1994 Warren Buffett.UNC Business School
In 1994, Warren Buffett spoke to students at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School for close to an hour. PBS recorded this discussion and, a year later, released it on VHS as Warren Buffett Talks Business. Over the past few weeks, I transcribed (and lightly annotated) Buffett’s remarks for posterity and future study.
1994 年，Warren Buffett 在 University of North Carolina 的 Kenan-Flagler Business School 与学生交流了近一个小时。PBS 录制了这次讨论，并在一年后以 VHS 形式发布，片名为 Warren Buffett Talks Business。过去几周里，我把 Buffett 的发言转录（并做了少量注释），以供后人留存与日后研究。
A few notes:
几点说明：
My main focus is accuracy and readability.
我主要关注准确性与可读性。
I summarized some of the questions to save space. All of Warren’s answers are transcribed verbatim.
为节省篇幅，我对部分提问做了概述。Warren 的所有回答均为逐字转录。
I added footnotes with additional information at relevant points. Hopefully, these will prove useful to readers.
我在相关位置添加了脚注以补充信息。希望这些内容能对读者有所帮助。
The Warren Buffett Talks Business VHS presents a somewhat condensed version of his remarks to UNC students. Sadly, I only have access to the VHS recording and that is what has been transcribed below. If anyone knows where to find a longer video of this event, please let me know.
Warren Buffett Talks Business 这盘 VHS 呈现的是他在 UNC 发言的一个略经压缩的版本。遗憾的是，我只能接触到该 VHS 的录影，以下转录基于此。如果有人知道在哪里可以找到该活动的更长视频，请告知。
The full transcript is available to all paid supporters. Free subscribers have access to the first 2,500-ish words. (That’s longer than the typical Kingswell article.)
完整转录向所有付费支持者开放。免费订阅者可阅读前约 2,500 字。（这已比典型的 Kingswell 文章更长。）
I’ve tried to do my best to ensure that no one feels short-changed.
我尽力而为，以确保没有人觉得被亏待。
So, without further ado, here is the complete transcript of Warren Buffett Talks Business — featuring the Oracle of Omaha’s timeless wisdom for college students and investors of all ages…
言归正传，以下是 Warren Buffett Talks Business 的完整转录——呈现 “奥马哈先知” 面向各年龄段大学生与投资者的恒久智慧……
Host (Dr. David Hartzell): You’re about to meet one of the most successful investors in the world, Warren Buffett. He gained that distinction by shrewdly investing his own — and other people’s — money.
Host（Dr. David Hartzell）：你们即将见到世界上最成功的投资者之一，Warren Buffett。他之所以名声卓著，是因为他精明地投资了自己——以及他人的——资金。
Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, he ran an investment partnership that earned a remarkable annual average return of nearly 30% per year for thirteen years.
从 1950 年代与 1960 年代起，他管理了一只投资合伙基金，连续十三年取得了年均接近 30% 的惊人回报。
In 1965, he paid $12 a share for a company named Berkshire Hathaway. In 1995, Berkshire Hathaway, which is now an investment holding company, is trading on the New York Stock Exchange for over $25,000 per share.
1965 年，他以每股 12 美元买入一家名为 Berkshire Hathaway 的公司。到了 1995 年，Berkshire Hathaway（如今是一家投资控股公司）在 New York Stock Exchange 上的股价已超过每股 25,000 美元。
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway owns shares in such large companies as Coca-Cola, Gillette, and Capital Cities/ABC — as well as 100% of such smaller companies as See’s Candies, H.H. Brown Shoes, and the Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Berkshire Hathaway 总部位于 Nebraska 州的 Omaha，持有 Coca-Cola、Gillette、Capital Cities/ABC 等大型公司的股份——同时还 100% 持有 See’s Candies、H.H. Brown Shoes 和 Nebraska Furniture Mart 等较小型公司。
In 1994, Forbes Magazine listed Warren Buffett as the second-richest man in America — but he’s famous for far more than just his wealth. His common sense approach to business decision-making is widely admired both for its wit and its wisdom.
1994 年，Forbes Magazine 将 Warren Buffett 列为美国第二富有的人——但他的名声绝不止于财富。他在商业决策中的常识方法因其幽默与睿智而广受推崇。
In what follows, you’ll hear about how he chooses companies to buy, about his views on predicting the stock market, and about some of his favorite people — including Rose Blumkin, the 101-year-old founder of the Nebraska Furniture Mart. The format is the one he enjoys the most: a dialogue with a group of students who are invited to throw at him any questions that they’d like.
接下来，你将听到他如何选择要买入的公司、他对预测股市的看法，以及他最喜欢的一些人物——包括 Nebraska Furniture Mart 101 岁的创始人 Rose Blumkin。形式是他最喜欢的：与一群学生对话，学生们可以向他抛出任何他们想问的问题。
He begins with a story about near disaster in the financial world. It happened when the top management at the huge Wall Street securities firm, Salomon Brothers, in which Berkshire Hathaway held a stake1, was forced to resign after a treasury bond trading scandal2. Mr. Buffett stepped in as chairman and his first challenge was to find the right man to run the highly-leveraged company — and fast!
他先讲了一个关于金融世界险些酿成灾难的故事。那起事件发生于华尔街大型证券公司 Salomon Brothers（Berkshire Hathaway 持有其股份）因一桩国债交易丑闻而导致高层被迫辞职。Buffett 先生出任董事长，他面对的第一个挑战，是要迅速找到合适的人来管理这家高杠杆公司——而且要快！
Warren Buffett: I really had a lesson on employment a few years ago. When, on August 14 of 1991, I got a phone call at a quarter of seven in the morning. It was the top management of Salomon and they told me, essentially, that the head of the Fed of New York — who was the most powerful man in finance, basically — [had] told them that the top management [of Salomon] was unacceptable and, that therefore, they were going to offer their resignations and there was no one there to run the place.
Warren Buffett：几年前，我在用人方面确实上了一课。1991 年 8 月 14 日清晨六点一刻，我接到一个电话。打来的是 Salomon 的高层，他们基本上告诉我，New York 联邦储备银行的负责人——基本上是金融界最有权势的人——已告知他们，Salomon 的最高管理层不可接受，因此他们将递交辞呈，而公司无人可主持大局。
That was a matter of some concern because, at the time, Salomon had balance sheet totals of $150 billion, of which about $4 billion was equity and the other $146 billion was owed to someone else. That was the largest amount owed by any American corporation — except for Citicorp — at that time. It was larger than the liabilities of the Prudential Insurance Company, larger than the liabilities of Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, American Express, whatever.
这让人非常忧心，因为当时 Salomon 的资产负债表总额为 1,500 亿美元，其中大约 40 亿美元是权益资本，其余 1,460 亿美元都欠着别人。那时这是除 Citicorp 之外，美国任何公司所欠的最大金额。它的负债规模大于 Prudential Insurance Company、大于 Bank of America、Merrill Lynch、American Express 等等的负债。
There was one problem about this $146 billion — a very high percentage of it came due within a few weeks.
这 1,460 亿美元有一个问题——其中很大一部分将在几周内到期。
And, so, that was the situation. I went back to New York that Friday and I met that evening — and this is where it may start getting relevant to this group…
所以，这就是当时的局势。那周五我回到 New York，当晚就见了人——从这里开始，或许会和你们有些相关……
One of the problems I was going to have the following week was that I needed someone to run the place. There were 8,000 people [working at Salomon] and this $150 billion balance sheet of assets and liabilities — and a complex business. Essentially, somebody had to be making decisions minute by minute about the operations because I was going to have to be dealing with regulators and legislators and people of that sort.
接下来一周我将面临的问题之一，就是需要有人来经营公司。那里有 8,000 名员工，这份 1,500 亿美元的资产负债表——以及复杂的业务。本质上，总得有人每时每刻做运营决策，因为我必须应对监管者、立法者以及类似的人。
I met twelve people — roughly twelve — that evening. A dozen or so. I probably knew four or five of them by sight and there were probably six or seven that I didn’t know, though I probably knew their names. As I interviewed these people, making what to me was the most important hire — by far — that I would ever have to make…
那天晚上我见了十二个人——大约十二个。一打左右。我可能只见过其中四五个人的面孔，另外六七个我没见过，但我大概知道他们的名字。在面试这些人时，我做的可以说是我一生中最重要的一次雇佣决定……
It may be of interest to you, [though] it may not be quite as dramatic when you get hired, but maybe some of the same things will be going through the mind of the person that’s looking at you [during your job interview process]. The good news is that I did not ask them their grades in business school. (Laughs) And the bad news, of course, is that I didn’t ask them if they had been to business school at all.
这或许对你们有意思，虽然你们被录用时场景没那么戏剧化，但面试你们的人脑子里可能也会闪过类似的念头。好消息是，我没有问他们商学院的成绩（笑）。而坏消息是，我甚至没问他们是否读过商学院。
I never looked at a resume. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I knew that all twelve had the IQ to handle the job. No one had gotten to that position in the firm without being smart enough to know all the instruments and know how markets work and all of that sort of thing. It wasn’t a question of IQ at all.
我从没看过简历。那也没什么区别。我知道这十二个人都有足够的智商胜任工作。在那家公司，没有人能爬到那个位置，而不聪明到能了解各种工具、理解市场如何运作等等。这完全不是智商的问题。
It’s just sort of hearing how their [mental] machinery works. You can tell the people who are very full of themselves. It’s very easy to do. You find a few of those in investment banking, believe it or not. (Laughs) You can probably detect, perhaps, the ones who won’t have the courage in a situation like that.
关键是听一听他们头脑的“运转方式”。你能看出哪些人满脑子都是自己。这很容易。信不信由你，在投行里你能发现一些这样的人（笑）。你或许也能分辨出，在那种情况下哪些人不会有勇气。
I wanted the qualities, the same thing Ben Franklin wrote about a couple of hundred years ago, the people who are always willing to give the other person more credit than themselves and who don’t cut corners and who deliver all they promise — and a little extra. Essentially, I was very lucky because I found that individual: a fellow named Deryck Maughan.
我想要的品质，正是 Ben Franklin 几百年前写到的：那些总是愿意把功劳多归于他人、不走捷径、兑现所有承诺——还额外多给一点的人。总之，我很幸运找到了这样的人：一个叫 Deryck Maughan 的人。
The next day, the board met and we had a lot of complications that day. We had a group of about 200 reporters — probably about this size — in an auditorium who had come in on Sunday to cover this story. They assembled at about 2:30 p.m. and I walked out of the directors meeting at about a quarter to three — it was late because of other problems — and there these twelve were and I just walked up to Deryck and I tapped him on the chest and I said, “You’re it, pal.”
第二天董事会开会，那天我们有许多棘手的问题。当时有大约 200 名记者——大概就这么多——在一个礼堂里，他们星期天就赶来报道这件事。大约下午 2:30 他们集合，我大约 2:45 才从董事会出来——因为其他问题耽搁了——十二个人都在那儿，我径直走到 Deryck 面前，拍了拍他的胸口，说：“伙计，就是你了。”
We went right down to the auditorium and 200 or so reporters fired questions at him for three hours while he sat up at the podium with about two minutes’ notice that he was going to be running the firm.
我们随即走进礼堂，约 200 名记者向他连发了三个小时的问题，而他几乎只提前两分钟才知道自己将要负责这家公司，就坐在台上应答。
A month later, Deryck Maughan never had asked me what he was getting paid. The question of his salary had never come up. Forget about stock options or anything like that. It never came up. He just walked right up, never said a word about it, and took on the job. He worked eighteen hour days for months and months and months. He showed uncanny judgment about what to bring up to me and what not to bring up to me. All sorts of things like that.
一个月后，Deryck Maughan 依旧从未问过自己拿多少薪水。工资的问题根本没出现过，更别提股票期权之类的。他从没提过，直接就接手了工作。他连续几个月每天工作 18 小时。他对哪些问题该向我汇报、哪些问题不该惊动我，展现了非凡的判断力。诸如此类的事情很多。
I often use this illustration [when speaking to] a class. I say to them, “If you looked under your seat today and one of you had this lucky ticket and the one who got that ticket got to pick one of their classmates — you’ve been together for a couple of years and you could pick any one you want — if you had an hour to make the decision and you would get 10% of the earnings of that individual for the rest of their life, [who would you pick]?”
