In the summer of 1992, a then sprightly 68-year-old Charlie Munger was impressed by some financial paperwork done for him by a business acquaintance. Who actually did the work, Munger asked?
Turns out it was a 52-year-old German émigré, Doerthe Obert (her first name is pronounced “Dorothy”). As it so happened, Munger needed an executive assistant, and his famous steel-trap mind registered the problem as solved. He hired Obert, which commenced a 31-year working relationship that ended only with Munger’s death on Nov. 28 at age 99.
To mark what would have been Munger’s 100th birthday on Jan. 1, here are some of Obert’s recollections about her time with Charlie.
“When he hired me, I told him I had one condition: I wanted to visit my parents in Germany for Christmas,” she recalls. “I didn’t know he was such a family man, and he said, ‘Of course.’ ”
For decades Munger worked out of the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson, the law firm he co-founded in 1962, then named Munger, Tolles & Hills. Munger joined
Berkshire Hathaway
as Warren Buffett’s vice chairman in 1978. “My office and Charlie’s office were connected through a door, which was always open,” Obert says. “We had a good working relationship. I had his absolute trust.
“Berkshire paid rent for Charlie’s office to Munger Tolles through Blue Chips Stamps, a subsidiary of Berkshire. Charlie and I were paid by Blue Chip Stamps, too.”
Obert started working for Munger when a share of Berkshire A fetched $9,200. It now trades for $544,000. Obert says she is a Berkshire shareholder but declines to say how many shares she owns.
What was it like working with Charlie? “I’ve never met such a focused person,” she says. “You couldn’t interrupt him. He was a perfectionist. He wrote everything out by hand and revised it and revised it. Once he drafted something 50 times. His handwriting wasn’t so good, but I had to transcribe it.
“He was fair but very tough. He expected me to stand up to him and respected me for that. If I was a doormat, I wouldn’t have lasted.”
(I remember being tardy for an appointment with Munger once and Obert called me out. “Where have you been?” she snapped. “You’re late.”)
“It was all about getting things right. And he said, ‘Just get it done.’ I would tell him, ‘I’m no genie in the bottle. I can’t get it done overnight,’ ” she says.
“He knew I looked out for him. Some people thought I was too protective. But people would ask for money. Even people from prison! I told them no. One guy called me a bitch!
“He had such a great sense of humor. Once I saw a photo of me I didn’t like and I showed it to him. ‘Well, Doerthe,’ he said, ‘pictures never lie.’ Boom! I’m not photogenic, but that kind of stuck with me. He was such a realist. And so quick. He wasn’t sitting there contemplating.”
What about at the 2021 annual meeting when Charlie said Greg Abel would be the next CEO of Berkshire? “That was kind of letting the cat out of the bag,” Obert says. “There it was. If you picked it up, fine, if not, too bad.
“People think he had a thick skin, but deep down he had a soft heart. He would help people and he did all that philanthropy. And he had to be involved, say, designing projects with an architect.”
What was Munger’s relationship with Buffett like?
“At the end of every year, he would call Warren to review,” she says. “They talked as friends, and I was touched by that. He and Warren valued their friendship. It’s a big loss for Warren. Those two big brains built Berkshire. There was no acrimony, and nobody’s feelings would be hurt. You don’t very often have that.”
Did Munger give Obert any investment advice? “No,” Obert says. “You were on your own.”
More recently, Obert says, Munger convened a group of investors—sometimes including Berkshire board member and Munger Tolles name partner Ron Olson—for lunch at his house every Friday.
“Charlie read a lot too,” says Obert, “And he loved Zooming for board meetings and with friends and family. He would still go up to the family house on Star Island in Minnesota and go out on a boat to fish. If he caught one, he’d need help to reel it in. That was his joy. He was always happy to go to Omaha, too, and planned to go this spring.”
For Munger’s 100th birthday, Obert says a New Year’s Eve party was planned at the California Club. “The Mungers’ parties are always very elegant,” she says. “And that is an elegant old club. It would have been a great affair.”
Obert says she doesn’t know when Buffett last spoke to Munger, but she remembers her last time. “I was at his house opening mail and filing his beloved Value Line,” she says. “I was helping him get ready to go to Santa Barbara and wished him a nice Thanksgiving.”
Of the family home in Santa Barbara, Obert says, “He always went [for the holiday]. His [late] wife Nancy started the tradition. Quite a few of the children would come. I wasn’t there, but my understanding is they had Thanksgiving, and the next day his body shut down and they put him in hospital. The warranty on the parts just wears out. He was surrounded by his family. He died peacefully, they tell me.”
As for what will happen to Munger’s estate, including his $2 billion-plus holding in Berkshire, Obert says she isn’t “privy to that.”
“I know Charlie is always fair to his entire family,” she says. Munger is survived by three daughters, three sons, and two stepsons from two marriages, plus 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
“We had a very frank relationship,” Obert says. “I miss him.”
Corrections & Amplifications
Charlie Munger’s survivors include seven great-grandchildren. An earlier version of this article incorrectly put the number at four.
Write to Andy Serwer at [email protected]
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