Munger's last words... "3 to 4 chances in your life, catch it when you come."

CNBC sent out the last interview of Munger's life. In the long interview, which lasted for an hour and 42 minutes, Munger remained speechless and gave a clear answer.

Munger said he didn't want to spend the last moments of his life in pain in his hospital bed, but he seems to have corrected himself until the end and left unexpectedly. Munger lived in this mansion in LA, where the warm sun was shining in November for more than 70 years.

It's funny to see my favorite Charlie Munger and Nasim Taleb both emphasize Via Negativa. When Munger emphasized that you should bet strongly when you have a rare chance in your life, Nasim Taleb's optionality came to mind.

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Munger's last words... "3 to 4 chances in your life, catch it when you come." [Reading Kim Jae Hyun's investment]
[Editor's note] Let's explore the right way to invest through the investment of the masters.

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's best friend, died on the 28th of last month at the age of 99 with a month left to turn 100.

Warren Buffett, who has been on the phone every day since he got to know Munger in 1959, was most heartbroken, but CNBC anchor Becky Quick, who has been interviewing Buffett and Munger for a long time, was also shocked. In particular, Becky Quick was preparing for a special feature for Munger's 100th birthday, including an interview at Munger's home in Los Angeles on November 14.

CNBC released Munger's 100-minute interview on November 30. This is the last interview left by Munger, who left us about a month after his 100th birthday. Munger's last interview title is "Charlie Munger: A Life of Wit and Wisdom." Early in the interview, Munger described it as a unique life story that started as a lawyer and became more like a guru.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Munger began his social life as a lawyer, but after getting to know Buffett in 1959, he gradually turned into an investor and worked with Buffett as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway in 1978. After the publication of "Poor Charlie's Almanack," a compilation of Munger's speeches in 2005, more and more people were fascinated by Munger's wit and wisdom, making him not only an investment stand but also a "life guru" for ordinary people.

1. Via Negativa: Finding the Right Way to Avoid the Wrong Way

When Becky Quick asks Munger, "What's the secret of living 100 years?" with a month left to turn 100, Munger replies, "The game of my life has always been to avoid all standard ways of failure." In other words, if you tell me the wrong way to play poker, I will avoid it, and if I tell you the wrong way to do other things, I will avoid it.

Munger's way of thinking touches on a typical 'via negativa'. Via negativa is a Latin word for 'the path of denial', which means a way to find the truth while removing things that are not true.

But Munger isn't perfect in every way. Quick asked, "Don't you do something you like to do, do you also eat peanuts?" Peanut Brittle is a crispy snack that is a combination of caramel and peanuts, and Munger was seen constantly eating peanuts next to Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders' meeting in May this year.

Munger said, "It's not that important. I also drink diet coke, and I'm sure it shortens my life expectancy a little. But if I could skip the last minute of my life unconsciously, I wouldn't mind. All I want is a good moment of my life." In the interview, there was a diet coke on the table next to Munger. Munger said he has seen patients and their families suffer a lot from Parkinson's disease and said, "It may help me skip the last month of my life unconsciously," and Quick couldn't hold back his laughter.

When Quick asked seriously, "If people want to know what the best way of life is, would you tell them to avoid crazy things and avoid taking them down?" Munger stressed, "You have to avoid crazy things no matter what," adding, "madness is much more common than you think, and it's easy to fall into madness."

2. How to focus on the best 7 people you've learned from America's top basketball coach Wooden

Munger said Berkshire's trick is the Wooden Effect. Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden (1910-2010) is the most famous coach in the U.S. basketball history, with a 664-162 record over his 40-year coaching career and an 80.4 percent winning percentage. His UCLA basketball team has won 88 consecutive games over the past three years.

"Wooden focused 90% of his game time on seven players, while others were just sparring partners," Munger said. "It turns out that finding the best player and focusing most of his game time on the best player is the best system to win basketball games." He added, "You can learn something you can never learn from a game by just practicing shooting," adding, "The player who plays more becomes a better player," just as Wooden focused his game time on the best players, Berkshire did the same and brought better results.

Munger said that when only limited resources can be invested in chess tournaments, people focus on the best players for "wooden effect," and investment is the same. In other words, outstanding people who have gained so many opportunities to practice naturally learn the right posture and become "outliers" and make great achievements. Munger added that "a small number of outliers make (most) of the money" in investment.

3. Munger, The Worst Investment Is Alibaba

In a TV interview taken about a month and a half before the age of 100, Munger had no hesitation about "self-disrespecting himself."

When Becky Quick asked Munger about his worst investment, Munger said, "The worst investment was to buy Alibaba, a fairly good company, for the Munger family." Munger also said, "I think Alibaba is overvalued. And I think Jack Ma made a mistake in dealing with the Chinese government."

Munger said, "I have bad days, and everyone has bad days. No matter how good a tennis player is, sometimes he goes out on the court and has bad days. Sometimes he does that."

In this interview, Munger showed many aspects that he had never seen before. Saying that he tried to learn how to smoke in high school in order to look cool like another child, he said, "It was an attempt to ruin my life." Fortunately, he said he didn't smoke because he felt disgusting as if he would throw up when he smoked.

4. "Make sure you grab it when you get the chance"

The most impressive thing of Munger's words on this day is to bet boldly and grab when you are given three to four opportunities in your life. Munger said he also learns a lot from "people who are not already in the world," citing his grandfather Ingham, who had already passed away when he was born.

After going broke due to bank bankruptcy in the eastern part of the United States, Ingum came to Iowa in the central part of the country and became the wealthiest person in the region, becoming the largest shareholder of the region's largest bank after all the hardships. Ingum liked to take his grandchildren to tell stories of overcoming all kinds of hardships, and there was a story that he emphasized to all his grandchildren.

"It's not very common for the world to give you a real chance. You'll only get three to four invitations to a pie counter. And if you're invited, please don't get a little help." "If you're sure you're right, raise your leverage," Ingum said.

Grandfather Ingum's words mean that you can be invited to a display full of delicious cakes and pies only a few times in your life, and if you are sure when you get this opportunity, make a big bet.

"It's good advice, but it's hard to be sure that you're right. I can't do it often," Munger said. "I've received invitations to the pie counter only a few times in my life. If I exclude invitations to the 10 most important pie counters in Buffett's life, Buffett's overall return on investment won't be seen much," Munger said.

At the end of the interview, Munger emphasized that he believes in a "soldier on system" who basically keeps doing hard work. Munger also said that he burst into tears every day after losing his son Teddy to leukemia at the tender age of 9. "There will be many hardships, but you have to keep going despite hardships and difficulties. Then you will meet a few rare opportunities," Munger said. "Learn how to recognize when the opportunity comes and don't bring too few from the pie counter when the opportunity comes."

Munger passed away peacefully on Nov. 28, 2023, in a hospital in California, U.S., as family members watched. Like Munger's joke, I don't know if Diet Coke helped, but I left alone without spending the last moments of my life in pain on a hospital bed.