Clear, simple thinking is not the beginner's stage of mastery — it is the destination.
Munger treated the ability to state a problem simply as a sign that he actually understood it. When a proposition required piling assumption on assumption just to sound plausible, he didn't force an answer — he set it aside. "If it's too hard, we move on to something else. What could be more simple than that?"
It requires stacking several uncertain assumptions just to reach a favorable conclusion.
Rather than reasoning his way to a false sense of certainty, Munger declines to manufacture a conclusion.
Set aside, not rejected — revisited only if it later becomes genuinely simple (see Model #49).
Berkshire's most cited pattern isn't a list of brilliant bets — it's the far longer list of complex, popular opportunities Munger and Buffett declined because they couldn't reduce the reasoning to something plain and checkable.
The maxim commonly attributed to Einstein — that an explanation should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler — captures the same discipline from a different field: simplicity is a target you work toward, not a shortcut you settle for.
Buffett and Munger's annual letters and meeting answers are famous for plain language and short sentences on genuinely difficult financial topics — treated within the partnership as a discipline of thought, not just a writing style.
Try to state the idea in one plain sentence. If you can't, you may not understand it yet.
Notice when jargon is doing the work that a clear mechanism should be doing.
Treat elaborate justification as a yellow flag, not a sign of rigor.
Prefer the simple explanation that's slightly less impressive over the complex one that's more persuasive.
When something can't be simplified honestly, it's a candidate for the too-hard pile — not for forced clarity.
"If it's too hard, we move on to something else. What could be more simple than that?"