Charlie Munger
There's more honor in investment management than in investment banking.Collection: Finance
When someone takes their existing business and tries to transform it into something else - they fail. In technology that is often the case. Look at Kodak: it was the dominant imaging company in the world. They did fabulously during the great depression, but then wiped out the shareholders because of technological change.Collection: Change
Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.Collection: Family
It's a real pleasure to earn the trust of your customers slowly over time by doing what's right.Collection: Trust
Who would want one's children growing up buying things like bitcoin? I hope to God my family doesn't buy it. It's noxious poison.Collection: Family
A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.Collection: Business
Wall Street has too much wealth and political power.Collection: Finance
The perfect example of Darwinism is what technology has done to businesses.Collection: Technology
Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading.Collection: Success
Wells Fargo had a glitch - the truth of the matter is they made a business judgement that was wrong. I don't think anything is fundamentally wrong.Collection: Business
There's danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.' At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'Collection: Money
It's remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.
I believe Costco does more for civilization than the Rockefeller Foundation. I think it's a better place. You get a bunch of very intelligent people sitting around trying to do good, I immediately get kind of suspicious and squirm in my seat.
I think people who multitask pay a huge price. They think they're being extra productive, and I think when you multitask so much you don't have time to think about anything deeply, you are giving the world an advantage you shouldn't do, and practically everybody is drifting into that mistake.
People are trying to be smart - all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it's harder than most people think.
The first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.
A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.
If you're glued together right and honorable, you will succeed. Get in there and get rid of stupidities and avoid bad people. Try teaching that to your grandchildren. The best way is by example. Fix yourself.
I'm used to people with very high IQs knowing how to recognize reality, but there's a huge human tendency where it may be instructive to think that whatever you're doing to succeed is all right.
I've got some advice for the young: If you've got anything you really want to do, don't wait until you're 93.
I think time and time again, in reality, psychological notions and economic notions interplay, and the man who doesn't understand both is a damned fool.
That's the last thing on Earth you should think about... There's just a whole lot of things that aren't going to work for you. Figure out what they are and avoid them like the plague. And one of them is bitcoin... It is total insanity.
Alternatives to gold and currency and to make a big speculative vehicle - I never considered for one second having anything to do with it. I detested it the minute it had been raised.
If any successes has come to me, it came because I insisted on thinking things through. That's all I was capable of doing in life, was thinking pretty hard about trying to get the right answer, and then acting on it. I never learned to do anything else.
It is one thing to think gold has some marvelous store of value because man has no way of inventing more gold or getting it very easily, so it has the advantage of rarity. Believe me, man is capable of somehow creating more bitcoin... They tell you there are rules and they can't do it. Don't believe them.
I love when I think we're taking territory - if it makes sense in the long term, we just don't give a damn what it looks like in the short term. After all, we're running a cult, not a normal company.
Most people don't grab the right ideas or don't know what to do with them.
If you can get really good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.
Economics profession, they've been - they've been confident in various formulas, but economics is not physics. The same formula that works in one decade doesn't work in the next. Economics is a difficult subject.
If all you needed to do is to figure out what company is better than others, everyone would make a lot of money. But that is not the case. They keep raising the prices to the point when the odds change.
I regard the bitcoin craze as totally asinine to create some manufactured currency.
You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies.
Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.
If you're unhappy with what you've had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life. It's as good as it gets, and it's very likely to get worse.
I'm a great admirer of the Trump change of mind about China and making an ally out of China instead of screaming about their trade.
I'm proud to be associated with the value system at Berkshire Hathaway; I think you'll make more money in the end with good ethics than bad.
I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn't read a lot. I suspect that you can read on the computer now and get a lot of benefit out of it, but I doubt that it'll work as well as reading print worked for me.
They made a mistake. And it was an easy mistake to make. I don't regard setting incentives aggressively as a mistake. I think the mistake was, when the bad news came, they didn't recognize it directly. I don't think that impairs the future of Wells Fargo. They'll be better for it.
The big money is not in the buying and selling ... but in the waiting.Collection: Waiting
There is bound to be a regression toward the mean.Collection: Mean
Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.Collection: Knows
Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.Collection: Knowing
Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3) Work only with people you enjoy.Collection: Careers
It's a good habit to trumpet your failures and be quiet about your successes.Collection: Quiet
In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time - none ... ZERO.Collection: Wise
Whenever you think something or some person is ruining your life, it's you. A victimization mentality is so debilitating.Collection: Thinking
You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.Collection: Best Love
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.Collection: Stupid
I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.Collection: Sides
It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading, you don't have to work.Collection: Reading