pain they had to take his eye out.
Despite this, Charlie Munger rose to the occasion and became a legend in the investing world.
He hated bitcoin - because he believed removing the issuance of money from the hands of the government would be a net negative for society.
But that doesn’t take away from the decades of wisdom he accumulated telling others to…
Lower your expectations and work on yourself first. If you want something, become worthy of it first.
Own a handful of excellent investments for the long term. That’s why we keep our crypto portfolios simple. Sure - we’ll swing for the fences sometimes. But the majority is simply long term BTC/ETH.
Read a lot. Reading is the ultimate meta-skill that allows you to pick up other skills - and understand the world.
It’s not too late. Munger was broke and alone in his thirties. Yet he died a billionaire, married for 35 years with 8 kids and the world’s respect. Social media makes it seem like anyone over 25 who doesn’t have a G-wagon is a failure. But that’s just not true.
Munger will go down in history as one of the greats.
And if you want to go deeper, here are some of his best resources:
P.S: the early-stage investment I talked about yesterday is closing on Friday.
Yesterday, the game received investment from one of the largest backers in the space.
Our allocation is filling up fast - and the minimum is very low. If you’re interested in participating, reply to this email with “I’m interested” and I’ll send you the details.
In honor of Charlie, there’s no meme today… only wisdom:
[to remember during the next crypto dip…]