Great Book to Read This Year from Charlie Munger | DJ 2017 【C:C.M Ep.257】
[Transcript]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My first question is what books or experiences were most formative to you in your early career?
CHARLIE MUNGER: You cultist send me so many books that I can scarcely walk into my own library. So I’m reading so many now because I never throw one away, I at least scan it. I’ve just read this new book by Thorp, the guy who beat the dealer in Las Vegas. And then he did computer algorithm trading. And I really liked the book.
For one thing, the guy had a really good marriage and he seemed grateful for it. And it was touching. For another he was a very smart man. He was a mathematician using a high IQ, to A) beat the dealer in Las Vegas and so forth. And then B) use these computer algorithms to do this massive trading.
I found it very interest and since some of you people are nerds, and maybe you might like a love story. I recommend Thorp’s new book.
It’s an interesting thing to do to beat the dealer in Las Vegas – you know, they all wearing disguises and so on.
And Peter Kaufman told me a story about somebody he knows that did the same thing as Thorp did, he said he did it more extreme. He wore disguises and so forth. He won four million dollars I think, in the casinos. You know and that was hard to do because casinos don’t like playing against people who might win.
And then he – maybe it was 40 million, but whatever it was – then he went into the stock market where he made four billion dollars. Again, clever algorithms. You know, these people are mathematically gifted. It’s still going on.
And I don’t think many of you are going to do it. There can’t be many people who are mathematically gifted enough, and manipulate statistics and everything else so well that they find little algorithms that will make them four billion dollars. But there are a few. And so some of them started just like Thorp.
And so Thorp’s book is interesting. And I recommend it to you.
(Source: https://youtu.be/BLctqhNClqY)
[YAPSS Takeaway]