The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [469]
Munger’s other favorite theorem accused every academic discipline—biology, physics, economics, psychology, and so forth—of developing certain useful models, then applying them indiscriminately, wearing blinders. He advocated a “multidisciplinary model approach” to avoid the proverbial “man with a hammer syndrome”—the man who thinks everything is a nail. Munger collected models and laid them out as useful tools for life. He had a devoted following who appreciated the way he sliced through the Gordian knot of difficult problems, often by saying the unspeakable. They found his synthesis enlightening; some in this camp felt that Munger’s genius was underrecognized because he was swallowed up in the showman Buffett’s shadow. In recent years, however, Munger had become a more visible advocate for his views. He was always coming up with mind-boggling arcana as illustrations. Right now, he was fascinated with the lay magistrate system of England as a model for properly incentivizing ethical behavior, and various aspects of that system were invoked in his birthday speech. Munger wandered off on a brief detour to praise his wife for her many wonderful qualities, then returned to giving advice to the audience about the models of life that led to success and happiness. He seemed convinced, however, that he (and Buffett) now lived on some elevated plane. He invoked his independence, and Buffett’s, as reasons for their success, but then said it would probably be unwise for others—including his own children—to try to emulate the two of them.
Nancy Munger, who was standing next to Buffett, asked, “How do I get him to stop?”
Charlie started going into his windup. “In the end,” he said, “I’m like old Valiant-for-Truth in The Pilgrim’s Progress, who said, ‘My sword I leave to him who can wear it.’” Good Lord, thought some of the Buffett Group members.
Eventually Nancy went out onto the stage and gently led Charlie away.
Buffett went straight back from Charlie’s party to San Francisco to see Susie, who had just finished her twelfth treatment. The radiation schedule drew out his protective instincts.
“Four and a half weeks left. Martin Luther King Day is in January. Those radiology technicians—oh, believe me, they take every holiday there is. But, anyway, I would say so far so good. They’re saying that this week is when it starts hitting her hard, but it hasn’t hit her hard yet. She drinks what she calls this motor oil, and that’s protecting her throat.”
Nonetheless, Susie was spending most of her time in bed. “It’s just amazing how little she is up. She’s either asleep, or getting ready to go to sleep, or getting up from being asleep, I would say seventeen or so hours out of twenty-four. We make it a point, no matter what—we walk for six blocks or so every day. The rest of the time, I just hold her, basically.”
The man who had always been on the receiving end was now learning to give. Rather than being taken care of by his wife, he was taking care of her. Buffett, of course, had not become some other person. But by acting out his values—loyalty, stewardship—he seemed, in his own way, to have incorporated some of the lessons of Susie’s life into his own.
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Frozen Coke
Omaha and Wilmington, Delaware • Spring 2004
Toward the end of her radiation, Susie’s mouth was so burned and dry that some days she could not eat or drink. The doctors put her back on the feeding tube because her throat was choked with a thick, dry mucus. She spent most of the time sleeping. But every day, she and her daughter or Kathleen walked a few blocks on Sacramento Street. As spring stole