1924 — 2023
A Life
Charlie Munger was a grocery clerk, an Army meteorologist, and a self-taught polymath who became the second-most-important investor of his century — and insisted, to the end, that he’d gotten there mostly by being “consistently not stupid.” He died in 2023, thirty-four days short of a hundred.
He was born in Omaha on New Year’s Day, 1924, and never lost the plain Midwestern habits of mind that shaped him. War sent him to Caltech to read weather; a family connection and an obvious brilliance got him into Harvard Law without a college degree. Early life dealt him hard blows — a divorce, then the death of his nine-year-old son from leukemia, then, in his fifties, the loss of an eye. He kept reading, kept compounding, and kept his temperament. When he met Warren Buffett at an Omaha dinner in 1959, the two recognized each other instantly; the partnership that followed built one of the great fortunes in American history.
The short version
- 1924 Born January 1 in Omaha, Nebraska. As a teenager he works at Buffett & Son, the grocery owned by Warren Buffett’s grandfather — but the two do not meet.
- 1941 Graduates Omaha Central High; leaves for the University of Michigan to study mathematics.
- 1943 Drops out to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which sends him to study meteorology at Caltech in Pasadena.
- 1948 Graduates Harvard Law School magna cum laude — admitted despite having no undergraduate degree.
- 1953 Divorces his first wife, Nancy Huggins. Soon after, his young son Teddy dies of leukemia at age nine.
- 1956 Marries Nancy Barry Borthwick; together they build a blended family of eight children.
- 1959 Back in Omaha to wind down his late father’s law practice, he is introduced to the 29-year-old Warren Buffett. They are inseparable for the rest of his life.
- 1962 Founds the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson and the investment partnership Wheeler, Munger & Co.
- 1978 Becomes vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway — the role he holds until his death.
- 2023 Makes his podcast debut on Acquired on October 30; dies on November 28 in Santa Barbara, 34 days short of his 100th birthday.
Go deeper
- Companies & rolesBerkshire, the Daily Journal, Wesco, Munger Tolles, Costco.
- Investing philosophyFrom cigar butts to “a great business at a fair price.”
- ArchitectureThe amateur architect — and the windowless-dorm fight.
- Philanthropy & net worthWhere the money went, and the house he never left.
- FamilyTwo marriages, eight children, one long partnership.