Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and Bob Bird share anecdotes about Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio)
"We all have our little quirks – my family and friends tell me I'm sometimes absent-minded and opinionated. Maybe they're right."Â – Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio)
While reading Poor Charlie's Almanack, I ran across some anecdotes that people close to Munger have shared with readers. With them, we gain some insight on the day-to-day Charlie: how he thinks, acts and the appreciation that his peers have for him.
Bob Bird, president of Wesco Financial: "When Charlie is in deep thought, he often loses track of a lot of what’s going on around him, including social niceties. I remember that, when we were negotiating with CenFed to have them take over our savings and loan business, Charlie and I went over to their offices to meet with their CEO, Tad Lowrey. We had a perfectly wonderful meeting –Â Charlie can put on the charm if he puts his mind to it –Â and we were winding things up very satisfactorily. Tad walked us to the elevator. Just as we got there, the elevator door opened, and Charlie walked directly inside. He never said goodbye, never shook hands, nothing. Tad and I were left standing there, smiling and speechless."
Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio): "I was in New York City with Charlie to atend a Salomon Brothers board meeting. We had come out of the building and were standing on the sidewalk, discussing what had transpired at the meeting. At least, that's what I thought we were doing, for suddenly I realized that I had been talking to myself for some time. I looked around for Charlie, only to see him climbing into the back of a taxicab, headed off to the airport. No goodbye, no nothing.
"People think it's Charlie’s eyes that cause him to miss seeing things (Charlie lost his vision in one eye many years ago due to complications from cataract surgery). But it's not his eyes; it's his head! I once sat through three sets of traffic lights, and plenty of honking behind us, as Charlie discussed some complex problem at an intersection."
So here are the three most important traits that I take from these remarks:
The ability to cancel out the noise and concentrate: Munger has said so himself: "Concentrating hard on something that’s important, I can’t succeed at all without doing it. I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span." As these anecdotes indicate, Munger is able to cancel out the world when he is thinking, which has provided him a great advantage in solving problems and finding ideas.
Little regard for social niceties: Part of what I love about Munger is that he will say and act in a way that many of us would consider rude, but we know that it is because Munger is constantly absent-minded and his very own plateau. His no-games approach to problem solving and knowledge sharing is something that we all appreciate.
Constant problem solving: Munger just can't stop thinking about things. He has a natural curiosity that has been fed with the most prominent ideas from the eminent dead, as he likes to say. This multidisciplinary approach has been a key source of his investing prowess.
