Warren Buffett on One Last Day with Charlie Munger | Berkshire Hathaway 2024

Hi, my name is Andrew Ncas, and I'm wondering if you had one more day with Charlie, what would you do with him? [Applause]

Well, it's kind of interesting because, in effect, I did have one more day. I mean, it wasn't a full day or anything, but he, we always lived in a way where we were happy with what we were doing every day. I mean, Charlie liked learning. He liked, as I mentioned, the movie. He liked a wide variety of things, so he was much broader than I was. But I didn't have any great desire to be as broad as he was, and he didn't have any great desire to be as narrow as I was. But we had a lot of fun doing anything.

And, um, you know, we played golf together. We played tennis together. We did everything together, and, uh, you may find this kind of interesting. We had as much fun, perhaps even more to some extent, with things that failed because then we really had to work our way out of them. In a sense, there's more fun having somebody that's your partner in digging your way out of a foxhole than just sitting there and watching an idea that you got 10 years ago just continually produce more and more profit.

So, it wasn't, uh, you know, he really fooled me, though. He went to 99.9 years. I mean, if you'd pick two guys, you know, he never, he, he publicly said he never did a day of exercise except where it was required when he was in the Army. He never did a day of voluntary exercise; he never thought about what he ate. We started every day, and Charlie had, he was interested in more things than I was, but, uh, we never had any doubts about the other person, period.

And, uh, so if I'd had another day with him, we'd probably have done the same thing we were doing in the earlier days. But we wouldn’t have wanted to know that we only had one day. There’s a great advantage in not knowing what day you're going to die. But, uh, and Charlie always said, you know, just tell me where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

Well, uh, the truth is, you know, he went everywhere with his mind. Therefore, he was not only interested in the world at 99, but the world was interested in him. It's remarkable. I told him in the last few years I never seen anybody that was peing, you know, at 99, and where the world wanted to come and see him. I mean, they actually wanted to go out to 351 North June Street, and well, I could name a whole bunch of names, but just, I'll start with Elon Musk on the list. They all wanted to meet Charlie, and Charlie was happy to talk with them.

The only, the only person I could think of otherwise was the Dalai Lama. I don't know that they had a lot else in common, but, uh, he lived his life the way he wanted to, and, uh, he got to say what he wanted to say. He liked, I loved having a podium. Again, I can't remember any time that he was mad at me or I was mad at him. It just didn't happen.

Calling him was fun back when long-distance rates were high, and we didn't talk as often in the years, in recent years, as we used to. We were on daily, uh, for long periods, and we did keep learning. We liked learning together. You know, we tended to be a little smarter because, as the years went by, 'cause we had mistakes and we had other things where we learned something.

The fact that he and I were on the same wavelength in that respect meant that the world was still a very interesting place to us when he got to be 99 and I got to be 93. So, I don't have a perfect answer for you there, but I can tell you the ingredients that would go into, uh, sometimes people would say to me or Charlie at one of these meetings, you know, if you have lunch with one person that lived over the last 2,000 or so years, you know, who would you want to have it with?

Charlie says I've already met all of them, you know, because he read all the books. I mean, he, he eliminated all the trouble of going to restaurants to meet them, anything like that. He just went through a book and he met Ben Franklin. He really, uh, he was remarkable. He said he really had no one else to meet because he’d read all their stuff, and he liked Ben Franklin's stuff better than he liked mine.

But, but, uh, with Ben Franklin, he just had to read about it. He didn't have to go have lunch with him or anything of the sort. But it's an interesting question; what you should probably ask yourself is that who do you feel that you want to start spending the last day of your life with and then figure out a way to start meeting them for tomorrow and meet them as often as you can.

Cu, uh, why wait for the last day? But, uh, and don't bother with the others. Go.