我经常在课堂上用这个例子。我会对学生说：“如果今天你们座位底下有一张幸运票，谁拿到票就可以挑选一个同学——你们已经相处了几年，可以选任何一个人——你有一小时做决定，并且从此以后能获得这个人一生收入的 10%，你会选谁？”
You don’t pick the guy with the richest father. We’ll assume that everybody’s starting from scratch.
你不会选那个父亲最有钱的人。我们假设大家都是从零开始。
But what would you think about, in that hour, in terms of who you’d pick? Would you think about who had the highest grades in the class? Probably not. Would you think about who had the highest IQ? Probably not. The best looking? Probably not.
但在那一小时里，你会思考什么来决定挑谁？会考虑谁成绩最高吗？大概不会。会考虑谁智商最高吗？大概不会。长得最好看？也大概不会。
A whole bunch of things would go through your mind — and I think you’d be amazed at how most of you would settle on a relatively few individuals.
你脑子里会闪过许多因素——我想你会惊讶，大多数人最后都会集中挑选相对少数的几个人。
But the interesting thing is that, when you think about what is going through your mind, you’re not thinking about things that are impossible for you to achieve yourself. You’re not thinking about who can jump seven feet, who can throw a football 65 yards, who can recite pi to 300 digits, or whatever it may be. You’re thinking about a whole bunch of qualities of character — and the truth is that every one of those qualities is obtainable. They are largely a matter of habit.
但有趣的是，当你思考这些因素时，你想的并不是那些自己不可能做到的事。你不会考虑谁能跳过七英尺，谁能把橄榄球扔 65 码，谁能背出圆周率 300 位等等。你想的是一堆品格上的品质——而事实是，这些品质每个人都可以获得。它们在很大程度上是习惯问题。
Ben Franklin — and, actually, my old boss Ben Graham… Ben Graham, when he was twelve years old, wrote down all the qualities that he admired in other people — and he wrote down the qualities that he found objectionable. He looked at that list and there wasn’t anything there about being able to run the 100-yard dash in 9.6 [seconds] or high jumping seven feet.
Ben Franklin——实际上，还有我以前的老板 Ben Graham……Ben Graham 在 12 岁时就写下了他欣赏的所有品质——以及他厌恶的品质。他看着那张清单，里面没有任何一条是关于 9.6 秒跑完 100 码，或跳过七英尺。
They were all things that were simply a matter of deciding whether you were going to be that kind of person or not. When you’re young, you really have that opportunity. As you get older, it’s tougher. Somebody said that the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken. And, in terms of behavior, I see that all the time. The time to form the right habits is very early. The right habits, the habits that you would admire in someone else and [that make you] want to buy 10% of whatever individual that is, they’re absolutely obtainable.
它们全都是只需决定你是否要成为那种人的事。当你年轻时，真有这个机会。随着年纪增长，就更难了。有人说过，习惯的枷锁轻到无法察觉时，等你能感觉到时，它们已经重到无法打破。而在行为方面，我经常看到这一点。培养正确习惯的时间就在早期。那些你会在别人身上欣赏、会让你愿意买下其 10% 的好习惯，完全可以自己获得。
If you had to sell short one other member of your class and you had to pay 10% of their earnings, again, you wouldn’t pick the person with the lowest grades. You’d think about the person who always cut corners or claimed credit for things that they didn’t do and never showed up on time. All these little things that seem like nothing, but they determine whether if you have a 300 horsepower motor, whether you get 300 horsepower output out of it or whether you get a whole lot less.
如果你必须做空班上某个同学，并且得支付他收入的 10%，你依然不会选成绩最低的那个人。你会想到那个总是偷工减料、抢占他人功劳、从不准时出现的人。这些看似微不足道的小事，决定了如果你有一台 300 马力的引擎，是能输出 300 马力，还是远远不及。
The people I see that function well are not necessarily the people with the biggest motors, but they’re the people with the most efficient motors. And it’s those qualities of character that really make an enormous difference.
我看到那些表现出色的人，不一定是引擎马力最大的人，而是效率最高的人。而真正产生巨大差异的，就是这些品格上的品质。
What I would suggest to you is to think about that person who you would buy 10% of and the one you’d short 10% of — and think about why you would do it. Then ask yourself, “What on this lefthand side of the list can’t I achieve myself?” and “What on the righthand side of the list can’t I get rid of by myself if I possess it?” In the end, decide you’re going to be the [kind of] person that you’d buy the 10% of.
我建议你们思考：你会买谁的 10%，会做空谁的 10%，再想想为什么。然后问自己：“这张清单左边的优点，有哪一条是我自己做不到的？”“这张清单右边的缺点，如果我有，又有什么是我改不掉的？”最终，决定成为那个你愿意买下 10% 的人。
That’s enough of the sermon — I’d like to answer questions now. And, really, the nastier they are, the better I like it. It’s much more fun and makes it more interesting.
布道就说到这里——现在我想回答问题。老实说，问题越尖锐，我越喜欢。这会更有趣，也更吸引人。
UNC Student: It sounds like your and Charlie Munger’s analysis of companies is very back of the envelope. Can you just tell us about the financial analysis that you do on companies — whether it be like Rose Blumkin’s [Nebraska] Furniture Mart or Coca-Cola?
UNC 学生：听起来你和 Charlie Munger 对公司的分析非常简洁。能不能具体讲讲你们对公司的财务分析——比如 Rose Blumkin 的 [Nebraska] Furniture Mart 或者 Coca-Cola？
WB: Those are two good examples. The Furniture Mart in Omaha, it’s going to do — at one location — $230 million of business [this year]. It’s more than twice as much business as any other single-store furniture operation in the country. It’s not really run by [Mrs. B] now, but she’s still the spiritual head of the place.
WB：这两个都是很好的例子。Omaha 的 Furniture Mart，今年将在一个地点做到 2.3 亿美元的生意。这比全美任何一家单店家具业务都要多出一倍以上。虽然现在 [Mrs. B] 已不真正负责经营，但她依然是那里的精神领袖。
A woman named Rose Blumkin is going to be 101 years of age in December. She came over here and landed in Seattle with a tag around her neck and couldn’t speak a word of English. The Red Cross got her to Iowa first and then she came over and started the store — after bringing over seven siblings and her mother and father from Russia.
一位名叫 Rose Blumkin 的女士今年 12 月将满 101 岁。她当年来到美国，落脚 Seattle，脖子上挂着名牌，一句英语也不会说。Red Cross 先把她送到 Iowa，然后她再过来创办了这家商店——在此之前她还把七个兄弟姐妹以及父母从 Russia 接了过来。
She started the store with $500 and now has a store that does $230 million. She works seven days a week. She’s working as we talk [and] she’ll be working Sunday. An amazing woman.
她用 500 美元起家，现在有一家每年做到 2.3 亿美元的商店。她每周工作七天。就在我们说话的时候，她还在工作，[到]星期天也还会继续。真是位了不起的女性。
She put all these people out of business and the punchline is that she can’t read or write. Her business will make $22-23 million pre-tax this year. If you told her this room was 47’ x 38’, she would tell you how many square yards that is — in her head — and extend it out at $5.98 a yard and add the sales tax and knock off something because she liked you. It is a real story.
她让其他人都倒闭了，而关键是她既不会读也不会写。今年她的生意能带来 2,200 万到 2,300 万美元的税前利润。如果你告诉她这个房间是 47 x 38 英尺，她会在脑子里算出是多少平方码，再乘以每码 5.98 美元，加上销售税，然后因为喜欢你还会少收一点。这完全是真实的故事。
I would say, incidentally, on something like that, that’s all the analysis you need.
顺带一提，像那样的情况，你所需要的分析就到此为止了。
If you can buy into a business that’s run by somebody or with their family that runs it that way, [do it]. Our total legal and accounting fees in buying that business were $1,400 and it was a one-page contract to just affirm that she owned the place and that I was going to get good title. There was no audit. I never looked to see what the real estate records were on sixty acres in Omaha or anything of the sort. I just knew that anything she said was so — and you feel very comfortable buying a business like that.
如果你能买下一家由某个人或其家族以那种方式经营的企业，就去做。我们买下那家企业的全部法律和审计费用是 1,400 美元，合同只有一页，只是确认她拥有该店而我将获得良好的产权。没有审计。我从未去查 Omaha 那 60 英亩地产的产权记录或类似东西。我只知道她说的都算数——买这样的企业，你会非常踏实。
I think any good investment idea, probably, can be put in one paragraph.
我认为，任何好的投资想法，大概都能用一个段落讲清楚。
Now, there are all kinds of investment ideas that I’m not going to be able to understand. I believe very strongly — as does Mrs. B (as Rose Blumkin is called) — in operating within what I call my circle of competence. The most important thing in terms of your circle of competence is not how large the area of it is — it’s how well you’ve defined the perimeter. If you know where the edges are, you’re way better off than somebody that’s got one that’s five times as large but they get very fuzzy around the edges.
当然，也有各种我无法理解的投资点子。我非常坚信——就像 Mrs. B（Rose Blumkin 的称呼）一样——要在我所谓的能力圈内行事。关于你的能力圈，最重要的不是它有多大——而是你把边界划得有多清楚。如果你知道边缘在哪里，你就远胜于那个号称能力圈大五倍、但边缘一片模糊的人。
I can understand some kinds of simple businesses. I can’t understand complicated businesses. Coca-Cola is about 110 years old now and selling 750 million eight-ounce servings of products a day around the world. Per capita consumption [is] going up in virtually every country in the world after that 110 years or so. It has 47% of the soft drink consumption throughout the world outside the United States — 41% in the United States — and gaining share every year.
我能理解某些简单的生意，无法理解复杂的生意。Coca-Cola 现在大约有 110 年历史了，每天在全球卖出 7.5 亿份 8 盎司的产品。经过这 110 年左右，人均消费几乎在世界所有国家都在增长。它在美国以外的全球软饮消费中占 47%，在美国占 41%，而且每年都在提升份额。
It isn’t very complicated. You have to decide whether it’s a product that is somewhat durable, which I think has been illustrated; whether the appeal is universal, which it certainly is; and, then, whether you have honest and competent management running it, which you most certainly do.
这并不复杂。你需要判断它是不是一种具有某种耐久性的产品——我认为这点已经得到证明；它的吸引力是否是普世的——显然是；然后，是否由诚实且能干的管理层经营——也确实如此。
Peter Lynch has always said [to] buy a business that’s so good that any idiot can run it — because, sooner or later, one will. Well, we would like to buy a business like that and then we’d like a terrific guy running it. We had two terrific people at Coke running it.
Peter Lynch 总是说，要买“好到连傻瓜都能经营”的企业——因为迟早会有傻瓜来经营。嗯，我们愿意买这样的企业，然后再配上一个极棒的管理者。Coke 就有两位极其出色的人在掌舵。
All we’re trying to do is try and find businesses we think we can understand, where we like the people running them, and where the price makes sense in relation to the future economics. When I find that, I like to buy a lot of it and keep it. They’re hard enough to find that I don’t believe in selling them very often because it’s hard to find replacements.
我们所做的一切，就是去寻找我们认为能理解的企业，我们喜欢其管理团队，且价格相对于未来经济状况合理。一旦找到，我就会买很多并长期持有。这样的标的本就难寻，我不赞成频繁卖出，因为很难找到替代品。
UNC Student: How do you know when to sell a business? When is it time to do that?
UNC 学生：你怎么判断什么时候该卖出一家公司？在什么时点该做这件事？
WB: The answer about selling a really great business is never.
WB：对于是否应该卖出一家真正伟大的企业，答案是——永远不要。
If you sell off something that is a really wonderful business because the price looks a little high or something like that, it’s almost always a mistake. It took me a long time to learn that — and I haven’t fully learned it yet — but it’s rare that it makes sense [to sell a wonderful business]. If you really believe that the long-term economics of the business are terrific, it’s very rare that it makes any sense to sell it.
如果你因为价格看起来有点高之类的理由卖掉一家真正优秀的企业，几乎总是错误的。我花了很久才学会这点——而且还没完全学会——但很少有卖出优秀企业是合理的情形。如果你真正相信这家企业的长期经济性极佳，几乎没有卖出的道理。
Now, if you get into some technology company or something where five guys are out in a garage someplace doing something that’s going to change the whole industry, that’s beyond me anyway. If you try to jump from flower to flower among groups like that, I think you probably have to because I’m not sure that you can pick permanent winners.
