University of Berkshire Hathaway: 30 Years of Lessons Learned from Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger at the Annual Shareholders Meeting

by Daniel Pecaut

Munger shared the story of the headmaster who told the graduating class, “5% of you will become criminals. I know exactly who you are, but I’m not going to tell you because it would deprive you of an air of excitement.”

Mark Twain: “A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.”

Munger added that Wall Street has more jealously effects than elsewhere even though “jealousy is the only sin you can never have any fun at.”

Munger rued that he has had great difficulty communicating even to his own children. “It’s extraordinary how resistant some are to learning.”

Bertrand Russell, “Most men would rather die than think. Many have.”

Buffett launched into an intriguing thought problem he called “the ovarian lottery.” You are to be born in 24 hours. You are also to write all the rules that will govern the society in which you will live. However, you do not know if you will be born bright or retarded, black or white, male or female, rich or poor, able or disabled. How would you write the rules?

Buffett said how one comes out in this lottery is far more important than anything else

to one’s future. He and Munger were huge winners having been born American (“in Afghanistan, we wouldn’t be worth a damn”), male (at a time when many women could only be nurses and teachers), white (when opportunities for minorities were slim) and good at valuing businesses (in a system that pays for that like crazy). Buffett noted it is important to take care of the non-winners of the ovarian lottery. Therefore, some sort of taxation is in order. Given that few people with...

He quoted Patton: “It’s an honor to die for your country. Make sure the other guys get the honor.”

Yogi Berra, “You can observe a lot just by looking.”

As Peter Lynch has said, “Find a business any idiot could run because eventually one will.”

After you have enough for daily life, all that matters is your health and those you love. Likewise in work, what really matters is that you enjoy it and the people with which you work. Munger concluded humorously, “What good is health? You can’t buy money with it.”

As one comedian of the time put it, “They told me to buy stocks for my old age. It worked perfectly. I bought stocks, and within six months, I felt like an old man.”