1993-10-18 Warren Buffett's Idea Of Heaven: "I Don't Have To Work With People I Don't Like"
EDITOR'S NOTE: Forbes launched an e-book on Warren Buffett today. In it you'll find Forbes and ForbesLife magazine profiles from 1969 to 2013 written by staffers and Buffett himself. The feature below can be found in the e-book along with 14 others that shed light on the philanthropist Buffett has become after his many years as a legendary investor.
编辑说明：今日，《福布斯》推出了一本关于沃伦·巴菲特的电子书。书中收录了1969年至2013年间由《福布斯》及《福布斯生活》杂志撰稿人以及巴菲特本人撰写的专访。以下这篇文章与另外14篇一起收入该电子书，展现了这位传奇投资人多年来如何成长为一位慈善家的过程。
October 1993
1993年10月
By Robert Lenzner
罗伯特·伦茨纳 撰
On the night of Aug. 17 a steady stream of young baseball fans approached a middle-aged businessman wearing a red polo shirt who was sitting near the field at Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium. Often shyly, always deferentially, they asked him to sign their scorecards. Warren Buffett accommodated them—in such numbers as to almost guarantee the famous financier’s signature won’t bring premium prices on the autograph market.
8月17日晚，在奥马哈罗森布拉特球场的场边，一位身着红色Polo衫的中年男士坐在那里，络绎不绝的年轻棒球迷纷纷走上前来。他们往往带着羞涩而又恭敬的神情，请他在自己的计分卡上签名。沃伦·巴菲特一一满足了他们——签名数量之多，几乎可以肯定这位知名金融家的笔迹在签名市场上不会卖出溢价。
Except for the polite autograph seekers, there were no indications that this pale, slightly bulging Omaha native was the richest person in America and an investment genius on a scale that the world rarely sees. There were no fawning retainers or hangers-on, no bodyguards to drive off paparazzi and supplicants. Buffett is 25% owner of the Omaha Royals, minor league affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, and by all appearances that day you would have thought that is all he is. His close friend, Charles Munger, puts it this way: “One of the reasons Warren is so cheerful is that he doesn’t have to remember his lines”—meaning that the public Buffett and the private Buffett are the same man.
除了那些礼貌求签的球迷，没有任何迹象表明这个皮肤苍白、略显发福的奥马哈本地人是美国最富有的人，也是世所罕见的投资天才。没有阿谀奉承的随从或追随者，没有保镖驱赶狗仔和请求者。巴菲特拥有奥马哈皇家队——堪萨斯城皇家队的小联盟附属队——25%的股份，那天看上去你会认为他也不过如此。他的密友查理·芒格这样形容：“沃伦之所以总是这么开心，其中一个原因是他不必记台词。”——也就是说，公众眼中的巴菲特与私下里的巴菲特并无二致。
Except for his company’s private plane—more a business tool than a luxury—there is nothing of self-importance about him. He drives his own car, lives in a nondescript house, hardly ever vacations and just last month passed up an invitation from his close friend, former Washington Post chairman Katharine Graham, to dine with President Clinton on Martha’s Vineyard. Buffett will travel a long way for good bridge game, but he’ll scarcely bother to cross the street for the sake of rubbing shoulders with celebrities.
除了他公司的一架私人飞机——与其说是奢侈品不如说是商业工具——他身上没有任何自命不凡之处。他自己开车，住在一幢不起眼的房子里，几乎从不度假。就在上个月，他还婉拒了好友、前《华盛顿邮报》董事长凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆邀请他到马萨葡萄园岛与克林顿总统共进晚餐的请求。为了打一场精彩的桥牌，巴菲特可以跋涉千里，但若只是为了和名流擦肩而过，他连过条马路都懒得。
“I have in life all I want right here,” he says. “I love every day. I mean, I tap dance in here and work with nothing but people I like. I don’t have to work with people I don’t like.” Buffett caps the statement with a typically Midwestern cackle.
“我在生活中想要的一切都在这里，”他说。“我热爱每天的生活。我在这里踢踏着舞步，只和我喜欢的人一起工作。我不必和我不喜欢的人共事。”说完这话，巴菲特发出了一阵典型的中西部式咯咯笑声。
That’s Warren Buffett, living proof that nice guys sometimes do finish first. And we do mean first. FORBES figures Warren Buffett is now the richest person in the U.S.
那就是沃伦·巴菲特，活生生的证据证明好人有时确实能拿第一。我们说的可是真正的第一。《福布斯》估计，沃伦·巴菲特如今是全美首富。
This folksy, only-in-America character was worth—as FORBES went to press—$8.3 billion in the form of 42% of his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, whose shares at $16,000 each are the highest priced on the New York Stock Exchange.
这位带着民间气息、只有在美国才会出现的人物，截至《福布斯》付印时，身家已达83亿美元，形式是他所持有的投资公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦42%的股份，该公司股票每股1.6万美元，是纽约证券交易所价格最高的股票。
Berkshire Hathaway owns 48% of Geico Corp., a big insurance company; 18% of Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.; 11% of Gillette Co.; 8.2% of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.; 12% of Wells Fargo & Co.; about 7% of the Coca-Cola Co.; 15% of the Washington Post Co.; 14% of General Dynamics; 14% of the voting power in Wall Street’s Salomon Inc. We could go on, but we won’t, except to add the Buffalo News, a newspaper he bought for $32.5 million in 1977 and that now throws off more cash before taxes each year than he paid for it.
