New York 1929
America, looked at capitalism as a failed experiment.
美国，视资本主义为一场失败实验。
[Amity Shlaes, Historian] “This is the example of the time when capitalism broke. There was a terrible deflation, a shortage of money, so little money that people made their own monopoly, their own script.”
[史学家阿米蒂·什莱斯] “这就是资本主义崩溃时的例子。当时出现了严重通货紧缩，资金短缺，以至于人们制造垄断，谱写自己的剧本。”
“It was so extreme people, like, you have just no idea. What the hell it was like.”
“那个时期如此极端，以至于你根本无法理解怎么回事儿。”
Having lived through the hardest time in American History, Charles Thomas Munger determined to never be poor again.
经历过美国史上最艰难时期（大萧条时期）的查理·芒格，下定决心，绝不能再受穷。
“I wanted my own money not because I loved ease or social prestige. I wanted the independence.”
“我想拥有自己的钱，不是因为我喜欢安逸或社会声望。我就希望独立。”
But he never imagined that a half a century he would have built the greatest business empire in history – Berkshire Hathaway.
然而，他自己也从未设想过，在半个世纪后，他建立起了史上最伟大的商业帝国——伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司。
After joining a small value investment fund by Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger made it scalable, eventually becoming one of the biggest and most admired companies in history.
加入沃伦·巴菲特创办的一家小型价值投资基金公司后，查理·芒格不断扩大公司的规模，最终令其成为了历史上最大和最受尊重的公司之一。
“Charlie’s the shy and reticent one of the pair. But Charlie is the best partner anybody could possibly have. We’ve been partners now for 60 years. He is the only one among our candidates for directors that we see no negative votes this year.”
“查理是我们俩中那害羞而沉默的一个。但查理是任何人都可能拥有的最好拍档。我们已经合作了60年。他是今年董事候选人中唯一未被投反对票的那位。”
Charlie Munger is a very elusive man. Warren Buffett is a nice guy, but that’s not enough in businesses. Charlie Munger is a guy who takes no BS and has that ruthlessness to get things done.
查理·芒格是一个难以捉摸的人。沃伦·巴菲特友好，但在商界，这远远不够。查理·芒格是一个不听废话、并能理智将事情执行的那个行动派。
PRODUCER 制片人: ROCKY XU
I. Forged by the Great Depression.
大萧条造就的性格
Like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger was born in a middle-class family in Omaha, Nebraska.
和沃伦·巴菲特一样，查理·芒格出生在内布拉斯加州奥马哈市的一个中产家庭。
[Melissa Hughes, Psychologist] “If you think about pioneers who settled the west they had kind of this wanderlust adventuresome spirits. These were the kind of traits that were passed down through the generations. In the south and the Midwest, the researchers found are very high in extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.”
[心理学家梅丽莎·休斯] “假如你认为在西部定居的拓荒者，都具有荒野漫游、冒险精神。在南部和中西部，研究人员的确发现他们拥有着高度外向性、友善和一丝不苟等特征。这些特征，还代代延续下去。”
Charlie Munger was born in a roaring twenties. His grandfather was a federal judge, and his father was a lawyer.
查理·芒格出生在欣欣向荣的二十年代，他的祖父是一名联邦法官，父亲是一名律师。
“My grandfather was the only federal judge in Lincoln, Nebraska -- the capital city of Nebraska. And he was a brilliant man. He’d risen from nothing.”
“我的祖父是内布拉斯加州首府林肯市当时唯一一名联邦法官。他才华横溢，白手起家。”
From a young age Munger understood in order to make money, there must be a value exchange. He started raising and trading hamsters.
芒格从小就理解，赚钱，必须是价值交换，所以他开始饲养和交易仓鼠。
[Gary Vee, Entrepreneur] “Not enough kids were willing to work for free or very little to learn. Getting your hands dirty, under your fingernails, it’s the game.”
[企业家加里·维] “没有几个孩子愿意免费干活，更少的愿意去学习。把手弄得脏兮兮，指甲底下也是，就是游戏规则。”
But his happy childhood was interrupted by the Great Depression. To make ends meet, everyone in Munger’s household had to work, including the young Charlie. Charlie Munger got a job at Buffett’s family grocery store, where he labored 12 hours a day to make two dollars. It is during this period of his life, Munger developed a strong work ethic, an appreciation for money.
然而，他的快乐童年很快被大萧条打断。为了维持家庭收支平衡，芒格全家，包括小芒格，必须工作。查理·芒格在巴菲特的家庭杂货店找到一份工作，他每天劳作12个小时，获得两美元报酬。正是那段经历，芒格养成了他强烈的职业道德感和对金钱的认知。
“Most of my schooling was in the Great Depression. That means I’m one of the very few people that’s still alive who deeply remembers the Great Depression. That’s been very helpful to me.
In those days there were all kinds of people. Most of my family they believed in hard money based on gold and not much welfare and so on. So that I was raised among family backward people by modern standards. But they were backward in kind of a self-reliant way that I think was helpful.”
“我的学生时代大部分处在大萧条时期。那意味着我是为数不多的还保留着大萧条记忆的至今活着的人。那对我帮助很大。
那个时候有各式各样的人。我的大部分家人相信基于黄金的硬通货，而不是福利等等。所以我算现代标准下的愚钝家庭环境中长大的。但我个人认为，那是很实用的自力更生的愚钝。”
Munger enrolled in the University of Michigan to study math.
