Wesley Anderson - Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger: Biography of the Greatest Investing Duo Ever

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

Biography of the Greatest Investing Duo Ever

By Wesley Anderson

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Introduction

I n compiling the biographies of the two greatest investors of all time, were faced with a dilemma. How does one deal with two very similar yet very distinctly different individuals, so intertwined together? On one hand, we have Warren Edward Buffett, gregarious and quite willing to share his thoughts with the world and on the other, we have Charles Thomas Munger, reticent and about whose life and formative years, not much is known.

This reticence is not the product of whitewashing or concealing anything, its merely the product of the nature of the man. While Munger is perfectly fine talking about his thought process and about thinking in general, hes not very eloquent when it comes to his own life experiences.

Buffett, on the other hand, cannot be accused of reticence. It is surprising that he thinks of himself as introverted when one would assume the exact opposite given his public persona. Buffett has been kind enough to open his life to Alice Schroeder in his biography and this remains the only work dedicated to his life and upbringing.

The duos business exploits form an integral part of their lives and we should be thankful that all of this has played out largely in the public eye via security filings and other public proclamations. The Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings have provided a lot of material for this book as have the annual reports penned by Buffett.

This book aims to shine a light on the lives of these extraordinary men and their wealth of experience, which is many multiples bigger than their combined net worth. We will see how despite some surface level contradictions, both men are actually quite similar and how they have influenced one another over the course of their long lives.

The reader must excuse us for a few shortcomings. First, beyond cursory facts and quotes uttered by the man himself, there is not much detail about Mungers earlier years prior to his working with Buffett as the co-chairman of Berkshire. Thus, this book is slightly weighted towards Buffett overall and is almost all about Buffett initially.

Second, it is impossible to possess any mechanism by which we could drill into the minds of the men themselves and extract the real reasons and motivations for their actions. Where possible, we have referenced sources which have led us to form certain conclusions but there is some conjecture involved when writing a book of this sort. The reader would do well to keep this in mind as they go along.

Third, there is already extensive media devoted to each and every utterance of both men and their investment philosophy. This book will not attempt to collect those words. Instead, it aims to shine a light on the parts of their lives which are not as well known, such as their earlier days. So those looking for a complete thesis on why they invested in company X are better off reading The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom.

As you progress through this book, you will learn some facts which will surprise you and you will also be introduced to tangential characters who deserve biographies in their own right. The fact that men and women of such stature form mere tangents points to the immense stature of this books primary subjects.

All the information presented in this book, where it concerns personal relationships between the subjects and their family, is cited with sources in order to justify any conclusions made. You should keep in mind that this information is not presented as gossip but instead, to paint as rounded a picture as possible.

A well-rounded picture is perhaps impossible to paint since the business exploits of these men cast such a large shadow over everything else; its close to impossible to attempt to balance the positive with the negative.

Having said all that, lets begin our journey and go back to the very beginning.

Chapter 1: Beginnings

T he year is 1867. Omaha in the American state of Nebraska, in the American Midwest, is a collection of wooden huts. Omaha is so desolate that even one horse towns can claim bigger populations. In this middle of nowhere place, a young teenager named Sidney arrives from Long Island, New York.

Sidney might be thought of as a bit mad to leave the relative prosperity of Long Island and the adjacent New York City for Omaha. As a town, Omaha was never known for anything productive other than being a stopover for gold prospectors who were on their way to seek their fortune further west. As such, it had a fully deserved sinful reputation in this conservative, Christian state.

There were events afoot that would change all this though. After the civil war had ended, a plan to link the coasts of the unified states was being drawn up and no one less than Abraham Lincoln himself had proclaimed that Omaha was to be one of the centers for this new railroad.

It is with this in mind that Sidney Homan Buffett first moved to Omaha.