伯克希尔·哈撒韦持有盖可保险公司48%的股份；Capital Cities/ABC公司18%；吉列公司11%；联邦住房贷款抵押公司8.2%；富国银行12%；可口可乐约7%；华盛顿邮报公司15%；通用动力公司14%；华尔街所罗门公司14%的表决权。我们本可以继续列举，但暂且打住，只补充一句：巴菲特1977年花3250万美元买下的《水牛城新闻报》，如今每年缴税前产生的现金都超过他当年的购入价。
With this broadly diversified mix, Buffett has in the current bull market squeezed past Bill Gates—net worth $6.2 billion—and John Kluge, at $5.9 billion, to take top spot on The Forbes 400.
凭借如此广泛分散的投资组合，在当前的牛市中，巴菲特已将净资产62亿美元的比尔·盖茨和59亿美元的约翰·克卢格挤到身后，登上《福布斯400富豪榜》的首位。
There’s an excellent chance he’ll stay there for a good while. Most previous holders of the title—Gates, Sam Walton, John Kluge—made their fortunes in a single industry, and their fortunes are tied to that industry. But Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has spread its investments across a broad range: media, soft drinks, manufacturing, insurance, banking, finance, consumer goods. As long as the economy grows, you can count on his fortune continuing to grow.
他极有可能在这个位置上待上相当长一段时间。此前获得该头衔的大多是盖茨、山姆·沃尔顿、约翰·克卢格等人，他们的财富集中在单一行业，并与该行业荣枯与共；而巴菲特的伯克希尔·哈撒韦则将资金投向媒体、软饮料、制造、保险、银行、金融、消费品等众多领域。只要经济增长，他的财富就会继续增长，这是可以预见的。
It’s almost equally certain that when this 63-year-old is called to his reward, he will have set the stage for the biggest charitable foundation ever, one that easily will dwarf the legacies of Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie. Over the past 23 years Buffett’s investments have compounded his wealth at an average annual rate of 29%. He probably can’t keep that up. But give him 15%. If he lives another 20 years and does 15%, the Buffett Foundation will have well over $100 billion. If, as it is quite possible, he lives a good deal longer … well, you get the picture.
同样几乎可以肯定的是，当这位63岁老人离世时，他将为史上最大的慈善基金奠定基础，其规模将轻松超越洛克菲勒、福特和卡内基留下的遗产。过去23年，巴菲特的投资平均年复合收益率达到29%。他或许无法一直保持这一速度，但即便按15%计算，如果他再活20年并保持15%的年增长率，“巴菲特基金会”的资产将远超1000亿美元。若像极有可能的那样，他活得更久……你可以想象将是什么情形。
What would be the first thing most FORBES readers would ask Warren Buffett if they could have a few words with him? Of course: Warren, what do you think of the stock market?
如果大多数《福布斯》读者能与沃伦·巴菲特交谈几句，他们首先会问什么？当然是：沃伦，您怎么看当前的股市？
We asked him, but knowing he hates the question, we did it in a slightly roundabout fashion. What would his hero and mentor, Benjamin Graham, say about the stock market today?
我们也问了他，不过知道他讨厌这个问题，就稍稍绕了个弯：您的偶像兼导师本杰明·格雷厄姆若在今天，会如何看待股市？
Not missing a beat, Buffett shot back with the response Graham gave when he appeared before the 1955 Fulbright hearings in Washington: “‘Common stocks look high and are high, but they are not as high as they look.’ And my guess is that he [Graham] would say the same thing today.”
巴菲特毫不迟疑地引用格雷厄姆1955年在华盛顿富布赖特听证会上给出的回答：“‘普通股看上去很贵，也确实很贵，但它们并没有表面看起来那么贵。’我的猜测是，格雷厄姆今天仍会说同样的话。”
That’s about the limit of the specific investment advice Buffett is willing to give: high but not too high. We suppose that would translate into brokerese as a “hold” rather than as a “buy.”
这大概就是巴菲特愿意给出的最具体投资建议了：高，但还没高到离谱。用券商的术语来说，这更像是“持有”而不是“买入”。
In dodging the question, Buffett is not just being evasive. Like Graham and the famous British economist and brilliant stock market investor John Maynard Keynes, whose thinking he greatly admires, Buffett believes that all there is to investing is picking good stocks at good prices and staying with them as long as they remain good companies.
巴菲特之所以避而不答，并非只是想打太极。正如他十分推崇的导师本杰明·格雷厄姆，以及英国经济学家、卓越股市投资者约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯所主张的那样，巴菲特相信，投资的全部要义就在于：挑选优质股票，以合理价格买入，只要公司依然优秀就长期持有。
He doesn’t try to time the market or to catch swings as the George Soroses and Michael Steinhardts do. Buffett: “Keynes essentially said don’t try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out businesses you understand, and concentrate. Diversification is protection against ignorance, but if you don’t feel ignorant, the need for it goes down drastically.”
他不像乔治·索罗斯、迈克尔·斯坦哈特那样试图踩点市场或捕捉波动。巴菲特说：“凯恩斯的核心意思是，不要费劲去猜市场在干什么；去研究你懂的企业，并集中投资。分散是对无知的保护，可如果你并不觉得自己无知，对分散的需求就会大幅下降。”
In a wide-ranging series of conversations with FORBES, Buffett expounded on his investment philosophy. His most basic rule is: Don’t put too many eggs in your basket and pick them carefully.
