Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Charles T. Munger, the longtime vice chairman of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway widely referred to as the “Oracle of Pasadena,” died in California on November 28. He was 99.
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“Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation,” Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement announcing Munger’s death. Munger and Buffett were close friends and business partners for more than 50 years.
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Born in Omaha on January 1, 1924, Munger was a sophomore at the University of Michigan when the attack on Pearl Harbor caused him to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. In the fall of 1943, he came to Caltech to take special meteorology courses offered to Army Air Force cadets and Navy ensigns, as his wartime service would involve forecasting flight conditions so that pilots could land safely at distant airfields. As a graduate of the Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited (CAVU) program, Munger was granted a meteorology certificate.
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Following his discharge from the army in 1946, Munger attended Harvard Law School, graduating with honors. He later credited the physics he learned at Caltech, in part, with preparing him for law school.
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He returned to California to practice law, eventually founding the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson. But it was his interest in investing—and a chance meeting with Buffett in their mutual hometown of Omaha—that would define the rest of his career.
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When they met in 1959, Munger and Buffett both felt they had found a kindred spirit. A few years later, they began investing side by side. Buffett credits Munger with encouraging him to “buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” rather than buying troubled businesses at a discount, as Buffett had been doing. The two men’s partnership was formalized when Munger joined Berkshire’s board in 1978. Together, they built Berkshire into a conglomerate worth nearly $800 billion at the time of Munger’s death. The firm’s portfolio includes companies that it owns outright—such as Geico and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad company—and major stakes in publicly traded companies such as Coca-Cola, American Express, and Chevron.
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In addition to his shrewd investments, Munger was known for dispensing folksy aphorisms, like one of his heroes, Benjamin Franklin. In 2005, his friend and Caltech trustee Peter Kaufman gathered some of his sayings into a book, Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.
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Although he was on campus for less than a year, Munger retained fond feelings for Caltech throughout his life and identified with the Institute’s basic ethos. “My life has been dedicated rather intensely to rationality, and that’s a very Caltech value,” he said around the time he received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2020. “It works pretty well, even when things don’t look like Caltech.” He made annual contributions to the Institute for more than four decades, directing most of his support to the Caltech Associates. Members of the Associates provide crucial unrestricted funding that advances the Institute’s top research and educational priorities while having opportunities to socialize, learn, and travel together.
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His survivors include six children, two stepchildren, 15 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
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In December 2020, Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum hosted a virtual celebration of Charles T. Munger’s Distinguished Alumni Award. The event, during which Munger was interviewed by Professor Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (PhD ’88), can be viewed here.