芒格进入密歇根大学，学习数学。
“When I was young, I could get an A in any mathematics course without doing any work at all. I was choosing what for me was the easiest way to think about what I wanted to do, instead of what somebody else wanted me to do.”
“我年轻时，并不需要努力，就能在任何数学相关课程取得优异成绩。我顺着自己思维选择了自认为最容易的路，而不是别人希望我去走的路。”
Shortly after Munger started college, World War II broke out.
芒格读大学不久，第二次世界大战爆发。
[President Franklin Roosevelt Address to Congress on Pearl Harbor Attack – December 8th 1941]
[1941年12月8日，富兰克林·罗斯福总统向国会就珍珠港事件发表演说]
“Sunday December … A state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”
12月周日，战争局势，已存在于美国和日本两国。
The surprise attack at Pearl Habor forced many young men out of college and into the military service. And Charlie Munger was no exception.
珍珠港遭突袭，迫使众多年轻人离开大学校园进入部队服役。查理·芒格，也不例外。
The military found out that Munger possessed an extraordinary IQ. He was then assigned to serve as a meteorologist, working on analyzing weather patterns for the war.
部队发现芒格拥有非凡的智商。于是他被派去当气象员，分析战争气候模型。
“It was a very empirical science in those days. We just made weather maps which laid out the weather on the map. And then we stacked up those maps by looking as one followed another you could see whether weather systems were moving. That’s the way we were predicting the weather.”
“在那些日子，这是一门非常依赖经验的科学。我们的工作就是制作气象图，在地图上标注天气。然后对接下来气象系统如何移动，一个接一个的堆叠进行对比。我们正是用这样的方法来预测天气。”
While taking physics course to prepare for his deployment, he learned to think like a physicist.
上物理课时，为部署做准备，他学习像物理学家那样思考。
[Veer Singh, Quant Developer] “Physicists like to think in terms of fundamentals. They’re very cautious about their assumptions. Surprisingly, this is very similar to Buffett and Munger’s way of thinking. They seem to stick to business fundamentals and logic.”
[金融行业使用数学方法的研发人员维尔·辛格] “物理学工作者喜欢从基础原理出发去思考问题。他们对于假设非常谨慎。令人惊讶的是，这恰与巴菲特和芒格的思维方式非常类似。他们似乎秉持商业根本和逻辑。”
During the military service, Charlie Munger got married. And right after the service, he enrolled in Harvard Law School.
在服兵役期间，查理·芒格结了婚。兵役结束后，他进入哈佛法学院学习。
“Father had gone to the Harvard Law School, so that was a natural course of activity for me.”
“我的父亲上过哈佛法学院，所以这对我来说也是自然而然的事。”
After graduating, he was admitted to California Bar in 1949.
毕业后，他在1949年获得加州律师资格。
“I had an army of children almost immediately. I painted myself a quite a corner.”
“我几乎很快有了一群孩子。我把自己逼进了一个角落。”
Charlie started as a salary of 275 dollars a month, which was above average at the time. Charlie Munger felt well off. Things seemed to have worked out for him. But little did he know, he was entering into the darkest period of his life.
查理的起薪是每月275美元，在当时高于平均水平。查理·芒格感觉甚好。他的收支算平衡。但他不知道，他正进入自己生命中最黑暗的时期。
Like many young men in those days, Charlie Munger married early. Divorce in 1950s was still frowned upon. As a marriage ended with his first wife, Munger wanted to minimize the damage it had caused to the children.
像当时众多年轻人一样，查理·芒格早早结婚。在20世纪50年代，离婚仍不被接受。在结束第一段婚姻时，芒格尽可能地减少对孩子带来伤害。
Just as Munger was healing for his divorce, tragedy struck again. His son Teddy Munger was diagnosed with Leukemia. In those days, it was a death sentence.
正当芒格从离婚的阴影逐渐走出时，悲剧再次降临。他的儿子泰迪·芒格被诊断为白血病。在那个时代，这相当于被判了死刑。
[“There is nothing worse than losing your child inch by inch.” – Charlie Munger]
[“没有什么比你一点点地失去自己的孩子更糟糕的了。” – 查理·芒格]
After Teddy’s passing, Munger came to realize that he has spent all his savings on Teddy’s medical bills. In those days, medical insurance was not as widely covered as it is today.
泰迪去世之后，芒格意识到他已将自己所有的积蓄都用于支付泰迪的医疗费了。在那个时候，医疗保险覆盖范围还没有像今天的那么广泛。
Once again, Munger was at the crossroads of life, he wondered what could have happened if he were wealthy enough to have the best treatment for his son.
再一次，芒格站在了他的人生十字路口。他问自己，如果他够富有，为儿子提供最好治疗的话，情况又会怎样。
“Never feel sorry for yourself if your child is dying of cancer. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Never ever feel sorry for yourself.”
“如果孩子死于癌症，不要太悲伤。不要自怨自艾。永远不能自暴自弃。”
Charlie Munger was more determined than ever to have true wealth for the sake of his family. He was about to become the sharpest sword that was ever built.
查理芒格比以往更坚定地认为，为了家庭，他一定要拥有真正的财富。他准备将自己磨成那把有史以来最锋利的剑。