Charlie Munger / Casio watches / Cold water
Charlie Munger’s wisdom for a better life (or investment)
Listening to podcasts in the car with my wife is one of my favourite learning experiences. This episode of Founders was a goodie with a high density of insight per minute. Its host, David Senra, found himself in an exceptional position: having dinner with Charlie Munger. Charlie is Warren Buffet’s co-pilot on managing Berkshire Hathaway, probably the most successful investment fund ever. But beyond being good at making money, Charlie is known for his wisdom and common sense. Here are a few of my favourite takeaways, applicable to life and business:
Invest in durability.
Specialise and compound.
Be extremely interested in what you do, that's the only way to reach excellence.
“I did not succeed because I’m smart. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.”
Wise people step on big and growing troubles early.
Why Casio is the ultimate watch for dads
I can appreciate a beautiful mechanical watch but I’ve been wearing this lately:
I bought it when my daughter was born to read the time in the dark during nightly feeds, to time exercise sets and above all, wake me up silently, vibrating, without stirring everybody else. I did consider an Apple watch but it’s distracting with all its apps and cumbersome to recharge on a daily basis. Every function of the Casio is 2 taps away and needs a battery change every 10 years. I found it ugly to begin with but it won me over.
Befriending cold water makes your days fuller
It’s my new obsession. Listening to the likes of Andrew Huberman or Wim Hof probably brainwashed me through the years. As an adept of meditation, I find value in tolerating a hostile situation for a moment. The brain fights to avoid it, finding excuse after excuse (the more it fights, the better the outcome I found out). It’s similar to any form of procrastination: starting is the real struggle.
So I jump in cold rivers or showers whenever I have the chance and the rest of the day seems to take care of itself, fitting more into it.
A few different outlooks on AI
This week I thought it would be a good time to watch AI by Steven Spielberg. While it did not age well, it poses an important question: will AGI be capable of loving?
Elon Musk and other prominent scientists asked AI company leaders to pause research on large AI experiments for 6 months in this open letter. This is meant to help us take a breath before diving into a future — even Open Ai’s CEO admits — that isn’t risk-free.
On the meantime, people like Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-growth lieutenant at Facebook) are trying to articulate where AI will create the biggest returns. He compares the future financial winners of AI to Coca-Cola, when it made more money than fridge manufacturers during the advent of refrigeration. AI entrepreneurs are going to make money no doubt but whoever knows how to exploit AI will do better:
And while everyone wonders whether we’re making ourselves irrelevant, here’s Nassim Taleb’s take:
Don’t be afraid of the circus
Great share from Arjun Mahadevan:
