Charlie Munger Was Too Rich to Be Hungry

When Warren Buffett’s right hand man departed this mortal coil, those in the finance world shared their thoughts.

Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, was praised as a brilliant man.  He was an example of how hard work and dedication can result in wealth and prosperity.

But let’s be honest: this isn’t entirely true.

Let me explain …

My uncle worked as a police officer in the great state of Florida for 24 years.  

Every single day, he put his life on the line.  His work ethic was unmatched by anyone I’ve ever met on Wall Street.  And when he retired from the police force, he kept working because he had three kids and a wife to support.

He was an intimidating figure, standing at 6 feet, 4 inches.  He was an amateur boxer, a high school wrestling coach, and competed in 6 Iron Man competitions.  So after his time on the police force, he worked as a bouncer at a high-end nightclub in Miami and did security for the Miami Dolphins.

Make no mistake: he wasn’t poor.  But he didn’t have Charlie Munger money.

He had a nice house, decent cars and enough saved for retirement so that his family never wanted for anything.

So while I have no ill-will towards Charlie Munger, to suggest that all it takes to become wealthy is hard work and dedication is a bit naive.

Munger really was a brilliant man.  He studied mathematics at the University of Michigan and then attended Harvard Law School.

While he was originally denied admission to Harvard, he was later accepted after a family friend, who was the former dean of Harvard Law, called in a favor.  This shouldn’t take away from just how smart Munger was, but this just further confirms that sometimes (not all the time), it takes more than hard work and dedication to become a billionaire. 

Most of the time you need connections or access to intel that can steer you in the right direction.

For example, back in 2014, I spent three months on the road, visiting with lawmakers, medical professionals, and startups in the cannabis space.  This was back before Canada had legalized cannabis, and not a single state in the U.S. had legalized the adult-use of cannabis. 

Fortunately, Angel Publishing footed the bill for me to take these trips to collect important intel that I would later use to help Energy & Capital readers make a lot of money.  Particularly with a company called Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX: WEED), which I discovered on one of my research trips.

When I first wrote about the company in 2015, it was trading at just $1.60 a share. 

A few years later, it was trading at more than $62.00 a share. 

That’s a gain of more than 3,775%, turning every $10k invested into $387,000.

Double up to $20k, and you’re looking at more than a half million bucks from a single stock!

While many of our readers at that time were not born into wealth or gifted access to former deans of prestigious Ivy League schools, they did have access to the same kind of intel that guys like Charlie Munger have always had access to.  

At least in the case of the cannabis industry.

But the cannabis industry was never of much interest to Munger.  He preferred to play it safe.  And for a guy like that, who already had enough cash to provide for his family ten times over, that makes total sense.  

He didn’t need to take risks.

It’s actually why he was so critical of Elon Musk and Tesla, saying of Musk:

He likes taking on the impossible job and doing it.  We’re different.  Warren and I are looking for the easy job that we can identify.  We have a wholly different way of going about life.

And once Tesla proved successful, he called it a “minor miracle.”  

There’s nothing “minor” about launching the most disruptive technology the auto industry had seen since the first Model T rolled off the line in 1908.

But this got me thinking …

There are two types of people in this world:  those who have the luxury of playing it safe, and those who don’t.  I was always the latter.

I wasn’t born into wealth.

I wasn’t gifted high-level connections at Ivy League schools.

I’m not smart enough to become a mathematician. 

Yet I know that I represent far more investors than those who have been fortunate enough to have all those things.  I represent a class of investors who seek wealth and prosperity, not because it’s what we’re used to, but it’s because it’s something we never had.

We’re hungrier than the gifted class.

We’re willing to get our hands dirty and take on more risk.  After all, you know the saying: fortune favors the bold.

And because we’re not Wall Street insiders, we find other ways to get to the good grass first.

We don’t just sit behind our desks all day, waiting for new opportunities to fall into our laps.

We physically go out into the field and find them for ourselves.

In fact, I just got this picture and email from my good friend and colleague, Jason Williams, who managed to get VIP access to one of the most secretive facilities run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Hey, Jeff!

I just got back from that research trip I was telling you about the other day and you’re not going to believe what’s going on down there…

First off, I had to get special clearance just to get back to the company’s headquarters. It’s behind the military line at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, so they take security pretty seriously.

And once I got in there, I drove past a massive hangar Jeff Bezos is having built for his Blue Origin space operation, then passed about a hundred brand new Teslas and Cybertrucks parked outside the SpaceX hangars…

And finally, I got to my destination: a nondescript Quonset hut that held the world’s only privately owned fleet of supersonic aircraft.

And let me just say, “wow!” These things are incredibly impressive. They’re actually faster than and can fly higher than any of the aircraft our military still uses.

And that’s why they’re so important to the future of aerospace development and national defense…

Case in point: right before I got there, they nabbed a huge contract to help the US military catch up to China in the hypersonic missile and defense market.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m really excited about this one. That’s why I wanted to let you know about it.

The company’s still private, but I’ve got a workaround that will let anyone with an internet connection and a bank account invest in it BEFORE it goes public.

And I know you like deals like these. 

Let’s circle up and talk more when you’ve got time.

I know Jason is writing this one up now for members of his Main Street Ventures service, which you can learn more about here.

Bottom line: Jason and I are not Charlie Mungers, but we sure as hell know how to find some of the most undervalued and under-the-radar plays in the market.  And we have the track records to prove it.

So I strongly urge you to check out what Jason is doing now in this video.

To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth …

Jeff