Berkshire Hathaway could not
Warren Buffett
have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation.
WSJ:
No equal business partner has ever played second fiddle better than Charlie Munger.
Warren Buffett’s closest friend and consigliere for six decades, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway died [on November 28, 2023].
In public, especially in front of the tens of thousands of attendees at Berkshire’s annual meetings, Munger deferred to Buffett, letting the company’s chairman hog the microphone and the limelight. Munger routinely cracked up the crowd by croaking, “I have nothing to add.”
In private, Buffett, who is 93, often deferred to Munger. In 1971, Munger talked him into buying See’s Candy Shops for a price equivalent to three times the chocolate stores’ net worth—a “fancy price,” Buffett later recalled, far higher than he was accustomed to paying for businesses.
See’s would go on to generate some $2 billion in cumulative earnings for Berkshire over the coming decades.
