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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/24/2025 in Posts
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I am of two minds on this. On one hand, I think the multi discipline approach to life is more appealing. But I think that’s just related to me being curious and willing to go pretty deep down rabbit holes of learning/practicing topics and ideas that on the surface don’t seem to be obviously beneficial from a business standpoint. I think this has helped me tremendously from the standpoint of getting good at “learning how to learn” about various topics. I stumbled into an academic decathlon type program in high school based on a teacher recommendation. It was really open ended, in terms of class time and study material, and pushed the students into learning foundational level content of a wide range of topics that weren’t covered in high school (like instead of just geometry or calculus, the math content was fractals and demographic statistics; there was a massive focus on theology and philosophy, the arts/music content was very nuanced compared to other classes, there was college level economic theory instead of just memorizing macro/micro definitions). The idea of this program was completely bananas to me at first and more than a little overwhelming, as my entire family was lower income working class - no discussion of school work at home, much less any talk of high brow ideas or philosophy or economics or anything. That experience was the single biggest advantage I had going into college and the workplace after college. Even though I had a cut and dried major (finance and accounting), that experience helped me in virtually every aspect of college and I got a lot more out of many of my classes because of it. Literally my entire life trajectory was probably altered substantially by that high school program. I wasn’t going to end up in jail or anything, but I think there’s a fairly decent chance that I would have dropped out of college due to being unprepared for the open-endedness and self study needed. Before that program, nothing in public school prepared me for the difficulty level, lack of hand holding, and relative ambiguity of university course work. So, when I read about Munger’s fascination with architecture and psychology, I can relate because I have several things that I’m very interested in and I feel are worthy of a lot of my time and brain power. And I think the concept of mental models/latticework is a great way to describe how I think. I have always struggled greatly with memorization and recalling facts. I need to “start at the beginning” with whatever I’m learning and then I can fairly quickly figure out how a system or business works. Munger’s obsession with incentives is a good example of what I’m talking about. Fully understanding an incentive structure (at the most basic level) can go along way in teaching me how a system works, what the economics of it are, and allows me to extrapolate knowledge about the system way way quicker than if I only read an analyst report or something. So, I’ve figured out that “mental models” (although the term is so overused now, I feel corny using it) are helpful for me in learning the things I want to learn. Learning how people in other fields analyze/problem solve, improves my learning ability - even though I almost never come close to gaining exert level knowledge in most of the topics I read about. On the other hand, there are people like Buffett and quite a few other top tier CEOs/money managers and business people that I’ve personally known, who are really almost myopically focused on the thing they do. Their minds don’t seem to wander all that far astray from the primary thing they practice. They have interests, like golf or fishing or hunting or wine or whatever, but those interests are all sort of recreational or to relax/decompress. Playing golf is not necessarily the same as Munger giving lectures about psychology or trying to corner a university into using his architectural design for windowless dormitories. So, I think either mind frame can work. And I think that, like every other character trait, people are just somewhere on the spectrum and people should just lean into whatever is most effective/enjoyable for them. Anecdotally, a couple of mentors of mine at the same company were good examples of both sides of the coin. Both high level executives, being number 3 and 4 behind CEO in the c-suite pecking order. Both loved what they did and were experts of the company from both in-the-weeds detail to high level capital allocation. But one of them would seem just as happy (if not happier) talking to you about books, military history, safari hunting, theology, etc. The other basically only thought/talked about work, with a sprinkling of conversation about college sports or his kids. Both were great at their jobs and a wealth of knowledge about the company. Just very different people.1 point
