B000U5KFIC EBOK (10 page)

It took several years before it would become apparent that Munger's
marriage was a misjudgment. In the meantime, the Mungers did what
many young, postwar couples did. They sought additional education on
the GI Bill and started a family.

Though Munger had by now attended several universities and taken
advanced courses, he had not earned a college diploma. That did not deter
this ambitious 22-year-old. Even before he was discharged from the military in 1946, Charlie, like his father, applied to the nation's oldest and
perhaps most distinguished law school, Harvard. Charlie was following a
family tradition, but law also seemed the best career choice for him,
given his skills, or lack thereof, in certain areas.

"The Army gave two tests," he explained. "An IQ test and a mechanical aptitude test. I got a radically high score on IQ and a much lower score
for mechanical aptitude. That confirmed what I already knew. My spatial
talents were not up to my general level of talents. If I'd have gone into surgery when I was young, I wouldn't have been an outstanding surgeon. My
father's best friend, Dr. Davis, was a famous surgeon. I could tell he had
this vast mechanical ability that I lacked."

As for his original college major-mathematics-well, Charlie performed admirably in the math classes he'd taken, but he knew he wasn't
as talented as his best teachers. He recalled watching his Caltech thermodynamics professor, Homer Joe Stewart, stride into the classroom and
spend hours writing very complex equations on the blackboard as fast as
his fingers could move, spouting rapid-fire explanations as he went.
Charlie realized he never could be as good as that, and for a professor at
a prestigious university, it is necessary to be like Homer Joe Stewart. To
go into a calling where he would not be exceptional was not in Charlie's
thinking.

Despite the fact that Al Munger had graduated from Harvard Law,
Charlie was not welcomed with open arms. "I was admitted over the objection of Dean Warren Abner Seavy through the intervention of family
friend Roscoe Pound," Munger said.

A Nebraska native, Pound was the retired dean of Harvard Law
School. Charlie knew from family stories that Pound was a polymathic su-
pergenius who, as dean, seldom convened faculty meetings because he
figured he could make better decisions by himself. When Munger, faced
with rejection, asked to confer with Pound, Seavy warned Charlie that the Dean would agree that he should finish college before going to law
school. Munger replied, "We'll see."

When Charlie called upon him to plead his case, Pound reviewed the
transcripts of the work Munger already had completed. After reaching a
favorable conclusion, Pound contacted the new law school dean and saw
to it that Munger was admitted.'

Harvard's flexibility proved sound. By the end of Charlie's first year
he won a 5400 Sears prize for placing second in his class. Nonetheless, in
retrospect, Charlie considered himself prepared enough for Harvard Law,
but inadequately prepared for life.

"I came to Harvard Law School very poorly educated, with desultory
work habits and no college degree."3

At the 75th anniversary celebration of Sec's Candy, Munger and
Buffett spent nearly an hour taking questions from the audience. One
See's employee asked the two men what their most important school experiences were.

"I hurried through school," said Munger. "I don't think I'm a fair example Hof an ideal education, and I don't think you are either, Warren. I
learn better sort of plowing through written material by myself. I've done
a lot of that in my life. I frequently like the eminent dead better than the
live teachers."

Buffett confessed that his main objective in college was "getting
out." He was impatient to get on with life and start his career as an investor, though Buffett said that attending graduate school at Columbia
University and studying under the legendary investor Benjamin Graham
was one of the most important things he did.'

Charles Munger once described himself as having a black belt in
chutzpah, and probably that trait helped him rise to the challenge." He
had grown up in the households of a judge and a business lawyer, and had
been exposed to lawyerly thinking all of his life. He also was opinionated,
almost to the point of arrogance. When a professor called upon him to answer a question that Munger was not prepared for, he responded, "1
haven't read the case, but if you give me the facts, I'll give you the law.

Munger later came to realize that conversational gambits of that type
were foolish and impeded his progress in life. Remembering the incident,
Munger says he doesn't know why he behaved so badly, but he thinks it
may have been partly due to hereditary factors that he has subdued but
not conquered. He has admitted, in fact, that he apparently was behind
the door when humility was handed out.

