Thinkers' principles

Official · updated Nov 4, 2026 · v1.0.2

Reviews a plan by inversion: lists how it would surely fail, separates what the business couldn't survive, and checks it through several models, from ideas Charlie Munger described.

When to use it

• Before committing to a plan, a launch, a large contract or a purchase
• A goal everyone agreed on too quickly and nobody has stress-tested

What you give it

• The plan, goal and success measure
• Key facts: money, people, dependencies
• What the team already worries about
• Consequences the business could not survive

What you get

A table of specific failure modes with mechanisms, the places never to go with a rule for each, a multi-model read, and the plan changes with owners.

Changelog

• v1.0.2 · Nov 4, 2026 · Description: a lowercase letter mid-sentence.
• v1.0.1 · Nov 4, 2026 · Example output now opens with the attribution and not-affiliated lines, as the skill's own checks require.
• v1.0.0 · Nov 4, 2026 · First release.

Sources

1. Poor Charlie's Almanack - Stripe Press (2026-11-04)
2. Berkshire Hathaway 1996 shareholder letter (Charlie's dictum, inverting) (2026-11-04)
3. Berkshire Hathaway 2023 shareholder letter (Charlie's 1965 advice) (2026-11-04)

Related skills

• Decision memo Writes a short narrative decision memo: recommendation first, context, options with trade-offs, risks, and the ask with a decider and deadline.
• A/B test plan Writes an A/B test brief: hypothesis, primary and guardrail metrics, MDE, sample size and duration with the math, stop rules, and a decision rule set in advance.
• Buffett-style moat and margin-of-safety check Checks a business or a purchase for an enduring moat, a known circle of competence and a margin of safety, as Warren Buffett describes them in the Berkshire letters. Not investment advice.
• Financial model assumptions review Reviews a financial model's assumptions: lists each with its source, tests sensitivity, checks plausibility against history, and names the 3 that matter.

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