1997-05-05 Benjamin Graham.How Buffett surpassed Benjamin Graham

Refer To：《1997-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》。

66. How Buffett surpassed Benjamin Graham

巴菲特如何超越本杰明·格雷厄姆

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 3?

沃伦·巴菲特：第三区？

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. Hi. It’s Jeff Hawthorne (PH), Toronto, Canada.

观众：是的，你好。我是来自加拿大多伦多的杰夫·霍桑（音）。

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, you’re both a positive influence on all of us and our generations to come. There were a few significant individuals that had helped to guide your way in the beginning.

巴菲特先生和芒格先生，你们对我们以及未来的几代人都有积极的影响。在你们起步阶段，有几位重要人物曾帮助你们指引了道路。

Could you please share the current percentage of impact and evolution on your investment philosophy and approach between Graham-Dodd’s — Graham and Dodd’s versus Philip Fisher, and comment on each please.

能否请您分享格雷厄姆-多德（Graham and Dodd）与菲利普·费舍（Philip Fisher）在您的投资哲学和方法演变中所占的影响比例，并对两者进行评论？

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie, you want to —? If you’ve got it worked out there. Calibrate —

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，你想——？如果你已经算出来了。校准一下——

CHARLIE MUNGER: Weren’t you —

查理·芒格：你不是——

WARREN BUFFETT: Do you want that to tenths of a percent or hundredths of a percent? (Laughs)

沃伦·巴菲特：你想要到十分之一还是百分之一？（笑）

CHARLIE MUNGER: You were closer to Ben Graham.

查理·芒格：你与本·格雷厄姆的关系更近。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, Ben — yeah — things would’ve happened — good things would’ve happened with following either party irrespective the other.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。本——是的——无论追随哪一方都会发生好事，与另一方无关。

Graham, obviously, had way more influence on me than Phil. I worked for Ben. I went to school under him.

显然，格雷厄姆对我的影响远大于菲利普。我为本工作过，在他的指导下学习过。

And his — what I call the three basic ideas that underlie successful investing — which is to look at stocks as businesses, and to have the proper attitude toward the market, and to operate with a margin of safety — they all come straight from Graham. I didn’t think of any of those.

他所提出的三大成功投资的基本理念——将股票视为企业，对市场保持正确的态度，以及以安全边际原则操作——这些都直接来自格雷厄姆。我没有想到任何这些理念。

And Phil Fisher opened my eyes more to the idea of trying to find the wonderful business.

而菲利普·费舍让我更意识到寻找卓越企业这一理念。

Charlie did more of that than Phil did, actually, so you’d have to put Charlie —

实际上，查理在这方面比菲利普做得更多，所以你得把查理——

But Phil was espousing that entirely. And I read his books in the late ’50s, early ’60s. So, you know, I — Phil’s still alive as you know. And, you know, I owe Phil a lot. But I — it doesn’t compare to what I owe Graham.

但菲利普完全主张这一点。我在50年代末和60年代初读过他的书。所以，你知道——菲利普还健在，你知道的。我欠菲利普很多。但与我欠格雷厄姆的相比，这无法相提并论。

WARREN BUFFETT: And that, in no way, reflects poorly on Phil. Ben was one of a kind.

沃伦·巴菲特：这绝不代表对菲利普的不敬。本·格雷厄姆是独一无二的。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Ben Graham was a truly formidable mind. And he also had a clarity in writing.

查理·芒格：本·格雷厄姆确实是一位非凡的头脑。他的写作也非常清晰明了。

And we’ve talked over and over again about the power of a few simple ideas thoroughly assimilated. And that happened with Graham’s ideas, which came to me indirectly through Warren, but also some directly from Graham.

我们一再谈到，彻底吸收几条简单理念的力量。格雷厄姆的理念就是如此，这些理念一部分通过沃伦间接传达给我，还有一些直接来自格雷厄姆。

The interesting thing for me is to watch Buffett the former protégé — and by the way, Buffett was the best student Graham had in 30 years of teaching at Columbia. And — but what happened — and since I knew both men — was that Buffett became way better than Graham.

对我来说，有趣的是看到巴菲特从一名学生成长起来——顺便说一句，巴菲特是格雷厄姆30年哥伦比亚教学生涯中最好的学生。然而，事情的发展——而且因为我认识他们两位——是巴菲特后来远超格雷厄姆。

That is a natural outcome. It’s what Newton said. He said, “If I’ve seen a little farther than other men, it’s by standing on the shoulder of giants.”

这是一个自然的结果。正如牛顿所说：“如果我比别人看得更远，那是因为我站在巨人的肩膀上。”

And so Warren may have stood on Ben’s shoulders, but he ended up seeing farther. And no doubt, somebody will come along in due course and do a lot better than we have.

