Commencement Speech by Charlie Munger
May 22nd, 2007 by Martin Lee
Here’s a video recording of the recent commencement speech given by Charlie Munger, long-time partner of Warren Buffett and vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, to 300 Law graduates from University of Southern California.
The entire video is about 2hrs long but you can fast forward to about 43min to hear Charlie speaking (Introduction about Charlie by the Law Dean starts at about 39min). Charlie’s speech lasts about 40 minutes.
He’s not going to be talking about value investing or anything similar, but shares more of his ideas towards life and gives some general advice for the law graduates.
Here are some ideas from his speech:
1) “You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.”
2) There’s no love that is so right as admiration based love.
3) Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It’s not just something you do to advance in life. Importance of lifetime learning.
“You’re not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you’re going to learn after you leave here.”
4) The best road to success in life comes from a multi-disciplinary approach.
“It wasn’t at all hard for me to pick up all the big ideas in all the disciplines and make them a standard part of my mental routines. It’s made life more fun, it’s made me more constructive, it’s made me more helpful to others, it’s made me enormously rich — you name it.”
5) Doing faithfully what you are engaged to do and avoiding sloth.
6) Avoiding extremely intense ideology.
7) Prevent self serving bias in yourself while at the same time allowing (and expecting) self serving bias in others.
8) Not to get yourself into perverse incentives situation where your actions might be affected.
9) The highest form that civilisations can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust, and not of many procedures.
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I am Hampden R. White, the author of Power Check—Commo Check: My Tour in Viet Nam, which you have recently included for sale on your web site. You have reduced the price from the original price set by my pubisher and me of 17.95 to 16.94, that latter price having a gay innuendo with a “69” in it, the underground designation of gay orientation.
I am an orthodox Christian, not a gay person, and include in my book the fact of the Bible that gay sex is sin. I do not want my book to be sold with gay innuendos attached to it. I therefore ask that you revise the price to one that does not have the “69” in it.
Mr Buffet is a giant and I am very little in comparison, but I do not see him as a pagan or agnostic, but a person who wants to do good things with his fortune. Granting my request would be one of them, though it may seem small to you, but not to me.
I would very much appreciate your granting my request.
Very truly yours,
Hampden R. White
Hi Hampden,
Thanks for posting. The price is actually set by Amazon, and not by me.
The prices you see on my site are data feeds pulled automatically from Amazon. You will need to contact them to tell them to change their pricing.
Very sorry thatI’m not able to help much…
Dear Mr. White,
I really enjoyed your book! I couldn’t put it down, even when my gay Latino lover (that I’m trying to marry so that he can stay in the country legally) was blowing me so well that I came into his hair and face. Whoops!
Regardless, please know that your book was excellent, and though I was gay before I purchased it, I feel even better about myself now, and am thinking of joining the Army so that I can be surrounded by hunky men at all hours of the day. Hello, Meat Market!
Please feel free to contact me if you can, I’d love to properly thank you for writing your book Mr. White!
Sincerely,
Mark ‘Fresco’ Martel