Inside the 40-year business partnership of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who both started out working in the same grocery store and reportedly haven't had a fight in 60 years

Marissa Perino

Mar 1, 2019, 00:22 IST

Inside the 40-year business partnership of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who both started out working in the same grocery store and reportedly haven't had a fight in 60 years

David Silverman/Getty Images

Charlie Munger, left, and Warren Buffett, right, have been partners at Berkshire Hathaway for just over 40 years.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have enjoyed a 60-year friendship and a 40-year partnership at Berkshire Hathaway.
A mutual contact first introduced the pair in their shared hometown of Omaha in 1959.
Buffett, with a net worth of $83.1 billion, is the third-richest person in the world; Munger's net worth is reported at $1.6 billion.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger never fight.

The pair discussed their working relationship on CNBC in 2018, but their partnership predates this interview by several decades.

With Buffett as Chairman and CEO and Munger as Vice Chairman, the two have run holding company Berkshire Hathaway together since 1978. The company is the world's fourth-largest public company, and has made Buffett the third-richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $83.1 billion.

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The duo met at a dinner party in their hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where the two found much in common, including a sense of humor and the fact that they both worked for Buffett's grandfather at the town supermarket as teenagers.

"The main thing we learned from the grocery store is we didn't want to work in a grocery store," Buffett told CNBC.

Keep reading for a look through Buffett and Munger's careers together, from their first days at Berkshire Hathaway to the company's 50th anniversary.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have worked together for 41 years at Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Together, the two have achieved success and respect in the business world.

Both billionaires hail from Omaha, Nebraska ...

... where the company headquarters remain today.

Among other household names, Berkshire Hathaway wholly owns companies like Dairy Queen and Pampered Chef, along with having notable minority holdings with companies such as Apple and the Kraft Heinz Company.

Warren Buffett, hailed as the "Oracle of Omaha," notably started investing early, buying his first stock when he was 11 years old and accruing a small fortune from business ventures by the time he was a teenager. His pursuits included operating a successful pinball machine business in local barbershops, delivering newspapers, and washing cars.

After attending Columbia’s School of Business, Buffett returned to Omaha, then moved back to New York to work for his mentor, Benjamin Graham.

When Graham closed his firm in 1956, Buffett moved back home to Omaha and started Buffett Partnership Ltd. This quickly turned to seven partnerships, which led him to become a millionaire by age 32.

He merged these partnerships in 1962 and invested in a textile-manufacturing firm called Berkshire Hathaway. In the late 60s, he pivoted the company from textiles to insurance, and he still leads it today.

Buffett would eventually join forces with Charlie Munger, commonly referred to as his "right-hand man."

The pair were introduced by a mutual contact in 1959 in Omaha, where they dined with their wives at Johnny's Cafe.

Along with enjoying each other's sense of humor, the men learned they both worked for Buffett's grandfather at his grocery store as teenagers. Though the two worked at the same store, they had never crossed paths, as Munger is seven years Buffett's senior.

A lawyer by trade and an architect on the side, Charlie Munger has worked for Berkshire Hathaway since the late 1970s.

Previously, Munger excelled at Harvard Law School ...

... and even co-founded his own law firm — Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP —which still exists today. Buffett convinced Munger to leave the practice as he felt it did not utilize his full talents.

Over a decade later, Buffett convinced Munger to leave his second company, an investment practice called Wheeler, Munger & Co. In 1978, he became Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, where the two have worked side-by-side ever since.

Alongside his duties as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Munger is also a chairman of Daily Journal Corp. and a board member of Costco.

Today, Munger has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion.

After almost half a century of joined partnership, the two men remain the faces of Berkshire Hathaway, adding a personal element to the holdings company.

The pair's faces are often used by their subsidiary companies, such as Heinz ...

... and Coca-Cola.

Their faces were especially popular at Berkshire Hathaway's 50th anniversary in 2015, which was held in Omaha as always.

Though Munger is 95 and and Buffett is 88, neither has announced plans to retire in the near future.

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