One of Charlie's Harvard Law classmates, Henry Gross, became a
successful investment counselor in Los Angeles, and defended Munger when an acquaintance remarked that prosperity was making Charlie
pompous. "Nonsense," said Gross. "I knew him when he was young and
poor; he was always pompous."

Munger can be highly self-assured and sometimes reactive, but what
saves him is that his opinions aren't set in stone. James Sinegal, president
and chief executive officer for Costco, said Charlie doesn't "have an
agenda. If you don't buy off on his viewpoint, he doesn't pout. He's prepared to move on with the conversation."

While at Harvard, Charlie again had it sister nearby: Carol arrived to
study at Radcliffe. "I babysat their first child (Teddy). I fed him his
Pablum dry-I was so unfamiliar with babies," said Carol. "He ate it, too.
It didn't kill him."

Molly, the Munger's first daughter, was born in Massachusetts and
was brought home from the hospital to cramped student quarters. "I used
to move her crib into the bathtub each night. It was it small crib and fit
well," said Charlie.

At Harvard Charlie was as sociable as he had been in elementary and
high school hack in Omaha. He circulated widely among different types
of people. Walter Oherer, who later became dean of the law school at the
University of Utah, worked with Munger on the Harvard Lain Review. On
one occasion, they spent many days in the lower parts of the Widener Library checking citations in it turgid article written by a European scholar.
"After about four days Oberer said that our situation reminded him of a
time when he was working as a pick-up clay laborer inside box cars in
120-degree heat alongside it tramp who needed money for food. Finally,
the tramp threw down a grain sack and walked off saying, 'Fuck this shit.
I didn't kill anybody.' Nonetheless, Oberer stayed the course to the end at
the Harvard Lain Review. But after a while, I imitated the tramp."

Munger completed law school in 1948, along with Kingman Brewster
who became the president of Yale University, Ed Rothschild, who
founded the law firm of Rothschild, Stevens and Barry in Chicago and
Joseph Flom, who went on to become it famous lawyer in New York.
Charlie was one of 12 in the 335-member class to graduate magna cum
laude.

He talked to his father about returning to Omaha to practice law, but
despite the connections that Charlie might enjoy there, Al Munger advised against it. Apparently Al felt that Omaha was too small it pond for
Charlie. Even though Omaha was an affluent small city. headquarters to
the Union-Pacific Railroad, several agricultural corporations, and numerous insurance companies, Charlie would not be challenged by the practice that he could build there.

Besides that, Charlie was enchanted by Pasadena and taken with the
Californians he'd met. Charlie, Nancy, and their growing family would
head hack West.

Al Munger approved, even though his personal experiences in California had been discouraging. He had visited Los Angeles right after the
end of World War I, with a view to possibly relocating there. However, appalled by the lack of water and greenery, he had declared "There's no future in this town." He returned to Nebraska, only to have his son grow up
and make the opposite decision.

Even Munger's own children think it was odd, in some ways, that
Charlie would end up such an integral part of the most nontraditional
city in the United States.

"Charlie loves Mark Twain and Ben Franklin. He's Midwestern," observed Barry. "He's definitely not very coastal. But LA was a big growing
megalopolis and his business life intersected with that. He didn't move
there because he liked to surf. He is a guardian of the mountain."

Nevertheless, Charlie has a taste for adventure when it comes to
homes and friends. To Charlie, Los Angeles was a rational choice.

" I am not one who usually hates where I am," said Munger. "I liked
Albuquerque. I liked Nashville, Tennessee, where I spent some months
during the war. I liked Boston, and thought of staying there. But Boston in
1948 was terribly interbred-intermarried. It was a hard town in which
to get ahead. In Los Angeles, I would go ahead faster."

He was right. The growth was amazing. With city limits that encompass 467 square miles, Los Angeles by the end of the twentieth century
was home to more than 3.5 million people. And that's only within the
city limits. Los Angeles County has 80 incorporated cities and 10 million
residents.

