“Buffett and Munger Unscripted”

Buffett and Munger Unscripted

Investors Should Read

This week I diligently finished reading “Buffett and Munger Unscripted“. It’s a thick book, but I highly recommend that all investors spend a few days reading it carefully.

While you may have heard many of the book’s contents, or the Buffett quotes cited in the media, you should listen to Buffett’s original words, or understand the background and true meaning behind those quotes.

The Origin of This Book

This book focuses on Buffett and Munger, and the author has compiled the Q&A sessions between Buffett and Munger at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meetings over the years.

However, Munger usually doesn’t speak much at Berkshire shareholder meetings. He typically only speaks when Buffett throws a question at him, or when he has strong opinions on the issues being discussed. Otherwise, Munger rarely speaks at Berkshire shareholder meetings.

Therefore, the content of this book is almost entirely composed of Buffett’s quotes. Investors looking forward to Munger’s remarks and Q&A sessions at shareholder meetings should read the two other books mentioned in the next paragraph.

The Two Other Books

While reading Buffett and Munger Unscripted, I was reminded of two other books available in Taiwan: The Wisdom of Charlie Munger《蒙格的智慧》, which compiles Munger’s remarks and Q&A sessions at the Wesco annual shareholder meetings, and The Charlie Munger Way《蒙格之道》, which compiles Munger’s Q&A sessions at the Daily Journal annual shareholder meeting.

My previous two posts you may read: “The Wisdom of Charlie Munger-Key points from Munger Wesco’s 24 years of shareholder meetings” and “The Charlie Munger Way-Key points from Munger Daily Journal’s 10 years of shareholder meetings“.

Unfortunately, these two books seem to be special editions compiled by Taiwanese publishers, there are in Traditional Chinese only; I couldn’t find corresponding English versions.

Reasons to Recommend This Book

Plain Language Content

Because it’s a transcript of the Q&A session at a shareholder meeting, and Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meetings are divided into morning and afternoon sessions, averaging 4 to 6 hours or more, the Q&A session had to be conversational. Therefore, the content is very plain language, and the text is quite long. This differs from Buffett’s annual shareholder letters. Shareholder letters are more formal, with carefully chosen words, shorter structures, and more concise content, making them more difficult for the average person to understand. However, the Q&A session at the shareholder meeting doesn’t have this problem.

Content is not modified

The Q&A session at the shareholder meeting is not only superior to the annual shareholder letters but also to Buffett’s various media interviews. This is because media interviews are almost always edited to conform to the perspectives and views of the media or journalists, sometimes resulting in distortion or even contradicting Buffett’s original intentions. Buffett has actually refuted media reports published afterward on several occasions because the discrepancies with his original words were too great, causing him distress.

Topics can be fully stated

Another drawback of media interviews is that most interviews are short and focused on a small theme, preventing interviewees from fully stating their views on the topic. This often leads to misunderstandings among the audience. The Q&A session at the shareholder meeting, hosted by Buffett and Munger themselves, avoids these problems. Furthermore, the two frequently interject with their own topics, answering all questions fully—a feature I personally consider their greatest strength at shareholder meeting Q&A sessions.

A Plain Language Version of the Shareholder Letter

The Q&A session at shareholder meetings often serves as a plain language version of the annual shareholder letter. Buffett skillfully reiterates the key points he wanted to convey in that year’s letter during the Q&A.

Close to Investors

At shareholder meetings, since it’s the shareholders asking the questions, these are all topics that are most relevant and of greatest concern to investors. Both rarely dodge questions, and all shareholder inquiries are answered. Moreover, they often use this opportunity to express their views or suggestions on the most pressing or popular investment issues at the moment.

Some Contents of the Book

I highly recommend this book; it’s incredibly rich in content, but I won’t reveal too much. Here are just a few points:

Companies Mentioned

The book mentions many companies, too numerous to list individually. Coca-Cola, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Gillette, Bank of America, Disney, Costco, Walmart, Kraft Heinz; and of course, tech stocks like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, BYD, and TSMC. Buffett explains his views on these companies in detail, especially why he invests in them—this is the most valuable part.

Industry Investment

This section is even more worth reading, as industry investment requires deeper experience. Buffett’s mention of the airline, financial and banking, pharmaceutical, food, and retail industries is particularly insightful. I think his analysis is very reasonable. His analysis of these industries, their investment value, challenges, and experiences are especially valuable and well-written.

Closing words

Four years ago, I spent a whole year downloading Buffett’s annual shareholder letters from the Berkshire Hathaway website and rereading all of Buffett’s annual shareholder letters from the past 60 years. I gained a lot from this experience, and some of my insights have been published on this blog.

The Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings, the source of this book’s content, are also available in full video and transcript on CNBC. I often check to confirm that the quotes I use from Buffett and Munger are from their respective authors, and to understand the context and original text of their speeches. For the past ten years, I’ve rewatched the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting videos after each one. If I have time, I also watch the earlier Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting videos.

Whether it’s Buffett’s annual shareholder letters or the annual shareholder meeting videos, I recommend that interested investors take the time to watch them; it is indeed time-consuming, but you will definitely gain a lot.

Buffett and Munger Unscripted

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Author: Andy Lin

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