在与《福布斯》的一系列广泛对话中，巴菲特阐述了他的投资哲学。他最基本的原则是：不要把太多鸡蛋放进篮子里，而且要精挑细选这些鸡蛋。
Buffett: “I believe every business school graduate should sign an unbreakable contract promising not to make more than 20 major decisions in a lifetime. In a 40-year career you would make a decision every two years.”
巴菲特：“我认为每位商学院毕业生都该签一份不可违约的合同，承诺一生不做超过20个重大决策。在40年的职业生涯中，也就是每两年只做一次决定。”
Buffett points out that he’s not prescribing for all investors. Others can make money out of frenetic trading. “It’s doing what you understand and what you are psychologically comfortable with. But I do not deny the genius of a Peter Lynch or a [Michael] Steinhardt.”
巴菲特指出，他的做法并非适用于所有投资者。其他人也可以通过高频交易赚钱。“关键是做你所理解且心理上感到舒适的事情。但我并不否认彼得·林奇或迈克尔·斯坦哈特等人的天才。”
Technology stocks are definitely not what Buffett feels comfortable with. “Bill Gates is a good friend, and I think he may be the smartest guy I’ve ever met. But I don’t know what those little things do.”
科技股显然不是让巴菲特感到自在的领域。“比尔·盖茨是我的好朋友，我觉得他可能是我遇到过的最聪明的人。但那些小玩意儿具体做什么，我并不清楚。”
Except for a position in Guinness Plc., the international spirits concern, Berkshire owns no foreign stocks—ignoring as usual the latest Wall Street fad. “If I can’t make money in a $4 trillion market [the U.S.], then I shouldn’t be in this business. I get $150 million earnings passthrough from international operations of Gillette and Coca-Cola. That’s my international portfolio.”
除了在国际烈酒公司健力士持有一笔头寸外，伯克希尔没有任何外国股票——照例无视华尔街最新的时髦。“如果我在一个4万亿美元的市场（指美国）都赚不到钱，那我就不该干这行。我从吉列和可口可乐的海外业务中分得1.5亿美元利润，这就是我的国际投资组合。”
Again, it’s staying with what he feels comfortable with. “I wouldn’t mind having a very significant percentage of our portfolio in U.K.-domiciled companies or German-domiciled companies, if I thought I understood the companies and their business and liked them well enough. If some guy owns the only newspaper in Hong Kong or Sydney, Australia and it’s at the right price, I’m perfectly willing to buy it.”
再一次，他强调的是投资舒适区。“如果我觉得自己足够了解一家总部在英国或德国的公司，理解它的业务，也足够喜欢它，我完全不介意把我们投资组合中的相当大一部分投在那里。要是有人拥有香港或澳大利亚悉尼的唯一一家报纸，只要价格合适，我也愿意买。”
Those papers may be in foreign climes, but they are in a business he well understands. That gets close to the heart of the way Buffett, your quintessential Midwesterner, thinks: not in concepts or theories but in intensely practical terms. Buffett doesn’t buy stocks; stocks are an abstraction. He buys businesses—or parts of businesses, if the whole thing is not for sale. “I’ve no desire to try and play some huge trend of a national nature,” is the way he puts it.
这些报纸或许位于异国他乡，但属于他深谙其道的行业。这正触及了巴菲特——这位典型的美国中西部人——的思维核心：不是停留在概念或理论层面，而是极其务实。巴菲特并非在买股票——股票只是抽象符号；他在买的是企业，或在整家公司不出售时买其一部分。“我毫无兴趣去押注某种全国性的宏大趋势，”他如是说。
注意力集中在某个点噪音会自动消失，相反大脑所呈现的都是噪音。
Buffett’s disdain for trends, concepts and the slogans so beloved of Wall Street grows in part from a simple realization that neither he nor any other man can see the future. It also grows from his extreme inner self-confidence: He has not the psychological need for the constant wheeling and dealing, buying and selling that afflicts so many successful business and financial people. When he believes in something, he does not require immediate market upticks to confirm his judgment.
巴菲特之所以蔑视华尔街钟爱的“趋势、概念和口号”，部分原因在于一个简单的认识：他——以及任何人——都看不见未来。另一方面，则源于他强烈的内在自信：与许多成功的商业和金融人士不同，他没有那种必须不停倒手买卖、频繁操作的心理需求。一旦他认准某件事，根本不需要市场立刻上涨来印证自己的判断。
“What I like is economic strength in an area where I understand it and where I think it will last. It’s very difficult to think of two companies in the world in important areas that have the presence and acceptance of Coke and Gillette,” two of Berkshire Hathaway’s core holdings.
“我喜欢的是在自己能看懂、且认为其优势能够持久的领域里拥有经济实力。要在全球的重要行业中再找出两家公司，能像可口可乐和吉列那样既根基深厚又被普遍接受，几乎不可能。”——这两家公司正是伯克希尔的核心持股。
Some smart investors like to say they invest in people, not in businesses. Buffett is skeptical. He says, in his wry way: “When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, the reputation of the business remains intact.”
