Book Notes: “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”

I’ve been slowly listening to Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. I like his practicality. He’s never trying to be overly academic, as if he needs to prove how smart he is. He says Berkshire’s success doesn’t come from them solving hard problems, but from spending their time knowing what a simple solution looks like — and acting on it when they see it! We’ve succeeded by making the world easy for us, not by solving the world’s hard problems. Munger analogizes their approach to investing like jumping a fence. They don’t spend all their time trying to figure out how to jump a seven-foot tall fence. Instead, they find a spot where the fence is only a foot tall, jump it, and take the reward on the other side. The approach he articulates for investing, in fact, seems broadly applicable to any kind of problem solving: Quickly eliminate the universe of what not to do. Follow up with a multi-disciplinary attack on what remains. Act decisively when — and…