Collection: Charlie Munger - #207 'Activision Blizzard & the Gaming Industry'

[Transcript]

BECKY QUICK 00:00

This question comes in from question comes, Nurash Desai in Singapore, he says, "can you please ask Charlie Munger which part of Berkshire Hathaway bought the Activision Blizzard stake and did Berkshire have any inkling about the likely Microsoft bid for Activision Blizzard?"

CHARLIE MUNGER 00:15

I got no comment about that, except that I really like Bobby Kotick. He’s one of the smartest business executives I know. And I do think gaming is here to stay.

But there again, I’m an old man, I don’t like a bunch of addicted young males spending 40 hours a week playing games on the TV. It does not strike me as a good result for civilization. I don’t like anything which is so addictive that you practically give up everything else to do it.

BECKY QUICK 00:52

Then you're gonna love this next question that comes from Muhammad Mia, he says longtime admirer of Charlie Munger here, could you please ask his views on the Metaverse and the recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard? Was this something that Charlie Munger had any input on? Does he think that there is value in the Metaverse, or is this something similar to the bitcoin and cryptocurrency hype?

CHARLIE MUNGER 01:12

Well, I think without any Metaverse, just the existing technology of games on the internet, Activision Blizzard and a lot of other companies have gotten very large. And some of the games are kind of constructive and social and others are very peculiar.

Do you really want some guy 40 hours a week running a machine gun on this television set? I don’t. But a lot of the games are harmless pleasure. It’s just a different technique of doing it. I like the part of it that’s constructive but I don’t like it when people spend 40 hours a week being an artificial machine gunner.

(Source: https://youtu.be/8RxLj9OVqLo)

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[YAPSS Takeaway]

Be a generalist in learning, be a specialist in investing.