Despite Munger's conservative, Midwestern ways, longtime friend
Otis Booth said, "Charlie did not seem to stand out. Los Angeles is full of
all kinds of people, and particularly in the early years was peopled by
Midwesterners."

That Southern California was his wife's home may not even have
been a consideration: "1 don't remember discussing it with her," said
Charlie.

On the other hand, said Molly Munger, Charlie was intrigued by his
wife's entrepreneurial in-laws and didn't mind living near them. "My father always liked my Huggins relatives. He had respect and admiration for
what they accomplished with the shoe store. He liked their lifestyle and
high spirits. They were successful and positive. He talked about what a
good business they had and what a good job they'd done."

Nancy Huggins, like Charlie himself, was descended from an old
New England family, but the Huggins were a different clan from the
Mungers. Her great-grandmother, Molly said, was "very smart and hardworking," the first girl in her high school to study algebra. She married
shoe salesman Fred Huggins, Molly's great-grandfather, in Pasadena in
1890. At the time, Pasadena was a popular resort for Midwestern millionaires, including the Wrigley chewing gum heirs. The Huggins opened
their own store, with her keeping books and Fred selling shoes. Later they
branched out to Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. Their main store, on
Pasadena's South Lake Avenue was later sold, but Nancy Huggins, an only
child, inherited the stock that was issued in the sale. "The stock we took
has continued to be valuable," said Molly.

In addition to their business acumen, the Huggins had a flair for living. "They were hard-drinking, kick up your heels types and married very
well," said Molly. "They married up. Their mother bought the sons one
tuxedo. They rotated it to go to fancy parties."

Charlie returned to this lively environment and was admitted to the
California Bar in 1949. He joined the Los Angeles law firm of Wright &
Garrett, which later became Musick, Peeler & Garrett. The firm had a respected name in the legal community, but was relatively small compared to others in the city. Charlie started out at a salary of $275 a
month. He felt fairly affluent at the time, having accumulated $1,500 in
savings.s

Once he was settled in California, Munger went about making connections with the same type of people he would have associated with had
he stayed in Omaha.

For the most part, he stuck close to the law community. Charlie connected with old California families and with Midwesterners seeking to
replicate their culture under more favorable weather conditions. Gradually he joined social groups that would help further his connections-the
classic downtown men's club, the California Club; the Los Angeles Country Club and the Beach Club.

CHARLIE'S PARENTS HAD PROTECTED HIM from the sorrows of the Great Depression. With luck he landed far from the battlefields of World War II.
But his luck gave out. In the 1950s, the decade considered most felicitous
for America, Munger walked unsuspectingly into the darkest experiences
of his life.

"I think I must have been very young when my parents splits," said
Wendy Munger. "I don't remember his living in the house, but remember him picking us up on weekends. A divorce is a terrible thing. Teddy died
at nine, I was five, Molly seven."

Because she was older. Molly remembers much of what happened
when her parents divorced in 1953. Charlie and the first Nancy had married young and now, "They fought, yelled at each other. It was abundantly
clear they weren't happy," explained Molly. And when it was obvious the
Mungers could no longer live together, "They handled themselves in a way
that was exemplary. They said all the right things. We're not happy with
each other. We need to be apart. We love you guys. It won't affect our relationship with you."

Although she was just a preschooler when her parents' marriage
broke up, Wendy Munger felt sure of one thing. The divorce wasn't his
doing, but I don't know [why they separated]," said Wendy. "A less wellsuited pair hardly exists on this earth. They were just babies when they
married."

As is the case with so many families, the children didn't fully understand what caused the irreconcilable differences between their parents,
one a serious young lawyer and the other a free spirit, but they quickly
grasped the consequences of the decision to end the marriage.

"He lost everything in the divorce," Molly continued. Her mother
stayed in the house in South Pasadena, but despite his absence, Charlie
went to great lengths to help the children realize that he was still their father and responsible for their well-being.