当然，如果你涉足某些科技公司，五个人在车库里搞出点可能颠覆行业的东西——那无论如何超出我的理解。如果你在这类群体之间从一朵花跳到另一朵花，我想你恐怕不得不如此，因为我不确定你能挑出永久的赢家。
But I would say that if you keep it very simple… We own a lot of Gillette, for example. There are 20-21 billion razor blades used in the world a year. 30% of those are Gillettes, but 60% by value are Gillettes. They have 90% marketshare in some countries in Scandinavia and Mexico.
但我会说，只要你保持足够简单……比如我们持有很多 Gillette。全球每年使用 200-210 亿片剃须刀片，其中 30% 来自 Gillette，但按价值算 60% 是 Gillette。在斯堪的纳维亚和 Mexico 的一些国家，他们的市场份额达到 90%。
Now, when something’s been around as long as shaving and you find a company that has that kind of both innovative power in terms of developing better razors all the time plus the distribution power and the position in people’s minds — for an item that only costs $20 a year. Here’s something you do every day — I hope you do it every day — and, for $20 a year, you get a terrific shaving experience. Men are not inclined to shift around a lot when they get that kind of a situation.
像剃须这样历史悠久的事情，如果你发现一家公司既能不断创新出更好的剃刀，又拥有强大的分销能力与深植人心的品牌地位——而这类商品一年只花 20 美元。剃须是你每天都会做的事——我希望你每天都做——而每年 20 美元就能获得极佳体验。男人在这种情况下不太会四处更换品牌。
Who new has come into the blade market? Wilkinson, thirty years ago, had a shot for a period like that snaps fingers but they didn’t take advantage of it with a stainless steel blade. It’s not going to change a lot. I like businesses where I think I know what it’s going to look like in 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years. I think I know what Gillette will look like and I think I know what Coke will look like.
最近谁进入了刀片市场？三十年前，Wilkinson 曾有过那样一个机会**（打响指）**，但他们没有借不锈钢刀片把握住。这个格局不会有太多变化。我喜欢那种五年、十年、十五年、二十年后会是什么样，我大概能看得见的生意。我想我知道 Gillette 会是什么样，也知道 Coke 会是什么样。
For one thing, you go to bed feeling very comfortable, just thinking of two-and-a-half billion males with hair growing while you sleep. No one at Gillette has trouble sleeping.
仅此一点就让你睡得很香：想到当你睡觉时，全球 25 亿男性的胡子都在生长。Gillette 的人睡觉从不发愁。
That’s the beauty of the investment business. I don’t have to be right on all of these companies that I don’t understand. I don’t have to be right on Oracle Systems or Microsoft or DuPont. I just have to be right on one decision a year. It’s a beautiful business that way.
这就是投资这门生意的美妙之处。我不必在那些我不懂的公司上都做对。我不必在 Oracle Systems、Microsoft 或 DuPont 上都正确。我一年只要在一个决策上做对就够了。这门生意的美就在这里。
I was in the department store business for a while — don’t ask me why — but I was in it and if my competitor air-conditioned, I had to air condition. If my competitor offered 18-month terms instead of 12-month terms, I had to offer [the same thing]. If he put in an escalator, I had to put in [an escalator]. All of those were defensive decisions. I had to make those [decisions] like that snaps fingers. He was throwing pitches at me and I had to swing — no matter whether the ball was good or not.
我曾经做过一阵子百货商店生意——别问我为什么——但我确实干过。如果竞争对手装了空调，我也得装。如果他把分期从 12 个月改成 18 个月，我也得跟。如果他装了自动扶梯，我也得装。这些全是防守性的决策。我必须这样**（打响指）**做决定。他不断向我投球，我不得不挥棒——不管那球好不好。
大量的竞争，美团、京东、阿里都是这种防守性的决策。
In investments, there’s no such thing as a called strike.
在投资里，没有“被判好球却不挥棒”的说法。
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— very rich because you would think about every single one you made. And, when you knew enough to make a decision, you would do it on a big scale.
——会非常富有，因为你会认真考虑自己做出的每一笔决策。而当你了解得足够多可以做出决定时，你会大手笔地去做。
Buying businesses on Wall Street is so easy — you can buy one at 10:00 and sell it at 10:05. You can become a part-owner of General Electric at 10:10. The very ease with which that can be done causes people to do a lot of things that don’t make a lot of sense — but most of the fortunes have been made in relatively few securities and ones that were held for a very long time and ones that the buyer understood.
在华尔街买企业太容易了——你可以在 10:00 买入，10:05 卖出。你可以在 10:10 成为 General Electric 的部分所有者。正因为如此轻松，才让人们做了许多并不明智的事情——但大多数财富，都是来自相对少数的证券、被长期持有、且买家真正理解的那些标的。
UNC Student: You invest in companies with managers that you like and trust and admire. I’d like to know who you like and trust and admire in politics and business today?
UNC 学生：你投资于那些你喜欢、信任并敬佩其管理者的公司。我想知道在当今的政治和商业领域，你喜欢、信任并敬佩的是谁？
WB: In business, I can tell you that there’s nobody that I admire more than the CEO of Cap Cities, Tom Murphy.
WB：在商业领域，我可以告诉你，没有谁比 Cap Cities 的 CEO，Tom Murphy 更让我敬佩。
I admire Roberto Goizueta and Don Keough, who retired recently, but they were one of the great two-manager combinations in the history of business at Coke. They took the market value from $5 billion to now $60 billion in a matter of eleven or twelve years.
我敬佩 Roberto Goizueta 和 Don Keough，他最近退休了，但他们在 Coke 是商业史上伟大的“双人组合”之一。他们在十一二年间，把市值从 50 亿提升到如今的 600 亿。
Tom Murphy worked with Dan Burke18 — a tremendous combination.
Tom Murphy 与 Dan Burke搭档——是极其出色的组合。
It’s a business I don’t know anything about, but I admire Bill Gates enormously. I know him individually and I think he’s incredible in business.
那是一个我并不了解的行业，但我非常敬佩 Bill Gates。我私下认识他，我认为他在商业上令人难以置信。
I only believe in working with people I like. We have a very small office — we have maybe ten or eleven people there.
我只相信与我喜欢的人一起工作。我们的办公室很小——大概只有十来个人。
I think it’s crazy to take a job or work with people that cause your stomach to churn and keep you up at night. If you’re in a job like that, think about changing it. I’ve said that working with people you don’t like in business is really like marrying for money, which is probably a bad idea under any circumstances — but it’s crazy if you’re already rich. (Laughs)
我觉得干一份让你胃里翻腾、晚上睡不着的工作，或与这样的人共事，是很疯狂的。如果你身处这样的工作，考虑换掉它。我说过，在商业中和你不喜欢的人共事，就像为了钱而结婚，这在任何情况下可能都是个坏主意——如果你已经有钱，那就更疯狂了（笑）。
I just work with people I like. I tap dance every day to work. I’m with people that I think are terrific. I admire them.
我只和我喜欢的人一起工作。我每天“踢踏着”去上班。我和那些我认为很棒的人在一起。我敬佩他们。
Some student at Harvard asked me, in a talk last year, “Who should I go to work with?” I said, “Go to work for whomever you admire the most.” I got a call from the Dean about two weeks later and he said, “What did you tell these kids? They’re all becoming self-employed.” (Laughs)
去年在 Harvard，有个学生问我：“我该跟谁一起工作？”我说：“去为你最敬佩的人工作。”大约两周后院长打电话给我说：“你跟这些孩子说了什么？他们都要自雇了（笑）。”
Host: Berkshire Hathaway is currently the most expensive stock that trades on the New York Stock Exchange. When Mr. Buffett was in Chapel Hill in October of 1994, the stock was trading for around $20,000 per share. After a best-selling book19 on Mr. Buffett was published, the share price pushed above $25,000 in the early part of 1995.
Host：Berkshire Hathaway 目前是 New York Stock Exchange 上交易价格最高的股票。1994 年 10 月 Buffett 先生在 Chapel Hill 时，这只股票约每股 20,000 美元。一本关于 Buffett 先生的畅销书出版后，股价在 1995 年初突破了 25,000 美元。
He’s often asked about his views on splitting the stock and, in the next section, he gives an answer that illustrates his overall approach to investing.
人们经常问他对股票拆分的看法。在接下来的部分，他给出的回答，体现了他整体的投资方法。
UNC Student: I would love to buy a share of Berkshire Hathaway, but unfortunately my cashflow is a little tight now.
UNC 学生：我很想买一股 Berkshire Hathaway，但不幸的是，我现在现金流有点紧。
WB: We’ve got a loan company, too. (Laughs)
WB：我们还有家贷款公司呢（笑）。
UNC Student: Have you considered splitting the stock?
UNC 学生：你考虑过拆分股票吗？
WB: I get asked that occasionally.
WB：我偶尔会被这样问到。
I’ve got a philosophy about shareholders. Essentially, if you’re a public company, anybody can become your partner in the business. If I was going to decide to build a motel here or start a mini steelworks or something, I could invite 10-12 people to be my partners and I would be sure that they’d be compatible with me because I’d select them and they’d select me.
我对股东有一套理念。基本上，如果你是一家公众公司，任何人都可以成为你生意里的合伙人。如果我决定在这里建一家汽车旅馆，或开一间小型钢厂之类的，我可以邀请 10 到 12 个人做我的合伙人，而且我能确保他们和我契合，因为是我挑他们、他们也挑我。
In a private business, a private partnership, you should get a good relationship among the owners because they have a chance to sit down and decide who wants to be associated with whom.
在一家私营企业、私募合伙里，所有者之间应当有良好的关系，因为他们可以坐下来决定想和谁成为伙伴。
But, in a public company, anybody can buy or sell. You can have anybody [buy in]. The only qualification is money, which — as you mentioned — is sometimes a limiting factor.
但在一家公众公司，任何人都可以买卖。任何人都可以买入。唯一的资格就是钱，而钱——正如你提到的——有时是个限制因素。
At Berkshire, I want to get people as shareholders, as partners of mine, who have got the same expectations, the same time horizons, the same methods of measurement that I have. It’s crazy to go into business with somebody that’s got entirely different expectations than you have. The only way I can affect that — since anybody can buy it — is by my communications and policies. I will try to follow policies and I will try to communicate with the people who are my partners (or my would-be partners) so that the right kind of people, in terms of expectation, [buy the shares].
在 Berkshire，我希望吸引成为股东、成为我合伙人的人，他们与我有相同的预期、相同的时间跨度、相同的衡量方法。与预期完全不同的人一起做生意是疯狂的。既然任何人都可以买，我唯一能影响的方式，就是通过我的沟通与政策。我会努力坚持这些政策，并与我的合伙人（或潜在合伙人）沟通，使之在预期层面属于“合适的人”来买入股份。
I don’t mean the right kind of people that they’re necessarily the people you’d want to have at a cocktail party or something, but the people who are going to be happy when I’m happy with results and are going to be unhappy when I’m unhappy.
我所谓“合适的人”，并不是指那些一定适合参加你鸡尾酒会的人，而是当我对结果满意时他们也会开心、当我不满意时他们也会不开心的那类人。
We could stick a sign outside this hall tonight and we could put “Rock Concert” on it and we’d have one kind of crowd come in. We could put “Ballet” and we would have a somewhat different kind of crowd come in. Both crowds are fine, but it’s a terrible mistake to put “Rock Concert” out there if you’re going to have a ballet — or vice versa.
今晚我们可以在大厅外面竖个牌子，写上“Rock Concert”，进来的会是一种观众；也可以写“Ballet”，进来的会是另一种观众。两种观众都很好，但如果你要上演的是芭蕾却挂了“Rock Concert”的牌子——反之亦然——那是个可怕的错误。
The only way I have of sticking a sign on Berkshire, as to the kind of place I’m asking people to enter, is through the communications and policies. Splitting the stock is a relatively minor item in that, but essentially I would rather have people as owners that expect to own it for the rest of their lives. Ideally, I don’t want anybody to think about selling it next week or next month or next year. They may change their mind — and that’s fine — but I really want them to go in with the idea that they’re going into partnership with me for the rest of their lives.20
我唯一能在 Berkshire 门口“挂牌”的方式——即我邀请人们进入的是什么样的地方——就是通过沟通与政策。拆股在这其中只是个相对次要的事项，但本质上我更愿意让那些期望持有到生命尽头的人来当所有者。理想状态下，我不希望任何人想着下周、下月或明年就卖掉。当然他们可能会改变主意——那没关系——但我真正希望的是，他们以与我“共度余生的合伙人”的理念走进来。
If they’re buying because they think the stock is going to be spread 50 for 1 or because they think the earnings are going to be up next quarter or something like that, they’re not terrible people — but they are going to change their mind after they get into the hall and they’re going to think this is the wrong kind of place.
