Charlie Munger, the 99-year-old right hand man to Warren Buffett, died Tuesday.

Not to state the obvious, but as a public figure and a near-centenarian, Munger was the type of person for whom newspapers write obituaries years in advance. So I was a bit intrigued to read how some writers kicked off their articles, especially given that these lines were likely written years ago in some instances:

• Billionaire Charlie Munger, the investing sage who made a fortune even before he became Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, has died at age 99. (CNBC)
• Charlie Munger, a champion of common-sense investing who forever altered the finance world as the top adviser and dry-witted sidekick to Warren Buffett, the most successful financier in history, died Nov. 28 at a hospital in California. He was 99. (WashPost)
• Charles Munger, the alter ego, sidekick and foil to Warren Buffett for almost 60 years as they transformed Berkshire Hathaway Inc. from a failing textile maker into an empire, has died. He was 99. (Bloomberg)
• No equal business partner has ever played second fiddle better than Charlie Munger. (The Wall Street Journal)

A few years ago, I wrote about the time that Munger sat down for a six hour interview with two reporters.

Who voluntarily sits and answers questions for six hours without a subpoena? Also, Munger had a habit of simply answering, "I have nothing to add," at shareholder meetings after Buffett replied to investor questions.

It seemed out of character. However, we learned from this interview that the thing Munger would talk about nonstop, if allowed, was architecture. He considered himself an amateur expert; one who believed most professional architects were "massively stupid" (his words), but who got to put his amateur ideas into practice as a result of his philanthropy.

He donated hundreds of millions to educational institutions for facility construction, and he often stuck around long after the checks cleared to ensure that whatever was built adhered to his aesthetic and functional preferences.

A few of his ideas. The first two, even detractors called "eminently sensible":

• His crankly insistence that public buildings he funded have significantly more women's bathrooms than men's rooms. ("What kind of idiot would make the men's bathroom and the women's bathroom the same size? The answer is, a normal architect!")
• His requirement that a school library he endowed use removable walls around the computer lab. A few years later, when everyone switched from stationary desktop computers to mobile laptops, it was easy to convert the computer rooms for other uses.
• His strong affinity for half-size, single-occupancy dorm rooms, in buildings with outdoor hallways and stairs, which gave some of the dorms he funded a motel-like ambiance.

He also insisted on half-size, single-occupancy dorm rooms so students had some private space, although this apparently meant that he funded buildings with windowless, interior rooms, like on a cruise ship.

When somebody dies after a long life, as long as he or she hasn't been a monster or a complete drain on society, I think it's fair to give them the final word. Munger apparently appreciated that. So, I'll use the quote the WSJ used, since they had years to choose it.

The story goes like this. Once upon a time, someone asked Munger who, in his long life, he felt most grateful to.

No, he didn't say Buffett, or even his wife, Nancy Barry Borthwick, to whom he was married from 1954 until her death in 2010. Instead, his eminently sensible reply was:

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7 other things worth knowing today

• More than 2.9 million people were screened at airports across the United States on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the TSA said on X, formerly Twitter, marking “the busiest day ever for air travel.” (The Hill)
• Finland is set to shut its entire border with Russia this week through Dec. 13, as a result of Russia supposedly taking refugees and asylum seekers from across the country and shuttling them straight to the Finnish border. (CNBC)
• Elon Musk's Cybertruck is already a production nightmare for Tesla: Musk says Tesla is digging its own grave with the Cybertruck, full of "a lot of bells and whistles." (Financial Post)
• Sorry you feel that way: why passive aggression took over the world: From Slack to the dinner table, honesty really is the best policy. Note: This is probably going to be a paywalled article, sorry, but the headline alone is intriguing. (The Economist)
• How much do CIA agents get paid? A look at life as a spook. (Task & Purpose)
• Millennials who moved in last year represent nearly 15% of the population in Cambridge, MA and Santa Clara, CA. Other top Millennial destinations: Seattle; Sunnyvale, CA; and Denver. (SmartAsset)
• At just 4 feet, 7 inches tall, Pfc. Nathan Laprade is believed to be the shortest Marine, and probably the shortest-ever member of the U.S. military. He just graduated boot camp recently, and has been giving interviews, including the ironic line, "I think [other recruits] kind of looked up to me in a way." (PBS Newshour)

Thanks for reading, and a special welcome to the new readers who subscribed to Understandably since the last edition of this newsletter! wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you bright and early tomorrow.