In his own words
Munger on Independence
29 sourced quotes. All themes
“Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich. Not because I wanted Ferraris — I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.”
“I want to swim as well as I can against the tides. I'm not trying to predict the tides.”
“If you don't work hard at trying to remain rational and you're constantly floating along caring terribly about what other people think, you're almost sure to be carried to folly by the folly of the crowd.”
Wording approximate (from OID's 2003 Wesco excerpts).
“I don't love Ben Graham and his ideas the way Warren does. You have to understand, to Warren — who discovered him at such a young age and then went to work for him — Ben Graham's insights changed his whole life. But I have to say, Ben Graham had a lot to learn as an investor.”
Lightly trimmed from the 2014 fireside; the connective 'But I have to say' is editorial. He genuinely rated Graham below Buffett's veneration of him.
“This 'choose your idiot' form of news gathering I don't much like. I flip back and forth between idiot types. I will not stay with just one type of idiot.”
“I'd argue that rationality is a high moral duty. It's the idea that binds us all together.”
From Whitney Tilson's contemporaneous meeting notes (reconstructed from memory, not a recording).
“It's bad to have an opinion you're proud of if you can't state the arguments for the other side better than your opponents.”
“The point of getting rich is so you don't have to need other people, so you don't have to get along with other people.”
“I would rather throw a viper down my shirtfront than hire a compensation consultant.”
“I also want to say proudly that we have no mission statement.”
“Carl Icahn's a very able man, but he should not be running the world.”
“I have never had the slightest interest in owning gold. It's a much better life to work with businesses and people engaged in business. I can't imagine a worse crowd to deal with than a bunch of gold bugs.”
“My definition of being properly educated is being right when the professor is wrong. Anybody can spit back what the professor tells you. The trick is to know when he's right and when he's wrong.”
“What I like about Warren is the irreverence. We don't have automatic reverence for the pompous heads of all civilization.”
On Buffett.
“If you stop to think about it, civilized man has always had soothsayers, shamans, faith healers, and God knows what all. The stock picking industry is four or five percent super-rational, disciplined people, and the rest of them are sort of like faith-healers or shamans.”
“That is one of our advantages as an insurer — we don't give a damn about lumpy results. Everyone else is trying to please Wall Street. This is not a small advantage.”
From Tilson's notes.
“Our approach has worked for us. Look at the fun we, our managers, and our shareholders are having. More people should copy us. It's not difficult, but it looks difficult because it's unconventional — it isn't the way things are normally done.”
From Tilson's notes.
“It is not usually the conscious malfeasance of your narrow professional adviser that does you in. Instead, your troubles come from his subconscious bias.”
“Just because he's a horse's patoot, you don't have to be one too. You can reach out and grasp the model that better solves the overall problem.”
“I don't play in a game where other people are wise and I am stupid. I look for a game where I am wise, and they are stupid. And believe me, it works better. God bless our stupid competitors. They make us rich.”
“I don't like multitasking. I see these people doing three things at once, and I think, God what a terrible way that is to think. I am so stupid, though, I have to think hard about a thing for a long time. And the idea of multitasking my way to glory has never occurred to me.”
From a single secondary transcript of the 2015 meeting.
“The general system for money management requires people to pretend that they can do something that they can't do, and to pretend to like it when they really don't. And I think that's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's very well paid.”
“Warren wants the odds in his favor, not somebody else. It's just so simple if you're Warren. You want to be the house, not the punter.”
Of Buffett's approach; 'punter' is British slang for a bettor.
“I did not intend to get rich. I wanted to get independent. I just overshot. And by the way, while you're clapping, some of the overshooting was accidental.”
“The people who think they know exactly what's going to happen and how many people are going to die from tropical diseases and so forth are mostly talking through their hats. I think there's a class of people who like the idea they've got a calamity to worry about.”
From a climate exchange — he granted 'there plainly is' some warming, but objected to forecasters overclaiming.
“I sometimes say that Alan Greenspan overdosed on Ayn Rand when he was young. He thought if an ax murder happened in a free market, it was probably all for the best.”
On the 2008 crisis and the failure to 'step on the boom.'
“I don't think there are good arguments against my position. I think the people who oppose my position are idiots.”
On crypto, when pressed to argue the opposing view.
“My final word of advice would be, if this gives you a little temporary unpopularity in your peer group, the hell with them.”
“The board is a safety valve in case I go completely crazy and Warren doesn't do anything about it.”
From Tilson's notes.