如果他们买入是因为以为股票会 1 拆 50，或者以为下个季度盈利会大增之类的理由，他们并不是“坏人”——但等他们走进这座“大厅”后就会改变主意，并觉得这里不适合他们。
All the seats are going to be occupied. That’s the nature of the stock market. All the shares of General Motors or Berkshire Hathaway or General Electric are going to be owned by somebody — and it makes sense, in my view, to follow policies that get people that are as close to you on objectives and expectations as you can have.
所有座位都会被占满。这就是股市的本质。General Motors、Berkshire Hathaway 或 General Electric 的每一股，都会有人持有——而在我看来，采取能让持有人在目标与预期上尽可能接近你的政策，是有道理的。
By not splitting, we have eliminated… We’ve eliminated some people we wouldn’t like to eliminate, but we’ve also eliminated all the kind of people who are basically interested in trading stocks actively. That’s a good group from my standpoint.
通过不拆股，我们已经剔除了……我们也许剔除了一些并不想剔除的人，但我们同时也剔除了那些基本上只对积极炒股感兴趣的所有人。从我的角度看，那是值得剔除的一群。
The New York Stock Exchange is not wild about it because we have, by far, the lowest turnover relative to capitalization of any stock on the exchange. To me, that’s terrific. If I had a club or if I was preaching in a church, I would not measure my success by how frequent the turnover of the congregation was or the club membership would be. I would really like the idea that nobody wanted to leave their seats so there wasn’t any seat available for someone else.
New York Stock Exchange 并不太喜欢这一点，因为在整个交易所里，我们相对于市值的换手率是最低的。对我来说，这太棒了。如果我经营一个俱乐部，或者在教堂讲道，我不会以会众流动性有多高、会员更替有多频繁来衡量我的成功。我真正喜欢的是，没有人想离开自己的座位，以至于没有空位留给别人。
UNC Student: I was wondering if you could share a story with us about one of your investing non-successes —
UNC 学生：我想请你分享一个并不成功的投资案例——
WB: Let’s call ‘em failures.
WB：直接叫它们“失败”吧。
UNC Student: (Laughs) — and maybe why it failed and some of the lessons you learned from that failure?
UNC 学生：（笑）——以及为什么失败、还有你从中汲取的教训？
WB: I make more mistakes when I have a lot of cash around. I think my decision-making acuity fades with extra cash because there’s more of a compulsion to do something when you’re sitting around with cash than if you have to either sell something or maybe borrow money — although we’re not big on borrowed money. I would say that that’s been one causal factor over the years.
WB：当我手头现金很多时，我犯的错误更多。我觉得当手上有多余现金时，我的决策敏锐度会降低，因为持有现金时总有一种“该做点什么”的冲动，而当你必须卖点东西或甚至借点钱（尽管我们一向不热衷借钱）时，这种冲动反而小。我会说，多年来这是一个成因。
Fortunately, most of the time I haven’t had much cash around so it hasn’t been a major problem, but it has caused me [to make mistakes]. I’d like to think that’s what caused it. Maybe it’s just plain stupidity at the time.
幸运的是，大多数时候我手头并没有太多现金，所以这不算是个大问题，但它确实让我犯过错。我愿意把原因归结为它——或许那时就是单纯的愚蠢。
It’s interesting, I made a study back when I ran a partnership21 with all of our large investments — or larger investments…
有意思的是，我在管理合伙基金的时候，曾对我们所有的大额投资——或较大投资——做过一番研究……
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We’ve generally not had large losses relative to capital. The largest loss we’ve ever had, either in the partnership or in Berkshire, probably was 2% of net worth. The nature of not doing very many things and being careful about them probably will keep you from making big errors of commission.
总体上，我们相对于资本并没有遭遇很大的亏损。无论在合伙基金还是在 Berkshire，我们经历过的最大损失大概是净值的 2%。少做事、把事情做得更谨慎的这种特性，大概能避免你犯下重大的“作为之错”。
Now, errors of omission are the ones that are the big sins. I’ve got a thing in my report called “Mistake Du Jour” and I manage to come up with one every year, too.22
而“遗漏之错”才是大罪。我在报告里有个栏目叫“当日之错（Mistake Du Jour）”，而且我每年都能凑出一条来。
I started out to buy Fannie Mae, for example, back in 1988 or so, and — for one reason or another, I just didn’t follow through23. We’d have made about $1.5 billion on that and I think we made about $5 million. Those are the mistakes you don’t see. The mistakes you don’t see, in our case, are way bigger than the mistakes that you see.
比如，我大概在 1988 年开始买 Fannie Mae，但由于种种原因，我没有把这事做到底。要是做了，我们大概能赚 15 亿美元，而我记得我们只赚了大约 500 万。这些就是你看不见的错误。对我们来说，看不见的错误，远比看得见的错误要大得多。
We owned 5% of The Walt Disney Company in 1966. The whole Walt Disney Company was selling for $80 million in 1966, debt free. $4 million bought us 5% of the company. They spent $17 million on the Pirates [of the Caribbean] ride in 1966. Here was a company selling for less than 5x rides — and they had a lot of rides. I mean, that is cheap.
1966 年我们持有 The Walt Disney Company 5% 的股份。1966 年整家 Walt Disney Company 的市值只有 8,000 万美元，而且没有负债。我们用 400 万就买了 5%。他们在 1966 年为 Pirates［of the Caribbean］的项目花了 1,700 万。也就是说，这家公司按项目估值不到 5 倍——而他们的项目很多。我的意思是，这太便宜了。
The knock on it on Wall Street was that they were earning a lot of money that year — it was Mary Poppins24 — and that there wasn’t anything coming next year.
华尔街对它的质疑在于：那一年他们赚了很多钱——是因为 Mary Poppins——而明年没有类似的东西了。
I remember I went to see Mary Poppins at a theater on Broadway and 45th at about two in the afternoon. I’ve got a little attache case and everything and I’m going to see Mary Poppins. I got up to this woman at the ticket booth and I said, “I’ve got a kid around here someplace that I’m taking [to the movie].” (Laughs) I was going to see if I thought this thing could be run over and over again in the future.
我记得那天大约下午两点，我去 Broadway 和 45 街的一家影院看 Mary Poppins。我还提着个小公文包之类的，去看 Mary Poppins。我走到售票窗口前，对那位女士说：“我有个孩子在附近，我带他来看电影。”（笑）我那是想看看这部片子将来能不能反复上演、一次又一次地赚钱。
Here they had two hundred and some films of one sort or another in the can at that point, they had 300 acres down in Anaheim with Disneyland drawing, at that time, 9 million people a year — and the whole place was selling for $80 million. So we bought 5% for $4 million.25
当时他们已经“库存”了两百多部各式各样的影片，在 Anaheim 还有 300 英亩地的 Disneyland，每年能吸引 900 万人——而整家公司只卖 8,000 万美元。所以我们花 400 万美元买了 5% 股权。
And the great news is we sold 5% for $6 million about a year later. That 5% now would be worth about $1 billion26. But you don’t see that. Conventional accounting doesn’t pick that up. That’s the kind of mistake I’ve made.
更妙的是，大约一年后我们把这 5% 以 600 万美元卖了。如今那 5% 大概值 10 亿美元。但这些你看不到。传统会计并不会呈现出来。这就是我犯过的那类错误。
UNC Student: What’s prompted you to make an investment in USAir, given the fact that this is such a cut-throat industry and certainly not transparent and easily understandable?
UNC 学生：既然航空业如此残酷竞争，而且并不透明、也不易理解，是什么促使你投资 USAir 的？
WB: Well, I think that probably the best answer is temporary insanity.27 (Laughs) The fellow who runs USAir is a wonderful guy, but he just happens to be in an extraordinarily tough business.
WB：嗯，我想最好的答案大概是“短暂性疯狂”（笑）。管理 USAir 的那位是个了不起的人，但他恰巧身处一门异常艰难的生意。
I’ve actually written something for Graham’s book in the early ‘70s about how the airline business was about the toughest business there was.
我在 70 年代初确实替 Graham 的书写过一段，谈到航空业几乎是最艰难的生意。
And the interesting thing is, if you go back to the time — and we’re in the right state for that — if you go back to the time of Kitty Hawk: net, the airline transport business in the United States has made no money. Just think if you’d been down there at Kitty Hawk28 and you’d seen this guy go up [in the air] and, all of a sudden, this vision hits you that tens of millions of people would be doing this all over the world someday and it would bring us all closer together. I mean, my god, this is something to be in on.
有趣的是，如果你回到——我们现在正好在这个州——回到 Kitty Hawk 的时候：从净结果看，美国的航空运输行业并没有赚钱。想象一下，如果你当年就在 Kitty Hawk，看到那个人飞上天，突然有个愿景击中了你：总有一天，全世界数以千万计的人都会这样飞行，这会让我们彼此更接近。我的天，这绝对值得参与。
And, despite putting in billions and billions and billions of dollars, the net return to owners from being in the entire airline industry — if you had owned it all and you had put up all this money — is less than zero. If there had been a capitalist down there [at Kitty Hawk], the guy should have shot down Wilbur. (Laughs) One small step for mankind and one huge step backwards for capitalism.
然而，尽管投入了成百上千亿美元，整个航空业带给所有者的净回报——假如你拥有整个行业并投入了所有这些钱——小于零。要是当时 Kitty Hawk 现场有个资本家，他本该把 Wilbur 打下来（笑）。这对人类是小小一步，对资本主义却是巨大的一步倒退。
So along comes 1989 and I’ve got a lot of cash. No one misled me in any way, shape, or form — this was 100% my decision — and I put money in [USAir].
到了 1989 年，我手上现金很多。没有任何人在任何形式上误导我——这 100% 是我的决定——我把钱投进了（USAir）。
Seth Schofield, you can’t find a better human being or manager than Seth Schofield29, but he is operating with revenues based on market factors and costs that are not based on market factors — and that’s a recipe for a lot of trouble.
Seth Schofield——你找不到比他更好的人或更好的经理人了——但他的收入受市场因素驱动，成本却不受市场因素驱动——这注定会带来大量麻烦。
I now have this 800 number and if I ever get the urge to buy an airline stock, I dial this number and I say, “My name is Warren and I’m an air-aholic,” and then this guy talks me down on the other end.
我现在有一个 800 热线号码，每当我有买航空股的冲动，我就拨这个号，说：“我叫 Warren，我是个‘航瘾者’。”然后那头就有人把我劝下来。
Host: Warren Buffett’s approach to investing removes the worry of predicting where the stock market is going to go. He simply pays no attention to it. In this next section, you’ll see why — and why he considers owning the stock the next best thing to owning the company. He also responds to student questions about recent trends in banking consolidation, about investing outside of the United States, and about how to judge the franchise value of a company.
Host：Warren Buffett 的投资方法，让你无需为预测股市走向而担忧。他干脆完全不去理会。在接下来的部分，你会明白原因——以及为什么他认为持有股票是仅次于拥有整家公司的一种选择。他还会回答学生们有关银行业整合趋势、美国以外的投资，以及如何判断公司“特许经营价值”的问题。
WB: I never think about what the stock market is going to do.
WB：我从不考虑股市会怎么走。
If Walt Disney had come to me in 1966 and it was a private company and he said, “Would you like to buy 5% of this company for $4 million?” I would not think about what the stock market was going to do. I would think about what I thought The Walt Disney Company was going to do over time.
如果 1966 年 Walt Disney 来找我，而那时公司是私有的，他说：“你愿意用 400 万美元买下本公司 5% 吗？”我不会去想股市会怎样走。我会考虑 The Walt Disney Company 长期会如何发展。
And if, in 1988, Roberto Goizueta — let’s say Coca-Cola had been private — and he had come to me and said, “Do you want to buy six-and-a-fraction percent of the Coca-Cola Company for $1 billion?” I would look at the Coca-Cola Company [and not the overall stock market].
