Interview · 2019
Charlie Munger, Unplugged (WSJ / Jason Zweig, 2019)
Print interview, not a recording. The original WSJ article is paywalled; Jason Zweig (the WSJ co-author) hosts the official page, and the full transcript is freely readable via the transcript link.
This one isn’t a recording at all — it’s a print interview, and it earns its place in the archive because it is among the most candid extended portraits of Munger ever published. In April 2019, then 95, he sat with Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig and reporter Nicole Friedman for roughly six hours over dinner at his Los Angeles home; the resulting “Unplugged” piece is the edited transcript of that evening plus a follow-up call.
Why read it. The dinner-table setting and the length pull out a more reflective Munger than the public events do. He muses on his improbable global following — mostly, he says, “nerds in China or India” passionately trying to improve themselves — and draws his sharp line between genuine investing and correlation-chasing dressed up as finance. There is real reflection here on aging, on what he’d do differently, and on the rational-living project that animated his whole life.
Access note. The Wall Street Journal owns the original and keeps it behind a paywall. Zweig, the co-author, hosts the official landing page (linked above as the source). For readers without a WSJ subscription, the full transcript is mirrored and freely readable at the transcript link.
