YAPSSCollection: Charlie Munger - #97 'Why I Quit Practicing Law?'
[Transcript]
INTERVIEWER 00:00
And you didn't – Once, you started to get into investment. Your legal training, your mathematical background, your experiences...
CHARLIE MUNGER 00:09
Well –
INTERVIEWER 00:11
What came to be resident for you?
CHARLIE MUNGER 00:17
Well, what happened was there were things i didn't like about law practice. And – But I had an army of children to support and no family money or anything to start with. So I had to make my way in life for this army of children. And I had to – it was going to be a little difficult and there are things about law practice i saw were quite limiting.
And what happened was my pitifully small earnings as a young man, I kept underspending them. And I kept investing fairly boldly and fairly smartly. And at the end of my first 13 years of law practice, I had more liquid investments that I made in all those years of law practice, pre-tax. I'd done that in my spare time with these little tiny sums.
So it was natural for me, partly prompted by Warren Buffett's success, to think i should just start working for myself instead of for other people.
INTERVIEWER 01:26
So another connection –
CHARLIE MUNGER 01:27
In my spare time, I thought, well, what will happen if I do it full time?
(Source: https://youtu.be/WaDU1J91hY8)