I sometimes have a dim realization that I need the same intellectual lessons pounded into me over different time periods in order to avoid the regular and robust temptation to do something stupid. We will be regularly posting pieces on “thinking” that have come our way over the decades. This reprint of a Charles Munger speech comes to us from Steve Friedman’s excellent “Santangel’s Review.”
After one endures a few minutes of another rendition of “The World According to Charlie,” the good stuff starts. In particular, how do you intelligently run other people’s money when every instinct of the investment management “business” is conspiring against you? Less turnover, more concentration, a long time horizon, and the mental and financial stamina to endure interim volatility on an absolute—and particularly a relative—basis are not attributes one immediately associates with this industry.