有些精明投资者常说，他们投的是“人”而不是“企业”。巴菲特对此持保留态度。他冷幽默地说：“当一个才华横溢的经理人接手一家经济属性糟糕的企业时，这家企业‘糟糕’的名声可是原封不动地保留下来。”
It’s not that Buffett doesn’t think managers matter. He does. “When [Chairman Roberto] Goizueta and [former president Donald] Keough came into [leadership at] Coca-Cola in the 1980s it made a terrific difference,” Buffett says. He is a great admirer of Thomas Murphy of Capital Cities/ABC and Carl Reichardt of Wells Fargo, two big Berkshire holdings. But he doesn’t invest on people alone. “If you put those same guys to work in a buggy-whip company, it wouldn’t have made much difference.”
并非巴菲特认为管理层不重要——他当然认为重要。“20世纪80年代，当罗伯托·戈伊苏埃塔和唐纳德·基奥执掌可口可乐时，公司的变化翻天覆地。”巴菲特说。他非常敬佩Capital Cities/ABC的托马斯·墨菲和富国银行的卡尔·赖克哈特，这两家公司也是伯克希尔的大持仓。但他绝不会只凭“好经理”就下注：“假如把这些人放到一家马车鞭公司，再厉害也难有作为。”
AMEX的历史也一样，好生意的作用大于管理团队。
That last sentence is a typical Buffettism: He loves to express himself thus in pithy one-liners that are humorous expressions of common sense. Listen to him sum up his case for owning Gillette stock: “It’s pleasant to go to bed every night knowing there are 2.5 billion males in the world who have to shave in the morning. A lot of the world is using the same blade King Gillette invented almost 100 years ago. These nations are upscaling the blade. So the dollars spent on Gillette products will go up.”
上句正是典型的“巴菲特式俏皮话”——一针见血且饶有趣味。他这样总结自己持有吉列股票的理由：“每晚睡觉前想到，全球有25亿男性第二天早上必须刮胡子，这感觉真不错。如今许多人用的还是近百年前金·吉列发明的那款刀片。各国正在升级刀片，所以花在吉列产品上的钱只会越来越多。”
Or how he thinks of himself as investing in businesses rather than in stocks: “Coca-Cola sells 700 million 8-ounce servings a day. Berkshire Hathaway’s share is about 50 million.”
再看看他为何自称“买企业而非买股票”：“可口可乐每天卖出7亿份8盎司饮料，伯克希尔的份额大约是5000万份。”
His credo, though he doesn’t call it that, can be expressed in something he told FORBES: “I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.” He’s saying a great deal in his seemingly cryptic statement: that business and finance are not two separate activities but intimately connected. A good businessman thinks like an investor. A good investor thinks like a businessman.
他的“信条”（虽然他自己不用这个词）可由他对《福布斯》说的一句话概括：“我之所以是更好的投资者，因为我是一名商人；我之所以是更好的商人，因为我是一名投资者。” 这句看似玄妙的话传递的信息量巨大：商业与金融并非两种割裂的活动，而是密不可分。一位优秀的商人要像投资者那样思考；一位优秀的投资者也应像商人那样思考。
There’s a fine line here, however. Buffett doesn’t try to run the businesses he invests in. As he puts it, “The executives regard me as an investing partner. I’m somewhat involved, talking over leadership succession, potential acquisitions and other important matters. Managers know I think about these things and they talk to me.”
然而，这里有一道微妙的界线：巴菲特并不试图亲自经营他所投资的公司。用他的话说，“高管们把我当作投资伙伴。我会在一定程度上参与，和他们讨论领导层继任、潜在收购以及其他重要事项。经理们知道我会思考这些问题，所以他们会来找我交流。”
To keep himself posted he relies very little on the gossip some people think is inside information. He does spend five or six hours a day reading, with lesser periods on the phone. He hates meetings. Berkshire Hathaway’s board meets once a year. But Buffett does quite faithfully attend directors meetings at Gillette, Capital Cities/ABC, Salomon Inc., US Air Group and Coca-Cola each month.
为了随时掌握情况，他几乎不依赖一些人所谓的内幕八卦。他每天花五到六个小时阅读，其余时间偶尔打电话。他讨厌开会——伯克希尔·哈撒韦的董事会一年仅开一次。但巴菲特几乎每个月都会准时参加吉列、Capital Cities/ABC、所罗门公司、美国航空集团和可口可乐的董事会会议。
While Buffett’s character and investing style are all his own, they owe a lot to three influences. “If I were to give credit in terms of how I’ve done it in investments, my dad would be number one, and Ben Graham would be number two. Charlie Munger would be number three.”
尽管巴菲特的个性和投资风格独树一帜，但深受三个人的影响。“如果说我的投资成绩应归功于谁，我父亲排第一，本·格雷厄姆排第二，查理·芒格排第三。”
He credits his father, Howard Buffett, a stockbroker and one-time congressman, with setting an example of how to behave. “He taught me to do nothing that could be put on the front page of a newspaper. I have never known a better human being than my dad.”
他将榜样的功劳归于父亲霍华德·巴菲特——一位股票经纪人、曾任国会议员——正是父亲树立了为人处世的典范。“他教我要做任何事情都不能上报纸头版。我从未见过比父亲更好的人。”
He credits Graham with giving him “an intellectual framework for investing and a temperamental model, the ability to stand back and not be influenced by a crowd, not be fearful if stocks go down.” He sums up Graham’s teaching: “When proper temperament joins with proper intellectual framework, then you get rational behavior.”
