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Look at companies that have lost their founders..... I mean.... It's like Jordan and Pippen leaving the Bulls... Sports is a great analogy... teams rebuild.... The Commanders have been a disaster after Joe Gibbs and the Rypien/Doug Williams era. You can say Cleveland without LeBron James... From a business analogy, Charlie mentioned how Edwin Land departure of one of the most dominant companies out there, Kodak... ended in bankruptcy. Henry Singleton and Teledyne.. It went from great to good at best. Post-Andy Grove at Intel. The dark years of Steve Ballmer's Microsoft before Nadella. The two periods of Apple sandwiches without Steve Jobs. Anything can happen. Greg Abel might be a operator, but he's not Warren or Charlie... I mean... that's not a knock on him.. It's just big shoes to fill. And then, it's going to have a lot of cooks in the kitchen... with Ajit.... Todd C., Ted Weschler.... These transitions are hard.... GE after Jack Welch. Citigroup after John Reed/Sandy Weil.... Walmart and Costco are success stories...but, again, the Vegas odds are generally against total dominance through multiple CEOs.

Interesting... I'm going to buy myself this for Xmas. Thanks for the recommendation.

Never thought Ray Dalio will be part of a rap song... "With principles thick as Ray Dalio" 3:15-16 mark.

I think "who had the right ideas" is the key phrase here. There will be cases where you want to learn what not to do... from Hilter, Mussolini, Mao, etc...but, figuring out the right ideas in the sea of noise is the hard part.

@villainx - Charlie and Warren are always thinking about decision trees and probabilities. My earlier statement is saying Charlie would have been able to provide for his family in a number of ways and all would have been fine. 1) He could have continued as partner for his law firm and done well. https://www.law.com/law-firm-profile/?id=218&name=Munger-Tolles-%26-Olson-LLP#:~:text=According to the National Law,2023 Am Law 200 ranking. 2) He could have focused on real estate like he did. Also, he is so passionate about architecture, he could have create a real estate/architecture firm too. He would have been financially independent there too. 3) He met Warren and felt comfortable with being Robin to Warren's Batman... which is great... that's what makes him a great man... Warren was LeBron and Charlie was Dwayne Wade. Or Warren was Michael Jordan and Charlie was Scottie Pippin (but, likes Jordan...lol) I'm just saying all decisions would have gotten his family in a great place. In hindsight, we see he made a great choice partnering with Warren.... but, that was not without risk. This is not suppose to be a negative post on Charlie. I'm just saying Charlie had multiple alternatives and all would have lead him to financial independence. I do not know why he was so negative to law.... it's not perfect nothing is... but, he was always connected to it with Daily Journal and other areas of his life.

Charlie was a founder in his own law firm. He created a great organization and luckily he found his ideal partner in Warren Buffett and BRK. My stance is he create a world class organization as a lawyer and in that perch, he would have provided wonderfully for his family. He would still be at his 1%. Charlie could have still allocated money with his salary and partner bonus in real estate and investments and made a lot of money. He went from being top 1% to top .5% -- which is great. Did he need to do that? He liked it better, I guess. That's a luxury. Charlie is an architect... why didn't he create an architectural firm. That was another one of his passion with investing? Also, Charlie was CEO of Daily Journal, Wesco, and CORT. All roles that would have provided for his family wonderfully..... Top 1% to .5%. As for being around good clients and bad clients.... You get that bad clients and bad beats? Even working with Warren, they had to deal with Salomon Brothers and he got pulled into a SEC hearing for Blue Chips...... Also, the whole Haslam/Pilot investment.

@Xerxes - Ray is definitely not an activist investor/hedge fund. But, looking at his holdings, most have earnings and generally good ROIC. So, just removing the crummy and marginally profitable business from the index should keep him alive for ages.... I love the "radical" transparency concept -- but, it's sad to hear he's a tyrant in disguise.

https://www.gurufocus.com/insider/8793/ronald-l-olson This is what I googled...but, other links have it in the millions... either way.... It's still a lot of money... and putting it into an S&P would still support the "gaggle" of children that Charlie has. Again, my questions is.... it's great that Charlie found financial freedom and something he loves to do..I have near heard of something being an investor and say, I rather be a lawyer... Or I am an investor and I love being micro managed by a private equity firm.... but, being responsible and providing for your family as a lawyer is not necessarily a bad outcome for something who wants to make good money.

Could someone shed some light on Warren and Charlie's comments about working at a law firm and how being an investor led to his wealth? I get creating a hedge fund early on helps and earning money (carry) from your partners capital is a form of leverage... But, Ron Olson of Munger Tolles Olson has several billions too. I would assume working at a law firm wasn't that terrible for him. He actually introduced Li Lu to Charlie... so, you would get to bump into some interesting people at a firm. I know there are terrible lawyers out there......but, being a partner of a law firm is not a bad living... I mean... being any general partner in accounting, law, venture fund... is not necessarily bad. All have long hours, but that's the sacrifice, isn't it? Moreover, MTO's culture is molded by Charlie -- he would be prudent and walk away from certain deals, right? Or choose not the partner with certain companies and individuals... I would think Charlie would maximize integrity over profit at his firm. Lastly, outside of BRK, Charlie would have made his money in real estate too.. So, with a lawyer salary and GE profits; alpha from RE with nature leverage; wouldn't Charlie been well off nonetheless. One might assume Charlie would be closer to a Sam Zell, real estate investor than Warren in an alternative universe.

