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Charlie Munger has died

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111–120 of 454 posts

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#111
post #9

Everybody should read his speech, "The Psychology of Human Misjudgment": https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ It's a fantastic read that can really help you understand why supposedly rational masses of people can end up being so wrong. In the tech world, it ends up being more relevant than one would like it to be.

Once you start observing the biases he has mentioned in the talk, you realise how vulnurable you are as a human to be co erced into making decisions which could be so wrong.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#112
I always remember him saying "I always tried to find ways to kill my pilots" referring to his days as a meteorologist in World War 2. This is in reference to "Reverse Thinking", the way I approach all my projects by trying to wreck them from the start and shipping once I can't.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#114
post #60

Can we show the black banner, please?

When is it that "hackers" and people into doing risky businesses started getting so into in the most boring, most conservative investor of all time? That tells you enough about how this whole segment of the population jumped the shark and just started worshiping the same version of success as Wall Street. The day HN shows a black banner for him, that site is officially over.

> When is it that "hackers" and people into doing risky businesses started getting so into in the most boring, most conservative investor of all time?

I won't comment on the general sentiment of your comment, but I will take exception to your characterisation of Munger as "the most boring, most conservative investor of all time".

Munger throughout his life Munger came up with many interesting (and sometimes controversial) ideas, he even made some fairly risky speculative investments. For example just in recent history he was looking to invest in building windowless dorms to much push back and outrage. He also made a very risky leveraged bet on Alibaba which was far from conservative.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#116
post #9

Everybody should read his speech, "The Psychology of Human Misjudgment": https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ It's a fantastic read that can really help you understand why supposedly rational masses of people can end up being so wrong. In the tech world, it ends up being more relevant than one would like it to be.

[flagged]

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#117

Also responsible for the windowless college dorm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29038356

I don't understand the outrage over this. Are windows a major selling point of dorm rooms? When I was in college i don't recall dorm windows being that important. I was studying or elsewhere most of the time anyway.

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#118
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every financial advisor and 401k plan recommends index funds by default, and it is how the vast majority of people and organizations store their wealth. It doesn't need any more cheerleaders or icons. It had simply become synonymous with investing at large. This is passive investing, not value investing. Value investing is very much active investing, otherwise how would you select the undervalued assets? Value inve…

Value investing is a strategy. Index funds are a vehicle. The two can and do coexist, even more so than any other such pair because their risk profile (conservative) and time horizon (long term) are so well aligned.

[deleted]

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#119

I always remember him saying "I always tried to find ways to kill my pilots" referring to his days as a meteorologist in World War 2. This is in reference to "Reverse Thinking", the way I approach all my projects by trying to wreck them from the start and shipping once I can't.

I particularly liked his saying that went something like, "before you invest in a company, you should understand and be able to make the argument against the investment better than those who hold that position."

Re: Charlie Munger has died

#120
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is it that "hackers" and people into doing risky businesses started getting so into in the most boring, most conservative investor of all time? That tells you enough about how this whole segment of the population jumped the shark and just started worshiping the same version of success as Wall Street. The day HN shows a black banner for him, that site is officially over.

> When is it that "hackers" and people into doing risky businesses started getting so into in the most boring, most conservative investor of all time? I won't comment on the general sentiment of your comment, but I will take exception to your characterisation of Munger as "the most boring, most conservative investor of all time". Munger throughout his life Munger came up with many interesting (and sometimes controver…

Yup, the shitty dorm is indeed the one thing that stands out, of recent memory. Not sure that helps his case. That he made one uncharacteristically risky bet isn't exactly proof of anything, either. I'll happily grant you that my language was hyperbolic, however.
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