他把本·格雷厄姆的贡献归结为“为投资提供了一个智力框架和一种性格模型——能够超然旁观、不受大众影响，股价下跌也不恐惧。”他用一句话概括格雷厄姆的教诲：“当合适的性格与合适的智力框架结合时，你就会表现得理性。”
Charles Munger is Buffett’s sidekick, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and, after Buffett and his wife, its largest shareholder, with 1.8% of the stock. He lives in Los Angeles, but he and Buffett are on the phone almost daily. “Charlie made me focus on the merits of a great business with tremendously growing earning power, but only when you can be sure of it—not like Texas Instruments or Polaroid, where the earning power was hypothetical. Charlie is rational, very rational. He doesn’t have his ego wrapped up in the business the way I do, but he understands it perfectly. Essentially we have never had an argument, though occasional disagreements.”
查尔斯·芒格是巴菲特的搭档，伯克希尔·哈撒韦的副董事长，并且在巴菲特夫妇之后是公司第三大股东，持股1.8%。他居住在洛杉矶，但几乎每天都与巴菲特通电话。“查理让我关注那些具有强劲且不断增长盈利能力的卓越企业的优点，但前提是你必须确信这一点——而不是像德州仪器或宝丽来那样，其盈利能力只是设想。查理很理性，非常理性。他不像我那样把自我融入企业，但他理解得十分透彻。基本上我们从未争吵过，虽然偶尔会有分歧。”
Disagreements? Munger says that there are times when he has to prod Buffett away from his old Ben Graham attitudes about what constitutes a bargain. Munger: “Warren was a little slower to realize that a very great business can sell for less than it’s worth. After all, Warren worshipped Ben Graham, who waited to buy companies at a fraction of the liquidation value, and it’s hard to go beyond your mentor. Sure, I convinced him we should pay up for good businesses.”
分歧？芒格表示，有时他必须促使巴菲特摆脱旧有的“本·格雷厄姆式”便宜货观念。芒格说：“沃伦稍慢才意识到，一家非常优秀的企业也可能以低于其价值的价格出售。毕竟，沃伦崇拜本·格雷厄姆，而格雷厄姆总是等到公司股价只有清算价值的一小部分才买入，要超越你的导师的观念很难。当然，我说服了他：好企业值得出高价。”
Today Buffett realizes that “when you find a really good business run by first-class people, chances are a price that looks high isn’t high. The combination is rare enough, it’s worth a pretty good price.” In almost every instance that pretty good price gets even better after he buys the stock. Coca-Cola is a prime example.
如今，巴菲特明白了，“当你发现一家由一流团队经营的真正优秀企业时，看似昂贵的价格往往并不昂贵。这种组合十分稀有，因此值得付出相当高的价格。”几乎每一次，他支付的“相当高”的价格在买入后都会变得更加划算。可口可乐就是一个绝佳例子。
One thing Munger doesn’t have to twist Buffett’s arm on: They both believe you should never sell those great businesses as long as they stay great, almost regardless of how high the stock price gets. What would be the point? You would have to reinvest the money in something less great. As Omar Khayyam put it, and Munger/Buffett would certainly agree: “I often wonder what the Vintners buy half so precious as the stuff they sell.”
芒格有一点无需费劲就能让巴菲特点头：他们都相信，只要一家卓越企业依旧卓越，就永远不该卖出其股票，几乎不管股价涨到多高。卖掉又有什么意义呢？你不得不用这笔钱去投资更逊色的标的。正如奥玛·凯亚姆所言，而芒格/巴菲特也一定赞同：“我常纳闷，酿酒商究竟能买到什么东西，能有他们卖出的佳酿一半珍贵？”
Buffett says he is permanently attached to these three vintage media holdings, the Washington Post, Capital Cities/ABC and the Buffalo News. He analyzes these holdings: “Television networks are a business that’s tougher but still very good with very good management. It generates a lot of cash. The Washington Post is a terribly strong newspaper property run by high-class people. Don [Graham], the new chairman, will be an excellent leader. It’s one of the great stories of generations succeeding—three 7s in a row.”
巴菲特说，他永远不会卖掉三家“年份”媒体资产——《华盛顿邮报》、Capital Cities/ABC以及《布法罗新闻》。他这样分析这些持股：“电视网的生意更艰难些，但依然非常出色，管理层也很优秀，能产生大量现金。《华盛顿邮报》是一份实力雄厚、由高素质人士经营的报纸。新任董事长唐·格雷厄姆将是一位杰出的领导者。这是代际传承的精彩故事——连续开出三个7。”
He’ll never sell the lucrative Buffalo News. Aren’t newspapers becoming obsolete? Buffett: “I don’t think they’re technically obsolete, but I don’t think it’s as good a business as it used to be.”
他也绝不会出售利润丰厚的《布法罗新闻》。报纸不是正在过时吗？巴菲特说：“我不认为它们在技术上过时了，但它们确实不再像过去那样是一门好生意。”
Buffett has received FTC permission to raise his stake in Salomon Inc. from 14% to 25%, even though Salomon shares have already more than doubled since its Treasury bond scandal. Why did he wait so long to increase his stake? He felt it wasn’t fair to buy more shares when he was involved in turning the company around.
巴菲特已获美国联邦贸易委员会批准，将其在所罗门公司的持股比例从14%提高到25%，尽管自国债丑闻以来所罗门股价已翻倍以上。他为何拖到现在才增持？他认为自己在参与公司重整期间大量买入并不公平。
Are great investor/businessmen like Buffett made or born? In this case the verdict would have to be the genetic one. As a kid he traded on a small scale, buying Coca-Cola from his grandfather’s store and reselling it to neighbors. When he was 20 and a student at Columbia University, he started studying the insurance industry. His hero and professor, Benjamin Graham, was chairman of Geico, Government Employees Insurance Co., based in Washington, D.C. Wanting to know more about a company Graham had invested in, one Saturday Buffett paid a cold call on Geico, and was treated to a five-hour sermon by Lorimer Davidson, then vice president of finance, on how the insurance business worked.
