Business | Schumpeter

Charlie Munger was a lot more than Warren Buffett’s sidekick

In business, he was a paragon of common sense

An illustration showing some high rise buildings in a row turning into a rising graph line which has flowers and foliage growing from it. Standing atop the end of the line is Charlie Munger. — Illustration: Brett Ryder

Nov 29th 2023

Every May tens of thousands of the faithful flock to Omaha, Nebraska, hometown of Berkshire Hathaway, to bask in the presence of the investment firm’s two leaders: Warren Buffett, known for his folksy genius, and Charlie Munger, for his killer zingers. But for the truly hard core, for many years a more cloistered gathering took place near Schumpeter’s current abode in Pasadena, a lush city on the edge of Los Angeles. At the Pasadena Convention Centre, Mr Munger alone would hold forth, his dry wit in full flow. Recording devices were not allowed, but notetakers scribbled furiously as they tried to keep up.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The paragon of Pasadena”