Li Lu

Li Lu is a Chinese-born American value investor, the founder of Himalaya Capital Management, and quite possibly the greatest investor most people have never heard of. Charlie Munger — a man not easily impressed — called him 'the Chinese Warren Buffett' and entrusted him with his family's entire fortune. Munger is the only person besides Warren Buffett who Munger ever allowed to manage his money. That sentence alone should tell you everything you need to know about Li Lu.

Li Lu's life story reads like a movie script that would be rejected for being too dramatic. He survived the 1976 Tangshan earthquake — one of the deadliest in recorded history, killing over 240,000 people — as a child. In 1989, he was one of the student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests. When the crackdown came, he escaped China and arrived in the United States as a refugee with nothing.

He enrolled at Columbia University, where he simultaneously earned degrees in economics, law, and business — three graduate programs at once. While at Columbia, he attended a lecture by Warren Buffett that changed his life. He went from political activist to value investor in a single afternoon.

In 1997, he founded Himalaya Capital. The fund grew to manage approximately $14 billion by 2023, achieving a compound annual return of approximately 30% since inception. His most famous contribution to Berkshire Hathaway lore: he introduced Charlie Munger to BYD, the Chinese battery and electric vehicle manufacturer. Munger convinced Buffett to invest $232 million in 2008. That stake became worth over $7 billion.

Li Lu operates with almost no public profile. He gives no interviews, has no social media, and publishes no letters. He lets the returns speak — and they speak loudly.

Li Lu was born in Tangshan, China, in 1966. At age 10, he survived the catastrophic 1976 Tangshan earthquake that killed over 240,000 people. He grew up as an orphan and was raised by various families. Despite these hardships, he excelled academically and was admitted to Nanjing University, where he studied physics. During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he emerged as one of the student leaders. After the crackdown, he escaped China — reportedly by swimming across a river — and eventually made his way to the United States, where he was admitted to Columbia University.