像巴菲特这样的大投资家/企业家是后天造就还是天生如此？在他身上，结论恐怕得归因于基因。小时候他就进行小规模交易，从祖父的杂货店买来可口可乐再转卖给邻居。20岁在哥伦比亚大学读书时，他开始研究保险业。他的偶像兼导师本杰明·格雷厄姆是位于华盛顿特区的政府雇员保险公司（Geico）的董事长。为了深入了解这家格雷厄姆投资的公司，某个星期六巴菲特专程造访Geico，总经理财务副总裁洛里默·戴维森给他上了一堂长达五小时的保险业“布道课”。
Buffett then had about $9,800 in capital. He proceeded to invest three-quarters of it in Geico stock. “It was a company selling insurance at prices well below all the standard companies, and making 15% profit margins. It had an underwriting cost then of 13% or so, whereas the standard companies had probably 30%-to-35% cost. It was a company with a huge competitive advantage, managed by the guy that was my God.”
当时巴菲特手头大约有9,800美元，他随即将其中四分之三投入了Geico股票。“这家公司以远低于传统保险公司的价格销售保险，却能取得15%的利润率。当时它的承保成本大约只有13%，而行业标准公司的成本可能在30%到35%之间。这是一家拥有巨大竞争优势的公司，由我心目中的‘神’来掌舵。”
In those days Buffett was devouring financial tomes the way most people his age consumed the sports pages or mystery novels. While working for his father’s brokerage firm in Omaha, he would go to Lincoln, Nebr., the state capital, and read through the convention reports, or statistical histories of insurance companies. “I read from page to page. I didn’t read brokers’ reports or anything. I just looked at raw data. And I would get all excited about these things. I’d find Kansas City Life at three times earnings, Western Insurance Securities at one times earnings. I never had enough money and I didn’t like to borrow money. So I sold something too soon to buy something else.”
那时候，巴菲特如饥似渴地阅读金融巨著，正如同龄人迷恋体育版或推理小说一般。为父亲在奥马哈的经纪公司工作期间，他常跑到州府林肯，翻阅各种大会报告或保险公司的统计年鉴。“我是一页接一页地看。我不看券商报告什么的，只看原始数据。那些数字让我兴奋不已。我会发现堪萨斯城人寿的市盈率只有3倍，Western Insurance Securities只有1倍。可我手里的钱总是不够，又不爱借钱，于是常常为了买新的标的把旧的太早卖掉。”
Jumping back to the present for a moment, he comments: “I was overstimulated in the early days. I’m understimulated now.” Stock prices are many times higher now, and when you have billions to invest rather than thousands there’s a lot less around to stimulate you.
把镜头拉回现在，他感慨道：“早年我被刺激得过度，如今却刺激不足。”如今股价高出当年好几倍，可当你要投的是数十亿美元而不是几千美元时，能让你兴奋的标的确实少多了。
Even though his lack of capital sometimes led him to sell too soon, Buffett prospered. Geico and Western Insurance Securities were huge winners.
尽管资金匮乏有时迫使他过早卖出，巴菲特依然大获其利。Geico和Western Insurance Securities最终都成为大赢家。
In the early days of his career he followed Graham’s quantitative guidelines obsessively. Graham figured you couldn’t lose and would probably gain if you bought a stock for less than the value of its working capital alone. “I bought into an anthracite company. I bought into a windmill company. I bought into a street railway company, or more than one.” But these cheap stocks were cheap for a reason; the businesses were dying.
职业生涯早期，他痴迷地遵循格雷厄姆的量化准则。格雷厄姆认为，只要以低于净流动资产的价格买入股票，几乎稳赚不赔。“我买过一家无烟煤公司，买过一家风车公司，还买过一家或多家有轨电车公司。”然而便宜自有其因——这些企业命悬一线。
Buffett soon realized that instead of seeking sure-thing statistical bargains, he would have to find companies that were undervalued for reasons that might not appear on the balance sheet—things like valuable brand names or strong market positions. As a professional money manager he began to make spectacular returns for his clients, with killings in such stocks as American Express and Disney.
巴菲特很快意识到，与其死抠统计学上的“稳赚便宜货”，不如去找那些账面看不出的低估公司——例如拥有强大品牌或市场地位的企业。作为职业投资经理，他开始为客户创造惊人回报，诸如美国运通、迪士尼等个股都让他赚得盆满钵满。
But in 1969 he took down his shingle, returned his partners’ money and concentrated on his own investments. In retrospect the timing was brilliant. The first post-World War II bull market had essentially ended, though few people realized it. Although a handful of stocks continued to rise until 1973 and 1974, the bull was exhausted.
然而1969年，他摘下招牌，清盘合伙基金，将钱悉数退还合伙人，专注于自家投资。事后看来这一时点堪称神来之笔。战后第一轮牛市实际上已行至末路，只是当时少有人察觉。虽然还有少数股票在1973、1974年继续上冲，但大势已尽。
Aha! So Buffett really is a market timer? No, he says. He simply couldn’t find any stocks he wanted to buy at those prices. If it comes to the same thing either way, you can see that Buffett thinks in terms of companies, not in terms of markets. “I felt like an oversexed guy on a desert island,” he quips, “I couldn’t find anything to buy.”