再比如，1988 年，Roberto Goizueta——假设 Coca-Cola 也是私有的——来找我说：“你愿意花 10 亿美元买下 Coca-Cola Company 六点几的股权吗？”我会看 Coca-Cola Company（而不是整体股市）。
If something occurs to me to be intelligent to do, I’m not going to forego doing it because I (or anybody else) has an opinion about the stock market. If Alan Greenspan30 came up and whispered in my ear and said, “I think bonds are going to do this or that and, therefore, stocks are going to…” I wouldn’t pay any attention. Not because I don’t respect Alan Greenspan, it’s just that I’m not going to trade something I know how to do and give up something I know how to do because of some opinion about something I don’t know how to do.
如果某件事在我看来是明智之举，我不会因为我（或别人）对股市有何看法而放弃做它。即便 Alan Greenspan 走过来在我耳边低语：“我觉得债券会怎样怎样，因此股票会……”我也不会在意。这不是因为我不尊重 Alan Greenspan，而是我不会为了某个我并不擅长之事的观点，去放弃我擅长的事情。
I don’t know how to predict the stock market. I don’t know how to predict interest rates. I don’t know how to predict business.
我不会预测股市。我不会预测利率。我不会预测经济。
All I know is that if I buy the right kind of business at the right price with the right people, I’ll do well over time. In stocks, it’s very hard to know when something will happen — [but] it’s very easy to know what will happen.
我只知道，只要以合适的价格、与合适的人，一起买到合适的生意，时间会让我受益。在股票上，很难知道“何时”会发生什么——但“将会发生什么”却很容易知道。
We bought See’s Candies in 1972. That wouldn’t be familiar [to you] on the East Coast here, but it’s very dominant in boxed chocolates on the West Coast. It just so happened that the grandson of the founder wanted to sell the company. Now, I wouldn’t think about what the stock market is going to do when I try to decide whether to buy See’s chocolates. What I’m thinking about is whether Russell Stover can knock them out of the box or whether you can raise their prices periodically as you go along [or] how strong their hold is on people who are chocolate consumers in the west.
我们在 1972 年买下了 See’s Candies。这在 East Coast 这边你们可能不熟，但它在 West Coast 的盒装巧克力市场占据主导地位。正好创始人的孙子想卖掉公司。现在，当我决定要不要买 See’s 巧克力时，我不会去想股市会怎样走。我会考虑的是，Russell Stover 能否把它挤出市场，或者你是否可以随着时间推移定期涨价，以及他们在西部巧克力消费者中的粘性到底有多强。
If that’s my attitude toward buying 100% of a business like See’s, it’s also going to be my attitude toward buying 6% of a business like Coca-Cola. Why in the world should I pass up the chance [to invest in Coke because of macro concerns]?
如果这是我对买下像 See’s 这样 100% 股权的态度，那么买下像 Coca-Cola 这样 6% 股权时，我同样会这样想。为什么要因为宏观因素而放弃这样的机会呢？
Coca-Cola went public in 1919 at $40 a share. The Candler family had sold it. They sold it through, I guess it would have been then J.P. Morgan, [its] predecessor company, and The Trust Company of Georgia, which is now part of SunTrust. The fee was two-hundred-and-some thousand dollars for this $25 million offering. Morgan took theirs in cash and The Trust Company of Georgia took theirs in stock.
Coca-Cola 在 1919 年以每股 40 美元上市。Candler 家族把它卖了。他们通过当时的 J.P. Morgan（其前身公司）以及 Georgia 的 The Trust Company（如今是 SunTrust 的一部分）卖出。这笔 2,500 万美元的发行，承销费是二十多万美元。Morgan 拿现金，Georgia 的 The Trust Company 拿股票。
So you’ll see on the Trust Company of Georgia or SunTrust’s balance sheet a little item “Investment in Coca-Cola” with a cost of $110,000 that’s worth a little over $1 billion now.
所以你会在 Georgia 的 Trust Company 或 SunTrust 的资产负债表上看到一个小项目 “Investment in Coca-Cola”，账面成本是 11 万美元，如今价值刚刚超过 10 亿美元。
Subsequent to going public, the stock went down over 50%. That’s when Mr. Woodruff came back from Cleveland, where he was working with the White Motor Company — and they brought him back to run [Coca-Cola]. They had a problem with the bottlers because of some contractual arrangements. They had made a bad deal back in 1899 in terms of the original —
上市之后，这只股票下跌了 50% 多。那时 Woodruff 先生从 Cleveland 回来（他当时在 White Motor Company 工作）——他们把他请回来执掌公司。公司因为一些合同安排，在装瓶商那里遇到了问题。他们在 1899 年签下的最初协议，是一笔糟糕的交易——
[Glitch in video]
[视频卡顿]
— in two years whether the stock market will be higher or lower. I do know that there will be intelligent things to do between now and then. And if you see one, the thing to do is to do it.
——在两年内，股市是更高还是更低。我所知道的是，从现在到那时之间，会有一些明智之举可做。而当你看到一个，就该去做。
UNC Student: From your point of view, what’s the difference in investing in the entire company like See’s versus just a piece of the company like Coca-Cola?
UNC 学生：从你的角度看，买下一家公司（比如 See’s）与只买一部分股份（比如 Coca-Cola）有什么差别？
WB: Well, there’s way less difference than most people think, in my view.
WB：在我看来，这两者之间的差别远小于大多数人的想象。
If I own all of See’s at Berkshire and we want to change the management, we can change the management — but I don’t want to get in with managements that we need to change in the first place. If I were going to buy See’s and I thought I needed to change the management, I might not buy it. What do I know about making chocolates?
如果在 Berkshire 我 100% 持有 See’s，而我们想更换管理层，我们当然可以换——但我从一开始就不想与需要更换的管理层合作。如果我要买 See’s，却觉得需要更换管理层，我可能就不会买。我对做巧克力又懂多少呢？
I want to find them with good management. But it is true that if you have a managerial problem and you owned it all, you can change it.
我希望碰到的是优秀的管理层。当然，如果管理层出问题，而你 100% 控股，你可以去更换它。
It is also true that you can take the capital out, the earnings out of the business that you control 100%. You can decide the distribution policy and put [the capital] over someplace else — and that’s an advantage to us.
同样，你 100% 控股时，也可以把资本、把收益从企业里拿出来。你可以决定分配政策，把资金投到别处——这对我们是个优势。
If the XYZ company that we owned 5% of wants to go out and buy movie studios or whatever they might want to do, they get to allocate the capital. And, all things being equal (and even unequal), I would rather allocate the capital. I can do that if we own 100%, so that’s an advantage to owning 100%.
如果我们只持有 5% 的 XYZ 公司想买电影制片厂，或者想干别的，他们有权分配资本。而在其他条件相同（甚至不相同）时，我更愿意由我来分配资本。若我们 100% 持有，就能做到这一点，所以 100% 持有确实有优势。
这是BRK最重要的假设。
But it’s so much more important to own a good business and be in with good managers than to have this little extra advantage of being able to change managers. It’s not a big difference to us. I mean, I’d like to own all of Coca-Cola, but I’m not going to own all of Coca-Cola. Is that a reason not to buy 7%? No.
但相比这种“可以换管理层”的小优势，拥有一家好生意、与优秀管理者同行更为重要。对我们而言，这不是大差别。我的意思是，我当然想 100% 拥有 Coca-Cola，但显然做不到。那是不是不该买 7% 的理由？不是。
The one advantage we have at Berkshire is that we have this mental flexibility where all we’re doing is trying to figure out how to put capital into good businesses. We’re not in the steel business per se. We’re not in the shoe business per se. We’re not in any business per se. We’re big in insurance, but we’re not committed to it. We don’t have the mindset that says you’ve got to go down this road. So we can take capital and we can move it into businesses that make sense — and that is an advantage.
Berkshire 的一个优势是，我们有这种心理上的灵活性，我们做的一切就是思考怎样把资本投入到好生意里。我们并非“钢铁业的人”、并非“鞋业的人”，我们并非任何某个行业的人。我们在保险领域规模很大，但并不被其束缚。我们没有那种“你必须走这条路”的思维。所以我们可以把资本转移到有意义的生意上——这就是优势。
Since I don’t come up the route from any one of these businesses, I’ve got that advantage of being somewhat detached and, therefore, objective. Then the question is whether it’s smart, but at least I should be objective about it.
因为我并不是从这些行业中的某一个“路子”上来的人，所以我有一点超然的优势，从而能保持客观。接下来问题是我是否聪明，但至少我应该对此保持客观。
[Off screen, Buffett is asked about banking consolidation.]
【画面外，有人问及银行业整合。】
WB: Well, it’s going to continue in a big way.
WB：这会以很大的势头继续下去。
Most managers like to grow. They like to grow intelligently if they can, but if they can’t, they’re also willing to grow in other ways. (Laughs)
大多数管理者都喜欢增长。如果能聪明地增长，他们会这么做；如果不能，他们也愿意用其他方式增长（笑）。
Every year, the American Banker, which is the daily banking publication, they list what used to be 13,000-14,000 banks by size. They don’t list them by profitability. And, for the first 100, they used to show the pictures of the CEOs of the 100 largest banks. I think that that probably has had some effect. If you start measuring yourself by size… They measure by assets, but the assets are always balanced out by liabilities in that strange accounting convention.
每年，American Banker（银行业日报）都会按规模列出过去曾有的 13,000 到 14,000 家银行。他们不是按盈利能力排序。对于前 100 名，他们过去还会刊出这 100 家最大银行 CEO 的照片。我想这可能产生了一些影响。如果你开始用规模来衡量自己……他们以资产来衡量，但在那个奇特的会计约定里，资产永远会被负债所“配平”。
It’s the only business in the world where people brag about how much they owe. They say, “I’ve got a $100 billion bank,” which means they owe $100 billion.
这是世界上唯一一个人们会夸耀自己欠了多少钱的行业。他们会说：“我有一家 1,000 亿美元的银行”，这意味着他们欠了 1,000 亿美元。
I, myself, do not see, among the banks I look at, economies of scale beyond certain points. There’s always an advantage to being dominant in a market, but I’m not sure if you’ve got $200 billion spread across the country and 15% marketshare [that] you’re going to have a better business than the guy who’s got 30% of the market in Rockford, Illinois.
就我个人观察，在银行业里，规模经济超过某个点之后我看不见。主导一个市场总是有优势的，但我不确定，把 2,000 亿美元的资产铺到全国、拿 15% 市场份额，会不会比在 Illinois 州 Rockford 拿 30% 份额的人生意更好。
We used to own a bank in Rockford, Illinois, which made 2% on assets after tax and was conservative in every respect — but that bank would earn less money as part of a larger institution. I’m convinced of that.
我们曾在 Illinois 州的 Rockford 拥有一家银行，税后资产回报率 2%，各方面都很保守——但如果把它并进一家更大的机构，那家银行赚的钱会更少。我对此深信不疑。
I don’t see great advantages to shareholders in terms of major expansions of banks. I’m not saying it’s all a mistake because I’ve seen some good acquisitions — Wells Fargo made a terrific acquisition of Crocker, for example, some years back — but I think [consolidation] will continue. And I think [unintelligible] bank shareholders are going to be a little luckier than the acquiring bank shareholders.
我看不出银行大规模扩张对股东有什么大的好处。我并不是说这全是错的，因为也有不错的并购——比如多年前 Wells Fargo 对 Crocker 的收购就非常出色——但我认为（整合）会继续下去。而且我认为，被收购银行的股东会比收购方的股东稍微更幸运一点（听不清）。
UNC Student: I was wondering if you would comment on your perspective of investments outside of the U.S. and, in particular, address your perspective on how you would hedge currency risk?
UNC 学生：我想请你谈谈对美国境外投资的看法，特别是你会如何看待并对冲汇率风险？
WB: Gillette makes about two-thirds of its money outside the United States and we own about 11% of Gillette. Coke makes over 80% of its money outside the United States and we own 7.7% of Coke. We love the kind of companies that can do well in international markets, obviously, and particularly where they are largely untapped.
WB：Gillette 大约三分之二的利润来自美国以外，我们持有 Gillette 大约 11%。Coke 超过 80% 的利润来自美国以外，我们持有 Coke 7.7%。很显然，我们喜欢能在国际市场表现出色的公司，尤其是那些仍未被充分开发的市场上表现出色的公司。
Would we buy Coca-Cola if instead of being domiciled in Atlanta it was domiciled in London or Amsterdam or someplace? The answer, of course, is yes.
如果 Coca-Cola 不是在 Atlanta 注册，而是在 London 或 Amsterdam 或其他地方，我们会不会买？答案当然是会。
Would I like it quite as well? Probably just a tiny notch less because there might be nuances of corporate governance factors or tax factors or attitudes towards capitalists or anything else that I might not understand quite as well even in England as I might in the United States.
