Justin Fox, Columnist

Charlie Munger's Warren Buffett Tell-All

The Berkshire vice chairman says standard corporate practices don't leave room for a Buffett.

February 28, 2015 at 6:38 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

He should give himself a hand.
Photographer: David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images

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Most big corporations are managed in a perversely counterproductive way that discourages good long-run leadership. Organize your company in a different way and maybe you’ll do better.

That is what Vice Chairman Charlie Munger explains in a wonderfully brisk account of Berkshire Hathaway’s strengths that is tacked on to the company's annual letter to shareholders released today. Munger has been second in command for 37 years of what is now one of the world's largest and most admired corporations. He has also been close friends for 56 years with its chairman, Warren Buffett. I highly recommend Munger's contribution, which takes up just 4 ½ pages, much of it in the form of lists. Here’s the bit about counterproductive management: