@samuelszuchan: In 2008, Charlie Munger persuaded Warren Buffett to put roughly $230 million into a company most Americans had never heard of. A Chinese rechargeable battery maker called BYD. What gave Munger his edge was a thesis about the founder. Wang Chuanfu was born to rice-farming parents in rural Anhui province, orphaned in adolescence, raised by an older brother. He started BYD in Shenzhen in 1995 as a battery shop. Munger called him "a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch" in 2009, and never softened the line. That biography didn't fit the dominant frame. The frame said Chinese tech firms were either state-coordinated giants or fast-follower copyists. A founder personally willing his way from contract battery cells into automotive was outside the available categories. So most professional China-watchers didn't have a category for Wang until BYD shipped its three millionth vehicle. Three years after Munger's investment, Elon Musk was asked on Bloomberg whether BYD posed a threat. He started laughing before the interviewer finished the question. "Have you seen their car?" he said. Four seconds of laughter. A reflex, not a verdict. By the time of Munger's death in late 2023, that $230 million had returned somewhere between $8 and $9 billion. BYD had overtaken Tesla in Q4 2023 global EV sales and become the world's largest producer of new energy vehicles. The trade looked stupid for most of that window. It looked stupid because the frame was working. The professionals who made money on this weren't the ones who predicted any single event. They were the ones who had built a position outside the frame for years, and were paid the day everyone else was forced to come find them.

Sam Szuchan

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Region: US

Wednesday 01 July 2026 19:00:00 GMT