我会同样喜欢吗？可能会略微差一点，因为在公司治理、税收、对资本家的态度等方面，哪怕是在 England，也可能存在一些细微差异，让我理解得不如在美国那么透彻。
So I prefer, by a small margin to many countries and by a larger margin to other countries, I prefer a U.S.-domiciled operation — but I also prefer businesses that earn higher returns on capital and all that sort of thing.
所以，相较很多国家（小幅度）以及另一些国家（更大幅度），我更偏好在美国注册的公司——但我也偏好那些资本回报更高等各方面表现更佳的企业。
We will look any place to find a good business. I find it easier to find them in the U.S. I understand the accounting a little bit better. I probably just have more insight into how they’re going to function in the future — a little more here than in some other country — but I don’t rule them out.
我们会到任何地方去寻找好生意。在美国我更容易找到这些标的。我对会计也更熟悉一些。对它们未来如何运作，我可能有更多洞见——在这里比在一些其他国家更多一点——但我不会排除它们。
On the other hand, the U.S. equity market is a $5 trillion market. If I can’t make money in a $5 trillion market, it may be a little bit of wishful thinking to think all I have to do is get a few thousand miles away and I’ll start showing my stuff.
另一方面，美国股市是一个 5 万亿美元的市场。如果我在 5 万亿的市场里都赚不到钱，指望只要飞几千英里远就能大显身手，可能有点一厢情愿。
UNC Student: You and Mr. Munger have long talked about the franchise value of businesses and, without tipping your hand, what companies do you perceive as having franchise value right now?
UNC 学生：你和 Munger 先生长期谈论企业的“特许经营价值（franchise value）”。在不透露你的持仓前提下，你现在认为哪些公司具备这样的价值？
WB: [With] franchise value, the real test is if they don’t have your product, but they have something that somebody else says is similar, does the would-be purchaser walk out of the store, particularly if they can walk across the street and buy it?
WB：谈特许经营价值，真正的检验是：当他们没有你的产品，但提供某种别人号称相似的替代品时，潜在购买者会不会转身走出店门，尤其是在他们可以走到街对面就买到（你的产品）的情况下？
If you go in and you say, “I’d like a Hershey bar,” and they say, “We don’t have Hershey bars, but we have this unmarked chocolate bar that the owner of the place recommends.” Now, if you’ll walk across the street to buy a Hershey bar or if you’ll pay a nickel more for the [Hershey] bar than the unmarked bar, something like that, that’s franchise value. You have to maintain that in people’s minds, but it’s very important.
如果你走进去说，“我想要一块 Hershey bar”，对方说，“我们没有 Hershey bar，但有这块店主推荐的无牌巧克力。”如果你会走到街对面去买 Hershey，或者愿意为 Hershey 比无牌巧克力多付五美分等等，这就是 franchise value。你必须在人们心中维持这种认知，这非常重要。
When we bought See’s Candies, its candy was selling for $1.95 a pound. And the question was would people pay more for that candy as years went along and inflation took place? The truth is, if they perceive that it’s the best candy — or a significant percentage of them do or the dominant percentage of them do — you’re going to do very well with a business like that.
当我们买下 See’s Candies 时，它的售价是每磅 1.95 美元。问题在于，随着岁月推移与通胀发生，人们是否会愿意为那款糖果支付更高的价格？事实是，如果他们认为那是最好的糖果——或者相当一部分人这样认为、甚至多数人这样认为——那你在这样的生意上会做得非常好。
The franchise is in their mind. It’s the experience they had. It’s the first time they handed it to their girl and she kissed them afterward — or slapped them. I mean, that’s what we would like them to do with our competitors’ candy.
franchise 在他们心里。那是他们的体验。可能是他们第一次把它递给自己的女孩，然后被亲了一下——或者挨了一巴掌。我的意思是，我们希望他们把“挨打”留给竞争对手的糖果。
And you know this: You know they’re not going to go home on Valentine’s Day and say, “Here, honey, here’s two pounds of chocolates. I took the low bid.” (Laughs) It just doesn’t work.
而且你很清楚：他们不会在情人节回家对爱人说，“亲爱的，这里有两磅巧克力，我挑了最低价的。”（笑）这压根行不通。
If you’ve got the right kind of product that way, if you’re Wrigley’s chewing gum or whatever it may be… You may be paying for taste in this case. You may be paying for a mental association that you have to something. You may be paying for service availability or a lot of things. But that’s franchise value.
如果你的产品恰好属于这种类型，比如 Wrigley 的口香糖，或者别的什么……你可能在为“口味”买单，也可能在为某种心理联想买单，或者为服务可得性、以及很多其他东西买单。但这就是 franchise value。
Then the question is, how durable is it? How big is it and how durable is it?
问题在于，它的护城河有多持久？它的规模有多大，又能维持多久？
I say that franchise is basically like a moat around your economic castle. Now, there’s two things that are important: How big is the castle? Coca-Cola is a big castle. See’s Candies is not a very big castle — but it is a castle. And around both of those there is a moat — and that moat is either slightly eroding —
我说 franchise 本质上就像你经济城堡周围的护城河。这里有两个关键：城堡有多大？Coca-Cola 是一座大城堡。See’s Candies 不是很大——但它也是一座城堡。而在这两座城堡周围，都有护城河——而护城河可能会逐渐被侵蚀——
[Glitch in video]
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It may be based on employee training. It may be based on research. A lot of things. There are all kinds of things that you’re trying to do to make that moat bigger and bigger and to throw more piranhas and crocodiles into the moat. You need a moat in business to protect you from some guy who’s going to come along and offer candy cheaper. That’s what we’re looking for all the time. And you can’t find it [all the time].
护城河可能依赖于员工培训，可能依赖于研发，还有许多别的因素。你会尝试各种办法去拓宽护城河，往护城河里投放更多食人鱼和鳄鱼。生意需要护城河来防御那些后来者，他们会提供更便宜的糖果。这正是我们一直在寻找的东西。但你不可能一直都能找到。
You’re not going to find it in carbon steel. You’re not going to find it with an integrated oil company or something of the sort, in all likelihood. You don’t have to find very many. Very few. If you have ten good ideas in the rest of your life, you can afford to give away five of ‘em. You’ll get very rich with a very few good ideas.
你大概不会在碳钢行业找到它，也不会在一家综合性石油公司里找到它。你不需要找到很多。只要少数就够了。如果你这一生有十个好点子，你可以丢掉其中五个。凭借寥寥数个好点子，你就能变得非常富有。
Host: Each year, the Berkshire Hathaway annual report is eagerly awaited by shareholders. That’s because Mr. Buffett writes it himself. Part of the report, the chairman’s letter, has become a widely-cited source of business advice. In fact, the entire report is so readable that it’s cited as a model for how financial reports should be written.
Host：每年，Berkshire Hathaway 的年报都为股东们所翘首期盼。这是因为 Buffett 先生亲自撰写。报告中的董事长信已经成为商业建议被广泛引用的来源。实际上，整个年报的可读性很强，以至于它被视为财务报告应如何撰写的范本。
In this next segment, we’ll hear about Mr. Buffett’s views on clear writing, we’ll hear about why he thinks Berkshire Hathaway may be less successful in the future, and we’ll hear his views on inherited wealth.
在接下来的部分，我们将听到 Buffett 先生对清晰写作的看法，他为何认为 Berkshire Hathaway 未来可能没那么成功，以及他对财富继承的看法。
WB: If you understand an idea, you can express it so that other people understand it. It’s interesting, I find that every year when I write the [annual] report, I hit these blocks. And the block isn’t because I had run out of words in the dictionary, the block is because I haven’t got it straight in my own mind yet. There’s nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.
WB：如果你理解一个想法，你就能把它表达清楚，让别人也能理解。有趣的是，我发现每年写年报时，我都会遇到一些障碍。而这些障碍不是因为字典里的词用完了，而是因为我自己心里还没理清楚。没有什么比写作更能迫使你思考、让你的思想变得清晰。
If you want to communicate something to other investors or co-owners or whatever it may be, it’s quite possible to do it. And, based on what Chairman Levitt said, I think you’re going to probably see a lot of improvement in that area.
如果你想把一些东西传达给其他投资者或合伙人，这是完全可能做到的。而根据 Levitt 主席所说，我认为你们很可能会看到这个领域有很多改进。
The same thing goes for accounting footnotes. I get accounting footnotes that I have trouble understanding. The reason I have trouble understanding is [because] the person who wrote it didn’t want me to understand it. It’s not impossible to write a footnote explaining deferred acquisition costs in life insurance or whatever you want to do — you can write it so people can understand it.
会计附注也是一样。我收到过一些会计附注，读起来让我很费解。之所以难以理解，是因为写那东西的人根本不想让我理解。解释人寿保险递延取得成本或别的什么内容，并不是写不明白——你完全可以写得让人明白。
If it’s written so you can’t understand it, I am very suspicious. I probably won’t invest — well, I won’t invest in a company where I can’t understand a footnote because I know they don’t want me to understand it.
如果它写得让你看不懂，我会非常怀疑。我大概不会投资——确切地说，我不会投资一家让我连附注都看不懂的公司，因为我知道他们是不想让我懂。
[Off screen, Buffett is asked about Berkshire Hathaway’s future.]
【画面外提问：关于 Berkshire Hathaway 的未来】
WB: The greater the amount of capital we work with at Berkshire, the worse we are going to do — everything else being equal — in terms of percentage returns on equity. I’ve been telling our shareholders that for years.
WB：在 Berkshire，我们掌握的资本越多，在股本回报率上表现就越差——其他条件不变的情况下。我这些年一直都在对股东说这句话。
The reason is very simple — When I started out with $10,000, any security in the United States that I could find that seemed cheap could have a very significant impact on that amount of capital.
原因非常简单——当我以 1 万美元起步时，美国任何一只看起来便宜的证券，都能对这笔资本产生极其重大的影响。
Now, if we find something we can put $100 million in and we make 50%, that’s $50 million pre-tax. It’s about $32.5 million after tax and that’s three-tenths of 1% on net worth. So it takes very big ideas to have any impact and our universe of potential investments — or businesses that we can buy outright — has shrunk as our capital gets bigger. We are down to where our universe is very, very small and our returns cannot be as good in the future as in the past.
现在，如果我们找到一个能投 1 亿美元的标的，并赚取 50%，那就是 5,000 万税前利润。税后约 3,250 万，但这只占净值的 0.3%。所以要有非常大的点子才会产生任何影响。而随着资本变得更庞大，我们潜在投资标的的范围——或者说能全资收购的企业——大幅缩小。如今我们的投资范围非常非常有限，未来回报不可能像过去那样好。
When I started out, I went through Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s [manuals] page by page. Every page, I just looked at companies. I found Western Insurance Securities selling at 2x earnings or National American Insurance selling at 2x earnings. I found a public utility in Genesee, New York, selling at less than 2x earnings. That was just by turning the pages. But I could only put $5,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 in those things. They still had the capacity to maybe double my net worth or something of the sort or more than that maybe, but it would be useless for me to do that now at Berkshire.
当年起步时，我逐页翻阅 Moody’s 和 Standard & Poor’s 的手册。每一页我都看公司。我发现 Western Insurance Securities 以 2 倍市盈率交易，National American Insurance 也是 2 倍。我在 New York 的 Genesee 找到一家公用事业公司，市盈率不到 2 倍。就是这么翻书发现的。但那时我只能投 5,000、1 万或 5 万美元。即便如此，它们依旧有可能让我的净值翻倍，甚至更多。但如今在 Berkshire，这些就没意义了。
A lot of money is a drag, but it has other advantages. (Laughs)
钱太多会拖累你，但它也有别的好处（笑）。
UNC Student: I’ve read that you’re not going to burden your children with the fortune that you’ve amassed.
UNC 学生：我读到过你不会让子女背负你所积累的财富。
WB: That’s not the word they use, but you’ve got the idea. (Laughs)
WB：他们用的词不是这个，但你理解得没错（笑）。
UNC Student: Could you lend some words of wisdom about family and disciplining children with money?
UNC 学生：你能分享一些关于家庭以及如何用钱教育孩子的智慧吗？
WB: My general belief is if you’ve got a lot of money, that you should probably leave — and I got this phrase from somebody else — that you should leave your children enough money so that they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.