哎呀！难道巴菲特真是在择时？他说并非如此。只是当时那个价位他找不到想买的股票。无论结果看似相同，你会发现巴菲特思考的是“公司”，而非“市场”。他打趣说：“我就像个欲火中烧却身处荒岛的人——想买却无物可买。”
But after the crash of 1974, which took the DJI down nearly 50% from its previous high, he had plenty of stimulation in his search for bargains. Reversing the quip, in November 1974 he told FORBES he felt “like an over-sexed guy in a harem.”
然而，1974 年的股灾让道指从先前高点腰斩近一半，这给了他大把“刺激”去淘宝。当年 11 月，他反用那句玩笑对《福布斯》说，自己“感觉就像进了后宫的欲火男”。
In the mid-1960s he had bought control of a down-at-the-heels textile operation in New Bedford, Mass. It looked cheap in that he paid less than the book value of the assets. Only it turned out those assets weren’t worth what the books said they were. Says Buffett: “I thought it was a so-so textile business, but it was a terrible business.”
60 年代中期，他收购了马萨诸塞纽贝德福德一家衰败的纺织厂——伯克希尔·哈撒韦。账面看很便宜，买价低于资产净值，可后来发现那些资产根本不值账上写的数。巴菲特说：“我原以为这家纺织厂差强人意，结果是家烂透的生意。”
Yet, ever the opportunist, Buffett used the base as a vehicle for slaking his passion for stocks in a market where the Dow Jones industrial average was well below 1,000. Of Berkshire Hathaway he says: “We worked our way out of it by growing the other capital, but in the late ’60s half our capital was in a lousy business, and that is not smart.”
但他天生善抓机会，把这家纺织公司当作投资载体，在道指不到 1,000 点的时代继续买股票。谈到伯克希尔，他说：“我们靠把其他资本做大才摆脱困局，可 60 年代末我们的资金有一半压在烂生意上，这可不聪明。”
Gradually Buffett moved away from pure Ben Graham to modified Ben Graham. It was then that he made his fat-payoff investments in companies like the Washington Post that were then undervalued, not because they had lots of cash and physical assets but because they had valuable franchises that were not recognized by the market. He describes the change in parameters: “Ben Graham wanted everything to be a quantitative bargain. I want it to be a quantitative bargain in terms of future streams of cash. My guess is the last big time to do it Ben’s way was in ’73 or ’74, when you could have done it quite easily.”
巴菲特逐步从“纯格雷厄姆”转向“改良格雷厄姆”。此时他押中了《华盛顿邮报》等“大肥单”，这些公司被低估并非因账面现金或固定资产，而是市场未认识到它们手中的宝贵特许经营权。他这样描述参数变化：“格雷厄姆要的是所有指标都便宜；我则要未来现金流折现后也便宜。我想最后一次能轻松按雷厄姆的方法干大的，是 1973、1974 年。”
Is Warren Buffett infallible? No way. He readily concedes he left $2 billion on the table by getting out of Fannie Mae too early. He didn’t buy as much as he set out to and sold too early. Why? He shakes his head. “It was easy to analyze. It was within my circle of competence. And for one reason or another, I quit. I wish I could give you a good answer.”
巴菲特无懈可击吗？当然不是。他坦言自己在房利美（Fannie Mae）上少赚了 20 亿美元——没买够就早早卖掉。为什么？他摇头：“这家公司分析起来毫不费劲，也在我的能力圈里，但不知怎么我就退出了。我真希望能给出个好理由。”
He also sold part of Berkshire’s position in Affiliated Publications, the owner of the Boston Globe newspaper, because he did not fully grasp the value of Affiliated’s big position in McCaw Cellular. He is less miffed about this mistake than about the FNMA one. “I missed the play in cellular because cellular is outside of my circle of competence.”
他还卖掉了伯克希尔在Affiliated Publications（《波士顿环球》母公司）的一部分股份，因为当时没看懂其所持McCaw Cellular的巨大价值。谈起这笔错失，他不如对 FNMA 那次懊恼：“我错过蜂窝通信，是因为蜂窝业务不在我的能力圈里。”
What does Buffett think of politics? Buffett was a registered Republican, like his father, but he switched parties in the early 1960s. “I became a Democrat basically because I felt the Democrats were closer by a considerable margin to what I felt in the early 60s about civil rights. I don’t vote the party line. But I probably vote for more Democrats than Republicans.”
巴菲特如何看待政治？巴菲特曾与父亲一样登记为共和党人，但在20世纪60年代初改投民主党。“我成为民主党人的主要原因，是在60年代初我觉得民主党在民权问题上的立场与我的观点更加契合。我不会完全按党派路线投票，但我大概投给民主党人的次数多于共和党人。”
If Buffett is a bit cagey about his politics, he isn’t cagey in expressing his opinion about some U.S. corporate management. “If you have mediocrity and you have a bunch of friends on the board, it’s certainly not the kind of test you put a football team through. If the coach of a football team puts 11 lousy guys out on the field, he loses his job. The board never loses their job because they’ve got a mediocre CEO. So you’ve got none of that self-cleansing type of operation that works with all the other jobs.”