所以沃伦可能站在本的肩膀上，但他最终看得更远。毫无疑问，总会有人在适当的时候出现，并比我们做得更好。

WARREN BUFFETT: I enjoyed making money more than Ben. I mean, candidly.

沃伦·巴菲特：我比本更享受赚钱的过程。我是说，坦率地说。

With Ben, it just — it really was incidental, at least by the time I knew him. It may have been different when he was younger. But it just didn’t — the process didn’t — of the whole game did not interest him more than a dozen other things may have interested him.

对本来说，赚钱真的只是偶然的，至少在我认识他的时候是这样。他年轻时可能不一样。但整个过程——投资这个“游戏”的过程——并不比其他十几件让他感兴趣的事情更能引起他的兴趣。

With me, I just find it interesting. And therefore, you know, I’ve spent way more — a way higher percentage of my time thinking about investing and thinking about businesses. I’ve probably thought way more about businesses than Ben ever did. He had other things that interested him.

而对我来说，我觉得这很有趣。因此，我花了更多的时间——比重大得多的时间——在思考投资和企业上。我可能比本花更多时间在企业的思考上。他还有其他感兴趣的事情。

So I’ve pursued the game a little — quite a bit — differently than he did. And therefore, measuring the record is really — the two records — it’s not a proper measurement. I mean, he was doing victory laps while I still thought I was out there running against, you know, the whole field.

所以，我追求这个“游戏”的方式与他稍有——很大——的不同。因此，比较我们的成就——两者的成就——其实并不合适。我的意思是，他已经在绕着胜利圈庆祝了，而我还在场上努力竞争。

CHARLIE MUNGER: But Graham had some blind spots, partly of sort an ethical professorial nature. He was looking for things to teach that would work for every man, that any intelligent layman could learn and do well.

查理·芒格： 但格雷厄姆确实有一些盲点，部分是出于一种教授式的伦理观。他寻找的是可以教给所有人的方法，任何有智慧的普通人都能学会并做得好的东西。

Well, if that’s the limitation of what you’re looking for, they’ll be a lot of reality you won’t go into, because it’s too hard to figure out and too hard to explain.

如果这是你的限制，那么你会错过很多现实，因为这些东西太难弄清楚，也太难解释。

Buffett, if there was money in it, had no such restriction. (Laughter)

而巴菲特，如果能赚钱，就不会有这种限制。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Ben sort of thought it was cheating if we went out and talked to the management, because he just felt that the person who read his book, you know, living in Pocatello, Idaho, could not go out and meet the management. So he didn’t — and we didn’t do it. I mean, when I worked for Graham-Newman, I don’t think I ever visited a management in the 21 months I was there. He just —

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。本认为，如果我们出去与管理层交谈，有点像是在“作弊”，因为他觉得读他书的人，比如住在爱达荷州波卡特洛的人，无法亲自见到管理层。所以他没有做——我们也没有做。我在格雷厄姆-纽曼工作期间，21个月内我不记得曾拜访过任何一家公司的管理层。他就是——

But, you know, he wasn’t sure whether it would be useful, anyway.

不过，您知道，他也不确定这是否有用。

But if it would be useful, you know, that meant that his book was not all that was needed, that you had to add something to it.

但是如果这有用，那就意味着他的书并非全够用，你还需要额外添加一些内容。

I found it fun to go out and talk about their businesses with people, or to check with competitors, or suppliers, or customers, and all that.

我觉得出去和别人谈论他们的业务，或者与竞争对手、供应商、客户等交流很有趣。

But — Ben didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. He just felt that if you had to do that, then his book was not the complete answer. And he didn’t really want to do anything that the reader of his book couldn’t do if he was on a desert island, you know, basically, with just one line to a broker.

但是——本并不认为这有什么问题。他只是觉得，如果你不得不这样做，那说明他的书并不是完整的答案。他基本上不希望做任何一本书的读者在一个孤岛上仅凭一条与经纪人的通讯线做不到的事情。

CHARLIE MUNGER: But if you stop to think about it, Graham was trying to play the game of “Pin the Donkey,” wearing very dark glasses. And Warren, of course, would use the biggest search light he could find. (Laughter)

查理·芒格： 但如果你仔细想想，格雷厄姆就像是在戴着非常暗的眼镜玩“盲人贴驴尾”游戏。而沃伦当然会用他能找到的最大探照灯。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: And we still can’t find any donkeys these days. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：而如今，我们还是找不到任何“驴子”。（笑声）

1997-05-05 Benjamin Graham.How Buffett surpassed Benjamin Graham

1997-05-05 Benjamin Graham.How Buffett surpassed Benjamin Graham

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