I'm not necessarily a big fan of Ray Dalio -- but, his holdings are not amazing, but should not be prone to big blow-ups. It should track the indexes with so much diversification... 740 stocks.. I mean... that's the S&P 500 and a half..... closet indexer. https://hedgefollow.com/funds/Bridgewater+Associates Does anyone know how his major investors are?

Final interview.

Sad. Was looking to see him make his 100th birthday. Legend.

Good question... but, Buffetts dollars are still going to the Gates Foundation, isn't it? Maybe, not friends.. but, colleagues.. LOL

It's interesting how the Bill Belichick lineage has been a disaster.

@uk - I think he was talking about John Malone.

Charlie talked about this Japanese trade in this podcast. Andrew: There's been a lot of discussion about Berkshire's investments in the Japanese trading houses. Charlie: That is a no-brainer. Something like that, if you're as smart as Warren Buffett, maybe two to three times the century, you had an idea like that. The interest rates in Japan were half a percent per year for 10 years. These trading companies were really entrenched old companies. They had all these cheap copper mines and rubber plantations. You could borrow for ten years ahead. Probably about a year you could buy the stocks and it's likely at 5% dividends. A huge flow of cash with no investment, no thought, no anything. How often do you do that? You'll be lucky if you get one or two a century. We could do that, nobody else could. It looked attractive for half a percent, but you couldn't get it. But Berkshire with its credit could, and the only way you could get it was be very patient, just pick away little pieces of the time. It took him forever to get $10 billion invested. It was like God just opening a chest and just pouring money. It's awfully easy money. Ben: It's interesting that it's paradoxical. You need Berkshire's credit. But at Berkshire scale, it's actually hard to put enough money to work. Charlie: That's true, but why shouldn’t it be hard to make money? Why should it be easy? David: Japanese trading companies remind me. We studied another company recently, Nike. That is surprising to me. Have you ever looked at it? Charlie: That's a very different company. That's a style company. Of course, I've looked at it, but I don't like style companies. Ben: Too fad-driven?

I will reply to my own topic... He's a newer CEO... but, David Velez of Nubank was touted by Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital as the best CEO he ever worked with.. I mean.. this is coming from Sequoia -- who invested in Apple, Cisco, Nvidia, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Paypal, Zoom, WhatsApp. That's a ballsy statement.

@Spekulatius - In terms of DFS and its space, would you consider DFS' cannibal nature (i.e. above average capital allocation skills) be trumps over possibly better business models (that don't have student loans) like COF, Visa, MA? I do not believe they purchased as many shares at DFS, but do they have a big moat/business?

@spartansaver I trade microchips and small caps very carefully. The spread on some of these illiquid stocks can be 10-15%. So, right off the bat, your stock needs to appreciate that much to compensate for the spread. You can build the position slowly, which is great... But, when bad stuff happens and you need to sell... That's when all hell breaks loose... I mean... you "can not" slowly sell when they deliver bad news. Orderly evacuations are not commonplace. When I want to be out, I want to be out... I'm not impulsive, but when the CEO/President makes an obvious non-shareholder friendly move.... in many cases, you're SOL and either along for the ride or taking a huge loss. You're focused on the building up a position and I think you need to focus on the exit strategies. If it's a great microchip stock, it's normally closely held by a family and if you do not agree, you gotta go hostile and that's not easy or fun... I experimented with HK stocks like Wharf Holdings... and it came out well, but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze for me. Even when it was 50% below market value.

We have the benefit of hindsight. If you botch up a monopoly, you must be an idiot, right? The whole Amazon, JPM, and Berkshire conspiracy to dominate healthcare is now disbanded. For kingdom builders, they really lose money in that lock. Two, the airlines with their oligopoly pricing power really got screwed during the pandemic...so, again, that didn't play out. He references the World Book investment... which were totally eroded by Wikipedia for free. Again, Warren does like business with pricing power, but there's plenty of examples here of things that didn't lead to his global domination.... He doesn't look at other "monopolies" that Warren doesn't own like Google in search engines, etc.

I have some foreign/international stocks such as Deutsche Bank (Germany), Commerzbank(Germany), Teva (Israel), Barclays (UK), Nubank (Brazil), and Coupang (Korea). When I google their names, I do not get a lot of information back. Occasional Bloomberg and Reuters articles around their earnings or random press releases. I know Motley Fool always has bullish articles on Coupang. But, I'm looking for counterarguments, home market statistics, and home market editorials (that maybe I can Google Translate). Luckily, many have SEC filings if they are trading on the NYSE or Nasdaq -- but, I would like to find more analysis on how they are doing in their home markets. Does everyone approach finding statistics and data for foreign companies even in China (Alibaba, Softbank, ARM, Taiwan Semiconductor, ASML, etc.) which I don't hold?

Is there any correlation to good investments? Like what are the best companies in Ireland, Malta, and Cyrus?

His Steve Jobs book was solid. Might be my favorite of them all.

“When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” - Warren Buffett I strongly agree with Warren Buffett on certain industries having bad economics. It's almost like having great players on bad teams. Or subpar teams. Like Dan Mario never winning a championship because he never had a complete team. Or conversely, Robert Horry having 7 rings while HOFers or Dream Teamers like Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, or Clyde Drexler having zero. That said, are there high performing CEO/managers that are under appreciated or unknown because they were fighting an uphill battle. Conversely, are there companies such as General Magic or Webvan or Pets.com or Cetera Genomics that were before their time? Right concept, wrong time? If so, I would love to read any books or watch any movies on them. Or do general research. In terms of managers, I think Sergio Marchionne is an under-appreciated manager that took Fiat that was in a poor industry/economics and made more returns that it should have deserved.

I was able to find a paperback copy of this book and looking forward to reading it.