如果说巴菲特在政治立场上还算含蓄，他在评价美国企业管理层时却毫不遮掩。“如果公司平庸，而董事会又由一帮朋友组成，这显然不像检验橄榄球队那样。如果橄榄球队教练把11个糟糕的球员放上场，他就会丢掉工作；可董事会因为有个平庸的CEO却从不会被撤换。因此，公司缺少其他行业那种能够自我净化的机制。”
There’s a general impression that Buffett plans to cut off his three children, forcing them to fend for themselves. Nonsense, he says. “They’ve gotten gifts right along, but they’re not going to live the life of the superrich. I think they probably feel pretty good about how they’ve been brought up. They all function well, and they are all independent, in that they don’t feel obliged to kowtow to me in any way.” He puts modest amounts each year in the Sherwood Foundation, which is used by his children to give money away in Omaha. Another family foundation gives $4 million a year to support programs promoting population control.
外界普遍认为巴菲特打算断绝三个子女的经济来源，让他们自食其力。他说这纯属无稽之谈。“他们一直都有礼物拿，但不会过超级富豪的生活。我想他们对自己的成长方式很满意。他们都运转良好，也都很独立，不觉得有必要向我低三下四。”他每年向舍伍德基金会注入适度资金，由孩子们在奥马哈进行慈善捐赠。另一家家族基金会则每年拿出400万美元，用于支持控制人口增长的项目。
Beyond that, Buffett has sometimes been criticized for not giving away bigger chunks of his great fortune—even when pressed by friends and associates. He explains: “I wouldn’t want to transfer Berkshire Hathaway shares to anyone while I’m alive. If I owned a wide portfolio of securities I could give them away. But I don’t want to give up control of Berkshire Hathaway.”
除此之外，巴菲特有时还因未将更多巨额财富捐出而遭到批评——即便朋友和同事力劝，他依然如此。他解释道：“在我活着的时候，我不想把伯克希尔·哈撒韦的股票转给任何人。如果我持有一揽子证券，我可以把它们捐掉，但我不想放弃对伯克希尔·哈撒韦的控制权。”
But when death does force his hand, his legacy is going to be a whopper. He plans to leave 100% of his Berkshire Hathaway holding to his separated but not estranged wife, Susan. He has no written contract with Susan that the shares will go into a foundation, but that is the understanding between them. Says he: “She has the same values I do.” The deal is whoever dies last will leave the Berkshire Hathaway shares to a foundation with no strings attached.
不过，一旦死亡迫使他“松手”，他的遗产将是个天文数字。他计划把自己持有的伯克希尔·哈撒韦全部股份留给与他分居但感情未决裂的妻子苏珊。他和苏珊没有就股份必须进入基金会签订书面协议，但两人已有此默契。他说：“她的价值观跟我一样。”双方约定，谁最后去世，谁就把伯克希尔·哈撒韦的股份无附加条件地捐入基金会。
Buffett: “I’ve got this fund that’s not yet activated, and it is building at a rate greater than other endowments, like Harvard’s. It’s growing at a rate of 25% to 30%.”
巴菲特：“我有一只尚未启动的基金，它的增长速度超过了其他捐赠基金，比如哈佛大学基金。它正以25%到30%的速度增长。”
“When I am dead, I assume there’ll still be serious problems of a social nature as there are now. Society will get a greater benefit from my money later than if I do it now.” Any hints as to where he’d like to see the money go? Control of nuclear proliferation is very much on his mind. “Who knows how many psychotics in the world will have the ability to do something with nuclear knowledge that could wreak havoc on the rest of the world?”
“当我死后，我认为社会仍将像现在一样面临严重的社会问题。如果我晚些时候再捐钱，社会能够获得的益处会比我现在就捐更大。”至于他希望这些钱流向何处？他最关心的是遏制核扩散。“谁知道世界上会有多少精神错乱者利用核知识做出毁灭世界的事情？”
It’s a little hard to see how money can deal with that problem, but Buffett points out that money could do a lot for what he regards as another major problem: excessive population growth.
用金钱来解决核扩散似乎有些困难，但巴菲特指出，金钱对于他认为的另一个重大问题——过度人口增长——却大有可为。
“I have got a very few high-grade, very intelligent people in charge of deciding how to spend the money. They [will] have total authority. There are no restrictions. And all they are supposed to do is use it as a smart high-grade person would do under the circumstances that exist when it comes into play, which I hope is not soon.”
“我只让极少数高素质、非常聪明的人来决定这笔钱的用途。他们拥有完全的权力，没有任何限制。他们所需要做的，就是在资金真正启用时，根据当时情况，像聪明、高素质的人那样去使用它——我希望那一天不会太快到来。”
The trustees of his will include his wife, Susan, his daughter Susan, his son Peter, Tom Murphy, chairman of Capital Cities/ABC, and Fortune’s Carol Loomis.
他遗嘱的受托人包括妻子苏珊、女儿苏珊、儿子彼得、Capital Cities/ABC董事长汤姆·墨菲，以及《财富》杂志的卡罗尔·卢米斯。
It’s very much in harmony with his pragmatic nature that Buffett plans on putting few strings on the money. Just so long as they don’t turn it into a conventional bureaucratic foundation. “If they build an edifice and become traditional I’ll come back to haunt them,” he declares.
巴菲特计划对这笔钱附加极少的条件，这与他务实的性格十分契合；只要他们不把它变成传统的官僚式基金会即可。“如果他们盖大楼、变得守旧，我就会回来纠缠他们。”他宣称。
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