Of Munger and Musk

Life lessons in an evolving geopolitical landscape

Munger

We all are propelled by different motivations, be it security, stability, excitement, whatever. When I heard that Warren Buffett’s lifelong investment partner Charlie Munger passed away yesterday at age ninety-nine and his quotes about life started rolling in, I was reminded of one of his most essential comments. It summed up Munger’s life journey and he put it succinctly:

"I did not intend to get rich. I just wanted to get independent"

Munger like his partner Buffett was never really interested in the fancier sides of wealth. It was in the journey of doing what you wanted to do as best as you could and that delivers the real wins in life. And to get there you would have to keep educating yourself. And from that flows the fact that you never ever retire. You keep going, keep growing until you are almost a hundred years old. And then wealth has become nothing more than a by-product.

The same holds true here on this newsletter more or less, independence which is a way to self expression without any real negative consequences. And in each instance I learn a lot by assessing my assumptions or searching for background material. Or by checking that what I write is not entirely off the charts. And if positive or negative things manifest themselves, they are the necessary results of a somewhat unfiltered passion. I am sure some people have stopped to read and follow and some may even have decided to not do business with me anymore. In that sense it is a self-selecting journey and Munger’s quotes help in understanding the value of that. There are lots here, do read them, all about life and business.

We will miss an incredibly gifted investment genius, but above all a great human being who understood life like no other.

Musk

Elon Musk visited Israel earlier this week. Not only to meet Nethanyahu and tour the area of the October 7th pogrom, but he also got an audience with the country’s president, Isaac Herzog. Such is the import of the man who is almost a supranational national statesman who can influence the shape of wars as we have seen for instance in Ukraine. He made his mark on the war there and now the Israel-Gaza conflict can count on Musk’s not inconsequential input. There is a lot of commentary that no man should have this much influence on world affairs, but that is as useless a statement as it is aspirational. Musk is not going away anytime soon. We have to manage him, rather than let him manage us.

The Jewish nation - meaning Jews in Israel and across the world - was not happy with him given some anti-Semitic comments he made on ‘X’ in the past few weeks. Another small exodus from the platform was happening with its usual advertiser walk out, so Musk had to make amends fast. He did well by most accounts and his summary of the three things that need to happen in Gaza are on the mark: finish Hamas, educate, and create economic opportunity.

Remember that Musk is a tech entrepreneur. He sees this conflict and realizes that finding a way to peace will unleash incredible opportunity. Start building stuff together. And peace can only really work if it creates wealth for both the winners and the losers. In fact, economic gain will render the winner-loser dichotomy moot: all will be able to benefit and get ahead. To me the way out of this mess is exactly in that journey: forget swapping pieces of land, but focus on pieces of wealth.

So, despite the accusations and anger that Musk generated again, some of the world’s more noted Jewish venture folks backed up the man and his mending fences journey. Howard Lindzon does that here, as does Michael Eisenberg:

The overreaction to whatever Musk says - and a lot of it is indeed plain stupid - mostly comes from people who are still uncomfortable with the Twitter takeover. Anything that Musk does is another opportunity to take a swipe at the man and his rebranded ‘X’ platform. Others actually see the value Musk has brought and realize the good comes with many ups and downs, eventually. Call it a creative rollercoaster. And remember that he is also taking unusual risks: Tesla buyers in China and ‘X’ shareholders in the Arab world were probably not all that happy this week.

But Musk is handling the near impossible task of acting independently while simultaneously trying to build bridges and keeping his investors pleased at the same time. That is some serious task. Let’s be grateful for being able to follow that in real-time whether you like the man or not.