WB：我的总体信念是，如果你有很多钱，你应该——这句话我借用别人的说法——留给孩子足够的钱，让他们能做任何事情，但不要多到让他们什么都不用做。
There’s probably a certain social justice in that and, on top of that, I happen to think that probably, in aggregate, it’s best for their development as individuals — though there can be lots of exceptions to that.
这其中大概也有一定的社会公正因素，更重要的是，我个人认为，总体上这对他们作为独立个体的发展是最好的——尽管也会有不少例外。
I run into people all the time at the country club who say, “Isn’t it terrible that these people are on welfare and that they get food stamps and then that just creates a cycle of dependency and then you get second generation welfare recipients because they were used to getting the food stamps from the welfare officer before.”
我在乡村俱乐部常遇到这样的人，他们说：“这些人靠救济过活不是很糟糕吗？他们拿食物券，这会造成依赖循环，接着就有第二代的救济受领者，因为他们从前就习惯从福利官员那里拿食物券。”
They never stop to think that maybe inherited wealth is really just a lifetime supply of food stamps, given through a trust officer instead of a welfare officer. They never think about the debilitating effect of that — of waking up at age 10 seconds and finding out that you never have to work.
他们从未停下来想一想，也许“继承的财富”不过是“终身食物券”，只是发放者从福利官员换成了信托官员。他们从不思考这带来的削弱效应——在“出生 10 秒”时醒来就发现此生不必工作。
Compare that to somebody who’s probably got a couple of kids that they don’t know what to do with and has plenty of problems of their own and are struggling and they say, “Well, we’re going to ruin this poor person’s desire to work if we give them something to let them buy a little food.”
把这和另一些人比较：他们可能有几个孩子手足无措、自身问题一堆、艰难挣扎，却还说，“如果我们给点东西让这个可怜人买点吃的，就会毁掉他工作的意愿。”
I, personally, think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil — and I will be struggling thirty years later.
我个人认为，我所赚得中有相当大的比例应归功于社会。如果把我放到 Bangladesh 或 Peru 的某个地方，你会发现同样的才能在不对的土壤里能产出多少——三十年后我仍在挣扎。
I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well — disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in ten seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world will pay a lot for it. If you’re a marvelous teacher, this world won’t pay a lot for it. If you’re a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it.
我所处的是一个恰好对我所做之事给出丰厚回报——甚至是过度回报——的市场体系。Mike Tyson 也是如此。如果你能在十秒内把对手击倒并因此赚 1,000 万美元，这个世界会为此掏很多钱。如果你能打出 .360 的打击率，这个世界也会为此掏很多钱。如果你是一名出色的教师，这个世界不会付很多钱；如果你是一名优秀的护士，这个世界同样不会付很多钱。
Now, am I going to try and come up with some comparable work system that somehow distributes that? No. I don’t think you can do that.
那么，我会不会尝试设计出某种对应的工作体系来重新分配这些？不会。我不认为这能做到。
But I do think that, when you’re treated enormously well by this market system — or, in effect, [when] the rest of society showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent, maybe your adenoids are a certain way so you can sing and everybody will pay enormous sums [for you] to be on television or whatever — I think society should have a big claim on that.
但我确实认为，当你被这个市场体系极其优渥地对待——或者说，因为某种特殊天赋，整个社会把购买商品与服务的能力大量倾注在你身上，比如也许你的腺样体天生适合唱歌，于是大家愿意为你上电视之类付出巨款——我认为社会对此应该拥有很大的“索取权”。
If you’re lucky enough to be the child of somebody in that position, I think cutting them off with zero is probably a mistake, but I think that setting them up so that essentially they’ve got this lifetime supply of claims on other people’s production of goods and services in society for the rest of their lives, it doesn’t make much sense to me.
如果你足够幸运，成为这种人的子女，我认为“一刀切为零”大概是个错误；但若把他们安置成这样：本质上拥有对社会上他人商品与服务生产的“终身索取权”，我觉得没什么道理。
My kids will be glad to come and rebut this next week. (Laughs)
我的孩子们下周肯定乐意来反驳我（笑）。
Host: I hope you’ve enjoyed our visit with Warren Buffett. His folksy wisdom is packed with shrewd advice. Maybe you can use some of it in building your own fortune.
Host：希望你喜欢我们与 Warren Buffett 的这次交流。他朴素的智慧中充满了精明的建议。或许你可以用其中一些，来构建你自己的财富。
1.In 1987, Berkshire Hathaway purchased $700 million worth of convertible preferred shares of Salomon Brothers — as the Wall Street giant sought safe harbor from corporate raiders like Ronald Perelman. Warren Buffett then had the right to convert these preferreds into common stock at $38 per share, in addition to a 9% annual dividend from Salomon. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger also joined the Salomon board as part of the deal.
1.1987 年，Berkshire Hathaway 以 7 亿美元购入 Salomon Brothers 的可转换优先股——当时这家华尔街巨头正寻求躲避像 Ronald Perelman 这样的企业掠夺者。Warren Buffett 随之获得以每股 38 美元将该优先股转换为普通股的权利，并可享有来自 Salomon 的 9% 年度股息。作为交易的一部分，Warren Buffett 和 Charlie Munger 也加入了 Salomon 的董事会。
2.In 1990, Salomon employee Paul Mozer submitted illegal bids to a U.S. Treasuries bond auction in an apparent attempt to corner the market. Salomon’s upper management knew about Mozer’s fraudulent actions, but did nothing. A year later, Mozer tried again. But, this time, the SEC noticed — and dropped the hammer on Salomon.
2.1990 年，Salomon 员工 Paul Mozer 在一场美国国债拍卖中提交了违规投标，显然意图操纵市场。Salomon 的高层知晓 Mozer 的欺诈行为，却未采取行动。一年后，Mozer 再次作案。但这一次，SEC 发现了问题——并对 Salomon 重拳出击。
3.What Buffett did ask them was who they thought should be put in charge of day-to-day operations at Salomon. Ten out of the twelve interviewees said Deryck Maughan.
3.Buffett 真正问到的是：他们认为谁应该负责 Salomon 的日常运营。在 12 位受访者中有 10 位提名 Deryck Maughan。
4.Buffett described the Salomon interviews this way to Columbia University students in 1993: “They all had the intelligence, the energy level, and the desire. The question was, who would be the best leader? Who would go into a foxhole with me?”
4.Buffett 在 1993 年向 Columbia University 的学生这样描述这次 Salomon 的面谈：“他们都有智力、精力和意愿。问题在于，谁会是最好的领袖？谁会和我一起钻进战壕？”
5.Maughan had previously been based in Tokyo where he served as chairman of Salomon Brothers Asia Ltd. That frantic August day, Buffett elevated him to chief operating officer of Salomon Brothers as a whole. He would later become CEO, too.
5.Maughan 先前常驻 Tokyo，担任 Salomon Brothers Asia Ltd. 的董事长。那年八月的紧急关头，Buffett 将他提拔为整个 Salomon Brothers 的首席运营官。他随后也出任了 CEO。
6.Understatement alert: On Sunday, August 18, 1991, Salomon accepted the resignations of CEO John Gutfreund, president Thomas Strauss, and vice chairman John Meriwether.
6.【轻描淡写的说法】1991 年 8 月 18 日（周日），Salomon 接受了 CEO John Gutfreund、总裁 Thomas Strauss 和副董事长 John Meriwether 的辞呈。
That same day, the Treasury Department suspended Salomon’s ability to purchase government securities at auction. Buffett spent that morning and afternoon frantically trying to convince Nicholas Brady, the Treasury Secretary, to reverse the decision. Ultimately, Brady relented — partially — by allowing Salomon to buy bonds for its own accounts.
同一天，Treasury Department 暂停了 Salomon 在拍卖中购买政府证券的资格。Buffett 那天一早到下午都在拼命说服 Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady 撤销这一决定。最终，Brady 做出部分让步——允许 Salomon 为自有账户买入国债。
A spokesman for the Treasury said that Brady “expressed the highest regard for Mr. Buffett and stated he looks forward to a constructive relationship with the new chairman”.
财政部发言人表示，Brady“对 Buffett 先生表达了最高的敬意，并称期待与新任董事长建立建设性的关系”。
7.As recounted in The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Brady waited until the last second to issue Salomon its reprieve. Needless to say, it was a pretty tense afternoon in the Salomon board room.
7.正如《The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life》所述，Brady 一直等到最后一刻才给 Salomon 以缓刑。不言而喻，那是 Salomon 董事会会议室异常紧张的一个下午。
8.Some other accounts say that Buffett told Maughan, “You’re tagged.”
8.另有说法称，Buffett 对 Maughan 说的是：“You’re tagged。”
9.Maughan later said, “I had no preparation [for that press conference]. Zero. ‘You’re tagged’ was my complete set of instructions.”
9.Maughan 后来说：“我对那场发布会毫无准备。零准备。‘You’re tagged’就是我全部的指令。”
10.“Deryck assumed the job at a time when Salomon’s regulators were understandably outraged and its staff was dismayed,” said Buffett. “Working seven days a week, quite often eighteen hours a day, he personified the integrity and professionalism of the firm.”
10.Buffett 说：“Deryck 接手时，Salomon 的监管者理所当然地震怒，员工也沮丧不已。他每周工作七天，经常每天十八个小时，他身上体现了公司所追求的诚信与专业。”
11.I believe Samuel Johnson is most often credited with originating this pithy truism.
11.据我所知，这句精辟的箴言最常被归功于 Samuel Johnson 的创作。
12.Berkshire Hathaway paid about $55 million for 90% of Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983. Buffett did not ask for an audit of NFM’s books or an inventory of its merchandise. Rose Blumkin named her price and Buffett agreed. “I would rather have her word than that of all the Big Eight auditors,” Buffett said at the time. “It’s like dealing with the Bank of England.”
12.1983 年，Berkshire Hathaway 以约 5,500 万美元购得 Nebraska Furniture Mart 90% 的股权。Buffett 未要求审计 NFM 的账目或盘点库存。Rose Blumkin 报了价，Buffett 便同意了。Buffett 当时说：“我宁可相信她的一句话，也不愿听 Big Eight 审计师们的话。这就像与 Bank of England 打交道。”
13.At the time of this Q&A session in 1994, Buffett and Mrs. B were back in business together — but it had been a rocky few years. In 1989, Mrs. B broke away from NFM over a dispute with her grandsons and opened a rival store, Mrs. B’s Warehouse, right across the street. In 1992, Berkshire bought out Mrs. B for a second time — paying $5 million to purchase her spite store and bring her back into the fold. Why hadn’t he required a non-compete clause the first time? “I was young and inexperienced,” Buffett joked.
13.到 1994 年这次问答时，Buffett 与 Mrs. B 已重归于好——但此前几年一度波折。1989 年，Mrs. B 因与外孙争执而脱离 NFM，在街对面开了家竞争门店 Mrs. B’s Warehouse。1992 年，Berkshire 第二次“收购” Mrs. B——以 500 万美元买下她这家“赌气店”，让她回归。为何第一次没有要求竞业禁止条款？Buffett 打趣道：“那时我年轻缺经验。”
14.Mrs. B’s husband, Isidore, emigrated to the United States and started a dry cleaning store in Iowa. Once his wife joined him three years later, they moved to Omaha because she wanted to be around other people who spoke Russian and Yiddish. Otherwise, we’d probably be talking about the Iowa Furniture Mart.
14.Mrs. B 的丈夫 Isidore 先移民美国，在 Iowa 开了家干洗店。三年后妻子与他团聚，他们搬到 Omaha，是因为她希望能与说 Russian、Yiddish 的同胞在一起。否则，我们今天很可能会谈论“ Iowa Furniture Mart ”。
15.Wilkinson was a British razor company that (briefly) made significant gains in marketshare after introducing stainless steel razor blades in 1962.
15.Wilkinson 是一家英国剃刀公司，1962 年推出不锈钢刀片后（短暂地）大幅提升了其市场份额。
16.In 1966, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Sandy Gottesman teamed up to create Diversified Retailing, a holding company that would “acquire diversified businesses, especially in the retail field”. Their first purchase was Hochschild-Kohn, a venerable old department store in Baltimore. As Buffett says here, it didn’t work out.
