[massinstall]

You may be right about him “deserving” the place, but you appear to be missing the point here: just by pure statistics, there would have been others who also dropped out of college to serve in WW2, but who did not have an influential father like Munger, and who then did not get the admission he did. Also by pure statistics, there is a likelihood that among these others were many who were at least as deserving as he was.

In summary, the argument is to point out the difference between personal effort/discipline/work ethic/character (and everything that’s commonly named as the “reason” of success) and the huge impact of external conditions that are completely outside the realm of influence of the individual in question, such as their parent’s wealth and influence, physical build, natural attractiveness, health, location of birth, etc.

It is very, VERY common that people uphold and believe in the (comforting) myth that mostly oneself is responsible for success and that said external factors are basically negligible. The “self-made” person… You could even throw them on Mars and they’ll somehow become billionaires and own mansions!

There is not much to add, except that such thinking appears outdated (previous economic booms allowed for a bit more control of one’s fate), ignorant, and self-congratulatory - a delusion of a successful person who is neither aware nor grateful for the external circumstances that allowed them to get where they are.

FWIW I like Charlie Munger, a down-to-earth thinker who doesn’t shy away from talking about inconvenient truths. Chances are he would even agree with the above.

Book recommendation: “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell.