Inside the 60-year friendship of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who both started out working in the same grocery store

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

Berkshire Hathaway is also headquartered in Omaha.

Buffett has been called the "Oracle of Omaha." He 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.

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.

In the late 60s, he pivoted the company from textiles to insurance. At the age of 93, Buffett still leads the company today.

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 was seven years Buffett's senior.

"About five minutes into it, Charlie was sort of rolling on the floor laughing at his own jokes, which is exactly the same thing I did," Buffett, 90, told CNBC in 2019. "I thought, 'I'm not going to find another guy like this.' And we just hit it off."

Meanwhile, Munger said the pair "got along fine," according to CNBC.

"What I like about Warren is the irreverence. We don't have automatic reverence for the pompous heads of all civilization," Munger said.

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 in the early 1960s.

"It took me a long time to wise up that [Buffett] had a better way of making a living than I did," Munger said in 2021 regarding the decision to follow Buffett's advice. "But he finally convinced me that I was wasting my time."

In 1978, he became Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, where the two had worked side-by-side.

At the time of his death, Munger had a net worth of about $2.5 billion, according to Bloomberg.

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

Buffett told CNBC in 2019 that he "always learn something" from the time he spends with Munger.

"Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up in a sentence," Buffett wrote.

The pair appeared to share a lighthearted friendship.

"I never have a phone call with Charlie without learning something. And,
while he makes me think, he also makes me laugh," Buffet wrote in the letter.

Earlier this month, Munger defended his friend against a report alleging Buffett sometimes traded stock in his person account before his company traded the same stocks.

"I don't think there's the slightest chance that Warren Buffett is doing something that is deeply evil to make money for himself. He cares more about what happens to Berkshire than he cares what happens to his own money. He gave all his own money away. He doesn't even have it anymore," Munger said at the time.