16.1966 年，Warren Buffett、Charlie Munger 与 Sandy Gottesman 合作创建了 Diversified Retailing，这是一家控股公司，目标是“收购多元化业务，尤其是零售领域”。他们的第一笔收购是 Baltimore 的老牌百货商店 Hochschild-Kohn。正如 Buffett 在此所说的，那次收购并不成功。
“Buying Hochschild-Kohn was like the story of a man who buys a yacht,” Munger once drily observed. “The two happy days are the day he buys it and the day he sells it.”
Munger 曾冷冷地评价道：“买 Hochschild-Kohn 就像一个人买游艇的故事。最快乐的两天是买的那天和卖的那天。”
17.I like how Buffett just ignores the politics aspect of this question. He’s no dummy.
17.我喜欢 Buffett 直接忽略这个问题中的政治部分。他绝非等闲之辈。
18.Tom Murphy (the elder) served on Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors for many years before resigning in February 2022. Nowadays, both Tom Murphy Jr. and Steve Burke are on the Berkshire board. Cap Cities: The Next Generation.
18.Tom Murphy（长者）在 Berkshire Hathaway 董事会任职多年，直到 2022 年 2 月辞任。如今，Tom Murphy Jr. 与 Steve Burke 均在 Berkshire 董事会任职。Cap Cities：下一代接棒。
19.Likely referring to Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein.
19.很可能指的是 Roger Lowenstein 所著《Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist》。
20.Buffett made much the same point in his 1983 letter to shareholders: “Splitting the stock would increase [the cost of stock transfers], downgrade the quality of our shareholder population, and encourage a market price less consistently related to intrinsic business value. We see no offsetting advantages.”
20.Buffett 在 1983 年的致股东信中也表达了相同观点：“拆股将提高（股票转让成本），降低我们的股东群体质量，并鼓励市场价格与内在商业价值的相关性降低。我们看不到任何可以抵消的好处。”
21.From 1957 to 1969, Buffett Partnership Ltd. racked up an incredible 29.5% annual compounded gain (as compared to the Dow at 7.4%). Even after Buffett collected his share of the proceeds, limited partners finished with a life-changing 23.8% annual return.
21.1957 至 1969 年，Buffett Partnership Ltd. 取得了惊人的年复合 29.5% 回报（同期道琼斯为 7.4%）。即便扣除 Buffett 的分成，有限合伙人最终仍获得了改变人生的年化 23.8% 回报。
22.In Buffett’s 1994 annual letter, he names two “Mistakes Du Jour”:
22.在 Buffett 1994 年的年报中，他列出了两条“当日之错（Mistakes Du Jour）”：
Selling some Cap Cities stock: “Late in 1993, I sold 10 million shares of Cap Cities at $63; at year-end 1994, the price was $85.25. (The difference is $222.5 million for those of you who wish to avoid the pain of calculating the damage yourself.) When we purchased the stock at $17.25 in 1986, I told you that I had previously sold our Cap Cities holdings at $4.30 per share during 1978-80, and added that I was at a loss to explain my earlier behavior. Now I’ve become a repeat offender. Maybe it’s time to get a guardian appointed.”
卖出部分 Cap Cities 股票：“1993 年底，我以 63 美元卖出 1,000 万股 Cap Cities；到 1994 年底，股价为 85.25 美元。（不想自己计算损失的痛苦者，差额是 2.225 亿美元。）当我们在 1986 年以 17.25 美元买入该股时，我曾告诉你们，在 1978–80 年间我以 4.30 美元一股卖出过我们的 Cap Cities 持仓，并表示我无法解释当时的行为。现在我成了惯犯。也许是时候为我指定一位监护人了。”
USAir: “Top honors go to a mistake I made five years ago that fully ripened in 1994 — Our $358 million purchase of USAir preferred stock, on which the dividend was suspended in September. In the 1990 Annual Report, I correctly described this deal as an ‘unforced error’, meaning that I was neither pushed into the investment nor misled by anyone when making it. Rather, this was a case of sloppy analysis, a lapse that may have been caused by the fact that we were buying a senior security or by hubris. Whatever the reason, the mistake was large.”
USAir：“头号荣誉授予我五年前犯下、并在 1994 年完全成熟的一桩错误——我们以 3.58 亿美元购入 USAir 优先股，且该股在 9 月暂停了股息。在 1990 年年报中，我将这笔交易准确地描述为‘无迫性错误（unforced error）’，意思是我既没有被逼着投资，也没有被任何人误导。这是一次草率分析的案例，也许是因为我们买的是优先证券，或者是自负导致的失误。不管原因是什么，这个错误都很大。”
23.Buffett confessed to the Fannie Mae mistake in his 1991 letter:
23.Buffett 在 1991 年的致股东信中坦承了 Fannie Mae 的错误：
“In early 1988, we decided to buy 30 million shares (adjusted for a subsequent split) of Fannie Mae, which would have been a $350-400 million investment … After we bought about 7 million shares, the price began to climb. In frustration, I stopped buying (a mistake that, thankfully, I did not repeat when Coca-Cola stock rose similarly during our purchase program). In an even sillier move, I surrendered to my distaste for holding small positions and sold the 7 million shares we owned. I wish I could give you a halfway rational explanation for my amateurish behavior vis-a-vis Fannie Mae. But there isn’t one.”
“1988 年初，我们决定买入 Fannie Mae 3,000 万股（经随后拆股调整），这本应是一笔 3.5–4 亿美元的投资……当我们买到约 700 万股时，股价开始上升。我沮丧之下停止了买入（所幸在我们买 Coca-Cola 时遇到类似上涨，我没有重蹈覆辙）。更愚蠢的是，我屈从于自己不愿持有小仓位的偏好，把这 700 万股也卖了。我真希望能给你们一个看起来略微合理的解释，来说明我在 Fannie Mae 上这种业余表现，但我做不到。”
非常正确的策略。
24.Mary Poppins premiered in 1964 and “brought in more than any other film that year with $31 million earned ($252 million today)”.
24.Mary Poppins 于 1964 年首映，“以 3,100 万美元（折合今日约 2.52 亿美元）的票房成为当年最卖座的电影”。
25.As I wrote in the very first issue of Kingswell, Buffett traveled out to Burbank to meet with Walt Disney before pulling the trigger on this investment. “He couldn’t have been a nicer guy,” Buffett said later. Walt took his would-be investor on a personal tour of the Disney Studio and laid out his plans for the future.
25.正如我在 Kingswell 创刊号中所写，Buffett 在做出这笔投资前曾前往 Burbank 拜访 Walt Disney。Buffett 后来说：“他再友善不过了。”Walt 亲自带这位潜在投资者参观了 Disney Studio，并详述了他的未来规划。
26.That same stake, today, would be worth approximately $7.5 billion.
26.如今，同样的持股大约价值 75 亿美元。
27.In 1994, Berkshire wrote its USAir investment down from $358 million to $89.5 million.
27.1994 年，Berkshire 将其 USAir 投资从 3.58 亿美元减记至 8,950 万美元。
28.On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first sustained and controlled flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wright Flyer, as their plane was called, remained in the air for twelve seconds and reached a top speed of 6.8 miles per hour.
28.1903 年 12 月 17 日，Wilbur 与 Orville Wright 在 North Carolina 州的 Kitty Hawk 实现了人类首次持续且可控的动力重于空气飞行。他们的飞机名为 Wright Flyer，在空中停留 12 秒，最高时速 6.8 英里。
29.Buffett’s 1994 letter: “Seth Schofield, CEO of USAir, has worked diligently to correct the company’s historical cost problems but, to date, has not managed to do so. In part, this is because he has had to deal with a moving target, the result of certain major carriers having obtained labor concessions and other carriers having benefited from ‘fresh-start’ costs that came out of bankruptcy proceedings.”
29.Buffett 1994 年年报：“USAir CEO Seth Schofield 不懈努力以修正公司历史成本问题，但迄今未能做到。部分原因在于目标在移动：一些大型航空公司获得了劳工让步，另一些则因破产程序带来的‘重新开始（fresh-start）’成本而受益。”
30.Greenspan served as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006.
30.Greenspan 于 1987 年至 2006 年担任 Federal Reserve 主席。
31.Charlie Munger in 2020: “The price [for See’s] was $35 million and they had $10 million in surplus cash and they were making $4 million a year.”
31.Charlie Munger（2020 年）：“（See’s 的）价格是 3,500 万美元，账上有 1,000 万美元结余现金，每年盈利 400 万美元。”
32.In 1888, Asa Griggs Candler bought the recipe for Coca-Cola and, four years later, founded the Coca-Cola Company. Candler’s family sold most of its shares in Coca-Cola to Ernest Woodruff in 1919, which paved the way for the IPO.
32.1888 年，Asa Griggs Candler 买下了 Coca-Cola 的配方，并在四年后创立了 Coca-Cola Company。1919 年，Candler 家族将其大部分 Coca-Cola 股份出售给 Ernest Woodruff，为其后来的 IPO 铺平了道路。
33.SunTrust sold its shares of Coca-Cola in 2009 for a reported gain of $1.9 billion.
33.SunTrust 于 2009 年卖出了其持有的 Coca-Cola 股份，据报赚取 19 亿美元收益。
34.Berkshire Hathaway purchased The Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. of Rockford from founder Gene Abegg in 1969. The following year, Congress amended the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 in such a way that made it difficult for Berkshire to hold onto its new bank. In short, if Berkshire wanted to continue to own Illinois National Bank, it could not own other non-banking businesses. As a result, Berkshire spun the bank off to interested shareholders in 1980.
34.1969 年，Berkshire Hathaway 从创始人 Gene Abegg 手中收购了 Rockford 的 The Illinois National Bank & Trust Co.。次年，国会修订 1956 年《银行控股公司法》，使 Berkshire 难以继续持有这家新银行。简言之，如果 Berkshire 想继续拥有 Illinois National Bank，就不能持有其他非银行业务。因此，Berkshire 于 1980 年将该行分拆给有意接盘的股东。
35.In 1986, Wells Fargo acquired Crocker National for approximately $1.08 billion. It elevated WFC to the tenth-largest bank in the United States.
35.1986 年，Wells Fargo 以约 10.8 亿美元收购 Crocker National，使 WFC 跻身美国第十大银行。
36.Arthur Levitt Jr. served as SEC chairman from 1993 to 2001.
36.Arthur Levitt Jr. 于 1993 至 2001 年担任 SEC 主席。
37.Buffett in 1993: “I found Western Insurance in Fort Scott, Kansas. The price range in Moody’s financial manual that year was $12-20. Earnings: $16 a share. I ran an ad in the Fort Scott paper to buy that stock.”
37.Buffett（1993 年）：“我在 Kansas 州 Fort Scott 找到 Western Insurance。那年在 Moody’s 的财务手册里，它的股价范围是 12–20 美元，盈利是每股 16 美元。我还在 Fort Scott 的报纸上刊登广告收购那只股票。”
In March 1953, Buffett wrote about the staggering undervaluation of Western Insurance Securities for the Commercial and Financial Chronicle.
1953 年 3 月，Buffett 在《Commercial and Financial Chronicle》写文，讨论 Western Insurance Securities 惊人的低估。
38.More Buffett from 1993: “I found a little company called Genesee Valley Gas near Rochester, New York. It had 22,000 shares out. It was a public utility that was earning about $5 per share — and the nice thing was, you could buy it at $5 per share.”
38.Buffett（1993 年）继续说道：“我在 New York 州 Rochester 附近找到一家叫 Genesee Valley Gas 的小公司。它发行在外 22,000 股，是一家每股盈利约 5 美元的公用事业公司——更妙的是，你可以用每股 5 美元的价格买到它。”
39.Buffett’s close friend, Katharine Graham, provided an interesting counter-perspective to this in a 1986 Fortune Magazine article: “My instinct would be to just pass the money on and hope that, in doing so, you also pass on your values — how to use it, the life to lead, the standards to have.”
39.Buffett 的挚友 Katharine Graham 在 1986 年《Fortune Magazine》上给出一个有趣的反向观点：“我的直觉是，直接把钱传下去，并希望在这么做的同时，也把你的价值观——如何使用金钱、应该过怎样的生活、应当持有哪些标准——一并传下去。”
40.In 2010, Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates, and Bill Gates created The Giving Pledge for this very purpose. It calls for billionaires to publicly commit to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropy either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
40.2010 年，Warren Buffett、Melinda French Gates 与 Bill Gates 发起了 The Giving Pledge，正是出于这个目的。它号召亿万富豪公开承诺，将其大部分财富在生前或遗嘱中捐赠给慈善事业。
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