My notes from Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger turned into maxims:
1. Find a simple idea and take it seriously.
2. Good ideas are rare. When you find one bet heavily.
3. Humans have been writing down their best ideas for 5,000 years. Read them.
4. Avoiding stupid mistakes is more important than being smart.
5. Don’t work with anyone you don’t admire.
6. Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy.
7. Avoiding a bad habit is easier than breaking a bad habit.
8. Work on your best idea. Don't diversify
9. Incentives rule everything around you. Look for them.
10. Great businesses are built by going ridiculously far in maximizing or minimizing one or a few things. Think Costco.
11. Learning is changing behavior.
12. Do the unpleasant tasks first.
13. Charlie has read hundreds of biographies. Do the same.
14. Stop multitasking. Concentrate.
15. Many hard problems are solved best when approached backwards.
16. Think of ideas as tools. When a better tool comes along use it.
17. Clip your business and personal expenses. Small leaks sink big ships.
18. Make friends with smart dead people. Adam Smith, Darwin, Cicero, Ben Franklin —whoever interests you. Read their writing. Steal their ideas. They don’t need them anymore.
19. Don't confuse intelligence with invincibility.
20. Bad things will happen to you. It’s inevitable. When they do get up and keep going and remember the next maxim.
21. Self pity has no utility.
22. Find out what you are best at. Then pound away at it. Forever.
He founded the first quantitative hedge fund, made the first wearable computer with Claude Shannon, met a 38 year old Warren Buffett, had great relationships with his family, and took care of his health
12 ideas from his autobiography:
1. Only play games where you have an edge:
2. Learn to teach yourself so you can think differently
Siggi Wilzig survived Auschwitz, arrived in America with $200, and died 50 years later worth hundreds of millions
A thread on what I learned from reading Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend:
When Siggi was 14 he was forced by Nazis to work in a factory 12 hours a day, 7 days a week
Two years later they tell him to go home and pack a bag
He goes home
Every Jewish person in his neighborhood is pulled out onto the street
His entire family is forced from their home and told to get on a train
There is a little girl in a green coat who was separated from her family
Siggi takes her by the hand and stays with her during the trip