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Poor Charlie's Almanack

The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
by Charlie Munger (compiled by Peter D. Kaufman)

A compiled collection of Charlie Munger's speeches and talks, first published in 2005 — Warren Buffett's longtime partner on the multidisciplinary "latticework of mental models," the psychology of human misjudgment, and the quality-over-cheapness shift that took Berkshire Hathaway far beyond Benjamin Graham's original playbook.

Start Reading — Chapter 1 →
Why this book

Every other book in this Book Club teaches a specific investing method. This one is different — it's the thinking framework underneath Munger's own investing, built from psychology, biology, physics, and economics as much as from finance, and it's the direct reason Berkshire Hathaway evolved from Graham's cigar-butt bargains into a company built around paying fair prices for exceptional businesses.

This course covers the book's ideas in four parts: Munger's case for multidisciplinary thinking over narrow specialization, two of his most-cited practical thinking tools, his famous catalog of the psychological biases that quietly distort human judgment, and the specific investment philosophy — quality over cheapness, patience over activity — that Munger's thinking produced in practice.

Table of Contents
The Latticework of Mental Models
1
Why One Discipline Isn't Enough
2 min
Munger's core complaint about specialized education: a person trained in only one field tends to see every problem through that field's tools, whether or not they actually fit.
2
Building a Latticework: Borrowing Models from Every Field
2 min
Concrete examples of the specific models Munger borrowed from physics, biology, and economics — and applied directly to business and investing.
Thinking Tools
3
Inversion: Solving Problems Backward
2 min
"Invert, always invert" — Munger's habit of approaching a hard problem by asking what would guarantee failure, then avoiding those things.
4
Circle of Competence: Knowing What You Don't Know
2 min
Munger and Buffett's shared discipline of only acting within the specific areas they genuinely understand — and treating the boundary of that circle as more important than its size.
The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
5
The Psychology of Human Misjudgment: An Overview
1 min
Munger's famous catalog of roughly two dozen recurring psychological tendencies that distort human judgment — and why he treats studying them as essential to good decision-making.
6
Incentive-Caused Bias and Social Proof
2 min
Two of Munger's most-emphasized biases — how incentives quietly distort honest judgment, and how the mere behavior of a crowd substitutes for independent analysis.
7
Envy, Denial, and the Other Biases That Quietly Run the Show
2 min
A closer look at several more entries from Munger's catalog — quieter, less-discussed biases that shape investment behavior just as powerfully.
Munger's Investment Philosophy
8
Quality Over Cheapness: Munger's Break from Cigar-Butt Investing
2 min
How Munger pushed Buffett away from Graham's original bargain-hunting toward paying fair prices for exceptional, durable businesses.
9
"Sit on Your Ass" Investing: Patience as a Strategy
2 min
Munger's own phrase for an investment style built around very few decisions, extreme patience, and large bets when conviction is genuinely high.
10
Elementary, Worldly Wisdom: Munger's Enduring Advice
2 min
Closing the course with Munger's own synthesis — practical, general life advice that extends well beyond investing, and ties every earlier chapter together.