The Warren Buffett Story 4 - The Partner on the Hill
At twenty-nine, Warren was rolling his snowball alone. Then, at an Omaha dinner in 1959, he meets his lifelong partner Charlie Munger. Four hours fly by as the two click completely, and Munger presses Warren to buy a good company that grows on its own at a fair price, over a cheap cigar butt. Munger's lens is laid over teacher Graham's principles, and the two are about to roll down a very long hill together. A third-person choose-your-path story based on real facts (Episode 4).
Rolling the snowball alone, then meeting a lifelong partner
'The Warren Buffett Story' Episode 4, 'The Partner on the Hill,' follows Warren, quietly growing his own partnership in Omaha, as he meets Charlie Munger in 1959. The money was compounding, but few could keep up with the speed of his mind.
You watch the two men's first meeting from beside them, keep a four-hour conversation going, and wind a graph forward year by year to see how a good company grows on its own over time. Every event, year, and person follows the real record; only the dialogue is naturally dramatized.
A dinner in Omaha, and four hours of talk
In 1959, the Davis family, longtime backers of Warren, invited him to dinner. The man they introduced was Charlie Munger, a successful Los Angeles lawyer whose roots were in the same Omaha, and who, remarkably, had once worked as a boy in the grocery store run by Warren's grandfather.
At that first meeting, Warren asked Munger why he used such a fine head only to write other people's contracts. The talk ran late into the night; one would start a thought and the other knew its end. For the first time, Warren had met someone as quick as he was, who loved books as much as he did.
From cheap butts to good companies: Munger's lens
Soon hooked on investing, Munger kept pressing an idea a little different from Graham's: rather than buying a so-so company dirt cheap, buy a truly good one at a fair price. A one-puff butt is done after that puff, but a good company grows on its own, year after year.
GEICO, the good thing Warren had sold too soon, came back to his mind, and Munger's words felt like an answer to that old regret. The two didn't work under one roof right away, but hundreds of miles apart they talked nearly every day and thought as one, becoming lifelong partners.
What the story teaches
'Life is like a snowball. What matters is finding wet snow and a really long hill.' Warren had, at last, found the person to roll down that long hill beside him. A lens of buying good companies at fair prices laid over a hunt for the merely cheap, and a partner perfectly in sync instead of going it alone, these are the heart of the episode.
Events, years, and people are real; the dialogue is naturally dramatized to aid understanding. It is not affiliated with any company or organization.