Charlie Munger Reflects on Benjamin Franklin's Genius | Final Interview with CNBC 2023 【C:C.M 323】

Charlie Munger Reflects on Benjamin Franklin's Genius | Final Interview with CNBC 2023 【C:C.M 323】

[Transcript]

BECKY QUICK: Let's talk about Benjamin Franklin.

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah.

 

BECKY QUICK: He's one of the framers of our nation. He very famously gave out very —

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: And he was a prodigy.

 

BECKY QUICK: And he was a prodigy. And he trained himself in lots of different disciplines.

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, and he self-trained himself with, like, two years of grade school education. This is a very remarkable thing. And when he found late in life that he needed something like algebra, he went back, and pulled out the textbook, and taught himself algebra.

 

BECKY QUICK: How old were you —

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: He was a very much a self-educated man. And that was a very much an interesting story for that reason. How could a man who taught himself everything, you know, like Latin, and it was just how could a man like that go into so many different fields and be the top guy in the whole country? And weren’t we lucky to have him?

 

BECKY QUICK: Yes.

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. No, I — all those 5 or 6 people whom we now consider the founding fathers have worn pretty well.

 

BECKY QUICK: But you found Ben Franklin when? How young were you when you first came across what Ben Franklin had done?

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think high school, yeah.

 

BECKY QUICK: And that's when you started modeling yourself after some of these things he —

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: I don’t know when I started modeling myself after Benjamin Franklin. But I certainly tried to model myself a little. I liked the mixture of financial life and regular life. And I and what I couldn't copy, I didn't have any musical ability. And so Franklin was, he played 4 different musical instruments, 1 of which he invented. Well this is a lot of musical ability that God suddenly left out of me. And so I don't, I can't do it. So I never made any effort to imitate Franklin's musical ability. But any other ability he had, of course, I tried to imitate.

 

Source: https://youtu.be/H5Oom5Rjp_Y?si=ZEkkZkAN6WyOWcl9

 

[YAPSS Takeaway]

Trying to be like Benjamin Franklin is smart, but remember to focus on what you're good at and not stress over what you can't do, like Munger and music.

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